The warning didn't come from Ashveil.
It came from absence behaving too politely.
Kael felt it at dawn—a thinning that didn't collapse, a future that hesitated just long enough to be noticed. The pattern was familiar now.
Too familiar.
Rae was already awake, hands hovering over half-functional readouts. "Something's aligning around nothing."
Mira checked her weapon out of habit. "Where?"
Kael pointed east. "Three settlements. Close enough to share logistics."
Rae's face drained. "That's a cluster."
"Yes," Kael said. "They're going for efficiency again."
Ashveil spoke, sharp.
"Null Accord likely executing chained keystone removal."
Kael didn't hesitate.
"Then we don't let them cut clean."
They arrived before nightfall.
The settlements were ordinary. Boring. Connected by roads and trade and shared infrastructure no one ever thought about.
Perfect targets.
Kael stood at the junction where power, food, and transit overlapped—and made a decision that felt like treason against everything he'd tried to protect before.
He broke it.
Not violently.
Intentionally.
He severed dependencies.
He didn't stabilize the grid—he split it. Forced systems to decouple awkwardly. Power rerouted through inefficient paths. Storage decentralized mid-use. Authority blurred.
Alarms rang.
People panicked.
Mira stared at him. "You're causing a crisis."
"Yes," Kael said. "A survivable one."
Ashveil spoke.
"You are increasing entropy deliberately."
Kael nodded. "I am."
The Null Accord arrived anyway.
They always did.
The air folded at the edge of the eastern settlement, reality separating like a surgical incision.
Six figures emerged.
Not all the same as before.
Adapted.
The one with the face stepped forward again.
"You're degrading yield," he said calmly. "Inefficient."
Kael met his gaze. "Good."
The figure tilted his head. "You're hurting them."
"Yes," Kael replied. "And you're losing interest."
That gave the figure pause.
Just a fraction.
Null advanced.
But the ground didn't respond cleanly.
Dependencies snapped in uneven ways. Systems collapsed sideways. Instead of a single erasure, fractures spread—ugly, incomplete.
Null zones bloomed—and stalled.
Rae gasped. "They can't isolate it!"
Ashveil spoke, urgent.
"Null efficiency reduced. Removal incomplete."
People ran—but not into absence.
They scattered.
Confused. Afraid. Alive.
Mira shouted orders, coordinating evacuation manually. No structure to hijack. No keystone to remove.
Kael held position.
He didn't counter null.
He polluted the cut.
One of the Null figures staggered.
Not physically.
Conceptually.
Their outline blurred, unable to resolve removal without clean boundaries.
"This is unacceptable," the faced one said.
Kael stepped forward, heart pounding.
"Then stop," he said.
The figure's eyes hardened. "You're choosing collateral."
Kael didn't deny it. "I'm choosing survivors."
Ashveil spoke.
"Your action violates previous optimization principles."
"Yes," Kael said. "I know."
The Null Accord withdrew.
Not in failure.
In cost reassessment.
Reality sealed unevenly behind them, leaving scars—damaged infrastructure, injured people, broken trust.
But the settlements remained.
Mira sank to one knee, breathing hard. "You did it."
Kael didn't smile.
He looked at the fires, the arguments, the fear.
"This is worse than erasure," someone screamed nearby.
Kael swallowed.
"No," he said quietly. "It just feels like it."
By morning, the damage was visible everywhere.
No city vanished.
But no one felt safe either.
The Assembly broadcast an emergency condemnation.
Orien Halvek broke his silence.
"This is reckless," Orien said coldly.
"You are manufacturing disaster."
Kael watched the message without expression.
"He's not wrong," Mira said softly.
"No," Kael agreed. "He isn't."
Ashveil spoke.
"You have crossed from prevention to intervention."
Kael nodded.
"Yes," he said. "And now everyone can see it."
That night, Kael stood alone at the edge of the damaged settlement.
Children slept in makeshift shelters. Arguments echoed. Repairs began badly and immediately.
Life persisted.
Messy.
Unoptimized.
Unclean.
Kael clenched his fists.
"No more clean cuts," he whispered.
Far away, the Null Accord updated its models.
Kael Vorrin was no longer a keystone to remove.
He was a contaminant.
And contaminants required different solutions.
The war had changed shape.
And now—
everyone could see it.