Cracks in the Sky
After the Judicator fell, silence didn't return.
Instead, the sky fractured.
Hairline cracks of raw light spread across the surface membrane, showing glimpses of something beneath: a sea of symbols, an ocean of half-formed dreams.
The city had not merely defended itself.
It had awakened.
And awakening always had a cost.
Lysa stood at the sanctuary gates, staring up, heart hammering.
"This isn't a victory," she whispered.
"It's an invitation."
Mira, nearby, knelt in the dust, her hands glowing faintly. She wasn't chanting or shaping glyphs.
She was listening.
Because something was speaking through the fractures.
Not words.
Not commands.
Questions.
The Hidden Wound
Deep inside the sanctuary, Elior traced a glowing faultline across the central dais.
The glyphs they had trusted—the ones they had fought to protect—were shifting.
Mutating.
One glyph, in particular, disturbed him.
It was shaped like an eye.
But not one that watched.
One that remembered.
And it pulsed with a slow, terrible rhythm:
DEBT.
Mira finally spoke, voice trembling.
"The sanctuary wasn't just shielding us. It was borrowing power."
"Borrowing from what?" Lysa asked.
Mira shook her head.
"Not what. Who."
The sanctuary had always been a bargain.
They just hadn't known the price.
The Old Covenant
Through half-shattered archives, Lysa pieced it together:
Long before the Tribunal, before the Network, the city had been founded atop a concord—an agreement with the Dream Beneath.
A primordial entity that fed on stories, belief, potential futures.
In exchange for protection, the city had offered it dreamers—souls rich in imagination, sacrifice, and hope.
For centuries, the balance had held.
Until now.
Until Elior's glyphs reawakened dormant channels.
Until belief reached critical mass again.
And now the Dream Beneath was hungry.
It didn't care about sides.
It didn't care about freedom.
It only cared about payment.
Choice or Devouring
Standing before the cracked glyph altar, Elior faced an impossible choice:
Offer himself as the proxy, anchoring the Dream Beneath's hunger onto one mortal vessel.
Or refuse—and let the entity collect its debt wholesale from the city's people.
There would be no third option.
The sanctuary pulsed around him, waiting.
Mira reached out.
"If you go alone, you'll be devoured."
Elior met her eyes—calm, resolute.
"Then help me write a better ending."
Together, they placed their hands on the altar.
And the world shuddered.