The sky cracked like shattered glass, and the air became thick with silence—not emptiness, but anticipation.
Erik stood frozen beside Saline on the broken bridge of the First World, eyes locked on the horizon.
There, beyond the floating shards and molten gold rings, countless glowing orbs had opened. Not lights. Not stars.
Eyes.
Layered across reality like a dome of eternal watchers.
Each blink rippled through the sky. And with each blink, Erik's pulse stuttered.
"What are they?" he asked, though he wasn't sure he wanted the answer.
Saline didn't speak right away.
Then she whispered, "They are the Architects."
The word struck him like a memory he didn't have. Ancient. Sharp. Familiar in a way that made his stomach twist.
"They created gods and devils?" Erik asked.
"They created rules," she said. "Divine law. Mortal law. Time. Death. Even the concept of fate. Everything you know was part of their design."
Erik narrowed his eyes. "Then what happened to them?"
"They left."
"Why?"
"Because we started asking questions."
Erik turned to her.
"You mean people like me?"
"People like your past self," she said. "The one who wielded Veyrion before it was a sword. The one who broke their rules. You weren't the only one who resisted… but you were the loudest."
A sudden tremor rocked the bridge beneath them. The air screamed, not with sound—but with memory. Faint voices whispered through the stones.
One of them was his own.
A different him.
"We are not their stories. We are not their endings."
Erik stumbled. "What the hell was that?"
Saline's face had gone pale. "They're waking faster than I expected. Showing you what you were."
Another tremor. Then a gust of light. Sharp, bright, blinding.From it emerged a figure.
Not a god. Not a devil.
An Architect.
Its form shifted constantly—one moment a woman draped in starfire, the next a faceless statue, then a mass of golden feathers coiled in flame.
Its voice layered through Erik's bones.
"We remember you."
Erik couldn't move.
"You are the echo. The fracture. The mistake that bled beyond the seal."
Saline stepped in front of him, arms raised. "He has not become him yet."
"He is becoming. That is enough."
The Architect raised one hand.
Reality warped.
The bridge collapsed beneath them. Erik and Saline plunged downward—not falling, not flying, but drifting through broken scenes.
Not dreams.Not visions.
Realities that never were.
Erik stood in a throne room of crystal fire, surrounded by kneeling gods. He wore armor made from shattered stars, Veyrion resting across his lap.
A devil approached, trembling.
"You ended us," it whispered.
Erik blinked—
—
He stood in a field of graves. Names he didn't know carved into the stones. In the center, a child knelt—crying. Erik stepped closer, and the child looked up.
It was himself.
But younger. Before the soul. Before the blade. Before the power.
"Don't forget me," the child whispered.
Another blink—
—
He stood beside Saline, her eyes unstitched, her body broken, her voice fading.
"You promised," she whispered. "You promised it would be different this time."
And then—
Erik snapped back into his body, kneeling on the shattered edge of the bridge. The Architect floated above them still, unchanged.
"Why show me this?" Erik demanded, voice raw.
"To remind you. That your existence is not yours alone."
He rose to his feet, blade drawn.
"You fear me. That's why you're showing me this. You're trying to break me before I understand."
The Architect didn't answer.
Saline clutched his arm.
"You have to leave. This fragment is collapsing. They've marked you."
Erik turned to her. "Where can I go? The Spire rejected me. The world fears me. You just told me I ended the last realm—how do I run from that?"
"You don't."
She pressed a bloodied glyph into his hand. It burned, then dissolved into his skin.
"A gate sigil," she said. "It'll take you to the edge of the mortal continent. South of the Cradle. There's a place where time sleeps. You'll find someone there."
"Who?"
She hesitated.
"The last of the soul-forged."
Before he could speak, the Architect raised its hand again.
The sky collapsed.
Everything became white.
Then black.
Then silence.
Erik woke in dirt.
The real world.
He lay in a shallow crater beside a ruined cliff face. Veyrion rested across his chest, humming faintly.
Birds chirped nearby.
Trees rustled.
For the first time in what felt like years, he smelled grass.
He sat up, gasping for air, vision blurry.
And that's when he saw the mark on his hand—the gate sigil still glowing faintly.
But more importantly—
He wasn't alone.
A figure knelt beside him, cloaked in pale robes, face hidden beneath a silver mask.
Not a Seer.
Not a Collector.
But something else.
The figure reached out, palm open.
"You've seen the sky," they said. "You carry more than one fate."
Erik looked at the stranger.
"Who are you?"
The mask tilted.
"I'm the one who remembers what even the gods forgot."
And behind the stranger—on the horizon—stood a monolith made of twisted stone, reaching so high into the sky it vanished into the clouds.
The last sanctuary of the soul-forged.
Erik stood.
And walked toward it.