The world felt heavier the morning after the pulse.
Not in weight — but in intention.
As if the sky, the land, the mana currents… were all holding their breath.
Birds perched silently on rooftops. Mana lanterns flickered in irregular patterns. Even the wind moved cautiously, as if testing how the air now behaved.
Every part of existence reacted to the same unspoken truth:
The world had grown.
Literally — its foundational structure had expanded.
No one understood how wide the expansion stretched.
But everyone understood where it came from.
The Big 8's Uneasy Assembly
In the Resonance Chamber, the Big 8 gathered again.
Not in panic —
but in reverence.
Mana flowed differently here.
The chamber's core, the great crystalline sphere, no longer spun in its containment rings the same way.
Its rotation aligned to a slower rhythm…
a rhythm eerily close to a human heartbeat.
Andrea Blossomveil stepped closer, her sword humming.
Kael adjusted his mechanical arm, gears clicking in agitation.
Rhea Solbourne's golden eyes flickered like dying embers reigniting.
Kenjie Velstorne's calculations streamed across his tablet—numbers rewrote themselves faster than he could interpret.
Finally, he muttered:
> KENJIE: "…The constants shifted overnight."
Kael frowned.
> KAEL: "Explain."
Kenjie swallowed.
> KENJIE: "Gravity, mana flow, even time dilation across certain sectors… They all recalibrated toward a new reference."
Rhea's brows knit.
> RHEA: "A reference?"
Kenjie turned the screen so they could see.
A glowing sphere pulsed on the diagram — not perfectly round, but slightly elongated, like it was bending spacetime around itself.
Right at the center was a name:
NODE RZN-01
Anomaly Class: Undefined
Role: Anchor Candidate
Andrea's breath hitched.
> ANDREA: "…Sebastian."
Kael slammed his fist against the nearest pillar.
> KAEL: "So what? He's changing natural law now?"
Kenjie didn't look up.
> KENJIE: "No. Natural law is changing because of him."
Silence spread through the chamber like cold smoke.
Rhea murmured:
> RHEA: "So the foundation of the world… is bending around a single existence?"
Andrea closed her fist.
> ANDREA: "No."
"It's acknowledging him."
South Courtyard – A Quiet Realization
Sebastian walked through the courtyard in silence, hands in his pockets.
Students parted instinctively, not out of fear — but because their bodies reacted before their minds could.
His presence felt like standing beside a heat source, or near a rapid mana current — invisible but undeniable.
He felt none of it.
He only felt the weight beneath his ribs.
A faint pull.
A thrum behind every heartbeat.
Causality itself tugged at him.
Like a newborn system learning to breathe and matching its rhythm to his existence.
Luna Blossomveil found him under the old plum tree, where the shadows curled softly like velvet.
She sat beside him without speaking.
For a long time, neither moved.
Finally, Luna whispered:
> LUNA: "…I can hear it."
Sebastian blinked.
> SEBASTIAN: "Hear what?"
Luna pressed a hand to her chest.
> LUNA: "The world's pulse.
When you walk… everything hums differently."
Sebastian stared at the ground, fingers curling slightly.
> SEBASTIAN: "…It wasn't supposed to be like this."
Luna frowned.
> LUNA: "What do you mean?"
He closed his eyes.
Images from Zone Zero flashed in his mind — the unformed space, the abrupt boundary, the echo of the one who built the world.
> SEBASTIAN: "This world was incomplete.
Its foundation stopped abruptly."
Luna's eyes softened, not understanding fully — but feeling the weight.
> LUNA: "And you?"
His voice dropped to a whisper.
> SEBASTIAN: "…I stepped past the edge."
Luna turned sharply.
> LUNA: "Sebastian—"
He shook his head slowly.
> SEBASTIAN: "When I touched that unformed space, everything responded.
As if it had been waiting for someone…
anyone…
to push it forward."
The leaves rustled gently overhead.
Luna studied him, her voice barely audible.
> LUNA: "Are you alright?"
Sebastian finally met her eyes.
His didn't glow.
They didn't blaze.
They didn't storm.
They were simply… tired.
> SEBASTIAN: "I don't know."
The Conclave's Fear
Professor Enra slammed a stack of holographic charts against the table.
Senior Conclave members watched his rising agitation, unnerved.
> ENRA: "Look at these readings!
The world's metaphysical platform has extended — unprecedentedly."
A councilwoman frowned.
> COUNCILWOMAN: "Then Raizen triggered the expansion?"
Enra snapped:
> ENRA: "No. The expansion chose him.
> This isn't a spell.
Not a technique.
Not a Gate backlash.
This is the world selecting a reference point for the new foundation."
The room went cold.
Another member murmured:
> MEMBER: "If his resonance grows too strong…
we lose our ability to manage reality's stability."
Whispers broke out like cracks spreading through glass.
> "Then we bind him."
"Monitor him."
"Suppress him."
"He's becoming dangerous."
"He's becoming necessary."
Enra slammed his hand on the console.
> ENRA: "You fools.
If you try to restrain a stabilizing node, you destabilize everything around it."
Silence.
Enra exhaled, voice shaking.
> ENRA: "He is not the threat.
The threat is what happens if he falls."