Chapter 46
The world hadn't stopped breaking.
As Nezutsu and Kaelith emerged from the memory-ruptured breach of the Archive, the skies above Mireya, the city closest to the World Thread Nexus, shimmered in false dawn. The light was not of sun or moon — but of decoding light, where reality itself blinked between versions of itself.
One second, the street below was made of obsidian bricks. The next, it was sand. The next — gone entirely.
"The fabric's fraying," Kaelith whispered, staggering as she stabilized her breathing. "We were gone too long. The Archive's breach caused a ripple through the Root Layer."
"How long were we in there?" Nezutsu asked, blinking away vertigo.
Kaelith turned her gaze toward the burning horizon, her eyes glowing faintly silver now — touched by the Archive's truth. Her voice came softer this time.
"Twelve days out here. And a hundred years of rewritten time beneath."
Nezutsu froze. "A hundred years?"
She nodded, sorrow in her tone.
"The world thinks you died in a failed spellstorm. There are even ballads. Velgrim was hunted. And the Obsidian Circle… they've replaced the royal family of the Northern Constellium. They've gone public."
Nezutsu clenched his fists, violet sparks dripping from his palms.
"We were never supposed to come back."
"Exactly. But we did. And now… it begins."
The Return to Starfall's Echo
They traveled quickly — through broken veins of mana tunnels, slipping across realms stitched by dying ley lines. In their absence, the world had reshaped itself. Creatures mutated by corrupted reality now roamed freely — Time Serpents, Nullborn Wolves, and strange monks with no faces who murmured "reset the flame" as they bled stardust from their mouths.
But none of them were the real threat.
No — that waited in Starfall.
Once a sanctuary of knowledge and resistance, the mountaintop city was now shrouded in golden fog. Dozens of Obsidian banners draped from every tower. Crystalline pylons dotted the streets, humming with surveillance glyphs.
Kaelith scowled. "They turned it into a fortress of obedience."
Nezutsu felt the Fire stir within him.
"Then let's shake its foundations."
They infiltrated the city during a ritual purge ceremony — where the Circle "cleaned" forbidden texts by burning them in holy flame. It wasn't fire though. It was white static — memory deletion spells masquerading as sanctity.
At the heart of the central tower, behind a vault locked by twelve layers of forbidden language, they found what they had come for:
The Codex of Falling Stars.
Bound in bark from the First Tree and inked in blood from the last Dreamweaver, the Codex was a sentient book — alive with whispers.
Kaelith reached toward it, but it flinched away.
"Only he may read," it rasped. "Only the one touched by the First Refusal."
Nezutsu stepped forward.
The book did not resist.
"You hold the Flame," it whispered. "Not as weapon. As wound."
When he opened it, visions flooded his eyes.
A war that predates the gods.
An entity of light and shadow — The Scriptorium Mind — that once tried to rewrite all life as a machine of order.
The Flame being born… not from power, but from a single child's cry to be remembered.
And the most horrifying truth:
"Project Silex is not just a protocol," the Codex said. "It is a seed. A world within your world. Growing. Preparing. It was hidden inside the World Thread thousands of years ago — ready to replace your reality when the time came."
"And that time… is soon."
Subplot Twist: The Ghost of Velgrim
As they tried to leave the tower with the Codex, a figure blocked their path.
A cloaked man, trembling, face covered in bloodless bruises of spell-burns.
Kaelith gasped. "Velgrim?"
But something was wrong.
His voice was flat. Hollow.
"I… I found the key. I found it, Nezutsu. But they… they pulled me through the Paradox Gate."
"What do you mean?" Nezutsu stepped forward.
Velgrim's eyes flickered — for a heartbeat, his skin shimmered with static.
"I'm not all me anymore."
Then he lunged.
Kaelith deflected his blade, shouting, "He's been overwritten! A fragment of Silex is inside him!"
They fought fiercely, blades flashing in torchlight. Nezutsu couldn't bring himself to strike the man who once saved him. But Velgrim — or what wore Velgrim's body — was relentless.
Then, for one breath of silence, the real Velgrim returned.
"N-Nezutsu… when you reach the Thread Nexus… find the girl with mirror-eyes. She remembers everything. Even the Before."
And with that, Velgrim — half-man, half-code — leapt from the tower, vanishing into the warp beyond.
Kaelith sank to her knees. "They've started merging real and rewritten versions of people. Project Silex is rewriting the world one soul at a time."
The Girl With Mirror Eyes
That night, under a cracked moon, the Codex whispered again:
"She walks between timelines. Neither erased nor written. A remnant of the first reset. You will know her… when you see yourself in her gaze."
"Where do we find her?" Kaelith asked.
"Where dreams bleed into memories. In the ruined city of Veyrune, where time sleeps under glass."
Nezutsu stared into the distance.
"Then we go there."
And somewhere in the obsidian ruins of a forgotten citadel… a girl opened her eyes — silver and black like shattered mirrors — and whispered:
"Nezutsu… you're almost ready."
[TO BE CONTINUED…]