"We must stop running from the pain and learn to walk with it. The ghost in Kabe's mind is a beacon to the one who made him." — Tina-sensei, The Strategist
The silence within the hidden subway tunnel was heavy with unspoken dread. Tina-sensei had finished her inspection of Kabe, covering him with a thermal blanket. The diagnosis was simple and terrifying: Kabe's mind was not broken, but overwritten—a perfect, silent shell left behind by the catastrophic Conceptual Overload.
"His Anchor is still there, Ken," Tina-sensei explained, her voice low and weary. "But it's buried beneath the chaos of the Pillar of Grief. The Pillar used his discipline, his rigid structure, to build a conceptual wall around his consciousness. He's alive, but locked in."
Ken stood beside the Pillar of Grief containment unit, pulling on his travel gear. The Anchor Shard around his neck felt leaden with responsibility.
"So the 'Ghost' isn't a separate entity, but Kabe himself, trapped behind his own self-defense mechanism," Ken summarized, the irony twisting in his gut.
"Worse," Evalia chimed in, her voice now steady but brittle. She pointed at Kabe. "The chaotic geometry that Uhayyad is now using is built from Ryo's knowledge. And Ryo knew Kabe better than anyone. Kabe's internal silence, the Ghost, is now perfectly resonant with Uhayyad's conceptual frequency. It's a radio beacon, Ken. The longer we keep Kabe near the Pillar of Grief, the easier it is for Uhayyad to find us."
Tina-sensei handed Ken a modified black backpack. It was heavily reinforced and lined with custom-molded Anchor material—a desperate attempt to shield the containment unit's leakage.
"We need to move both of them immediately. Kabe needs an environment of profound conceptual stability, and the Pillar of Memory in Nagalira is our only lead," Tina instructed. "I can't leave Evalia alone to stabilize the network here—if we lose the local Anchors, the entire region fractures."
The burden settled squarely on Ken's shoulders. He was the Trail Walker, the defensive one, but now he had to lead the charge.
"I'll take Kabe and the Pillar of Grief," Ken decided, strapping the heavy backpack on. He felt the cold, psychic pressure immediately, a dizzying wave of sorrow threatening to pull him down. He focused on the smooth Anchor Shard at his throat, forcing his mind to accept the dual burden: running from a god and caring for his incapacitated brother.
"Nagalira is not a location on any map, Ken," Evalia warned, consulting the ancient myths she could still access. "It's a conceptual city, accessible only through a Trail that resists all rewriting. It exists only where the history of the First Scarring is perfectly preserved."
"How do I find a Trail that doesn't exist, while carrying a beacon of despair?" Ken asked, the fatigue finally catching up to his voice.
Tina-sensei walked over and placed a reassuring hand on his forearm. "You use the First Pillar. The one Reka found at the start of all this—the Pillar of Dreams."
Ken stopped, recalling the raw, formless Shard they had first collected. It had been stored, deemed too passive for direct combat.
"The Pillar of Dreams is formless. It doesn't hold stability or chaos. It holds potential," Tina continued. "If Nagalira is the city of unbroken history, the Pillar of Dreams is the key to unlocking the perfect, uncorrupted memory of the Trails. It will guide you to the only place Ryo couldn't rewrite."
Tina-sensei pulled a small, translucent pouch containing the smooth, opalescent First Pillar Shard. It felt warm and gentle, a complete contrast to the cold dread emanating from the backpack.
"Take this. It's not a weapon, Ken. It's a compass. You will be the sole Anchor, carrying the weight of grief and the promise of potential. You must protect the Pillar of Dreams and follow it. It will lead you to the past, and hopefully, to the key to saving Kabe."
Ken looked at his sleeping brother, then at the gentle, promising glow of the Pillar of Dreams in his hand. He was trading the chaos of fighting Ryo for the absolute terror of running from a Mythic Entity, carrying a conceptual bomb and a silent brother.
"We move," Ken stated, his voice firm. He placed the Pillar of Dreams in his pocket, focused on his own Anchor, and gently lifted Kabe's heavy, unresponsive body. The road to Nagalira was a road into the deepest part of the conceptual unknown.