Silence greeted them first.
Not the peaceful kind — the suffocating kind that felt like the world had stopped breathing. Aeryn felt weightless, suspended in a place without light, without sound, without direction.
He and Eira were falling.
Or rising.
Or drifting.
It was impossible to tell.
Her hand was still in his, her fingers cold but gripping with an iron determination born from shared fear.
"Aeryn…" Her voice trembled, barely a whisper.
"I'm here."
They didn't know where "here" was.
But they knew they were together.
Then the darkness around them shivered. A hairline crack of pale light slithered across the black void like a wound tearing open. The crack pulsed, expanding into a jagged rift.
A sound followed.
A single hum.
Faint.
But impossibly ancient.
Aeryn tensed, pulling Eira slightly behind him on instinct. She didn't protest.
The crack grew—and something stepped out.
A silhouette first. Tall. Thin. Featureless.
Then another.
And another.
And dozens more.
Figures without faces. Without substance. Like shadows imitating humanoid shapes.
They didn't move.
They didn't breathe.
They simply existed.
Watching.
Eira's grip tightened. "Aeryn… these aren't Engine constructs."
"What are they?"
She shook her head. "Something older."
The void trembled again.
The figures tilted their heads in eerie unison, as if analyzing the intruders.
Then—
"ANOMALY DETECTED."
The voice.
The Engine.
But it no longer echoed from everywhere.
No—it sounded injured, distorted, like a divine authority forced to speak through broken teeth.
"SEQUENCE INTERRUPTION. ERROR CODE: UNKNOWN."
Eira gasped, her breath frosting in the air. "Aeryn… look."
Above them, the black void peeled away like wet paint.
Behind it lay something impossible.
Thousands of gears made of starlight.
Rivers of script flowing in spirals.
Colossal rings rotating through each other without touching.
Astral pathways.
Glowing memory filaments.
And at the center—
A crystalline sphere the size of a moon.
The Merge Engine.
Aeryn had glimpsed its influence before… but never its true core.
Eira inhaled shakily, awe and terror warring in her gaze. "No mortal has ever seen this. This is the heart of the system. The blueprint of existence."
Aeryn didn't look away. "Then we break it."
The Engine pulsed, its tone sharpening in fury.
"UNAUTHORIZED RESISTANCE. CORRECTION MEASURES DEPLOYING."
The faceless figures moved.
Silent. Fluid. Coordinated like a single organism.
They raised their hands.
Shapes emerged from their palms—blades made of pure logic, shifting glyphs, swirling probabilities formed into weapons.
Eira whispered, "Those are Execution Avatars. They erase contradictions."
"So we don't let them erase us."
He stepped forward.
The nearest Avatar lunged.
Aeryn reacted with instinct sharpened by battle and instinct fused with Eira's own memories—the Merge wasn't complete, but enough fragments remained to sharpen his perception, to guide him.
His hand moved.
And the System followed.
[Skill Unlocked: Conceptual Severance Lv.1]
A thin line of silver light extended from his fingertips—no blade, no weapon, merely intent made manifest.
He sliced.
Reality warped.
The Avatar split cleanly in half, dissolving into dust.
Eira's breath hitched. "Aeryn… you shouldn't be able to cut a concept."
"Guess I didn't like being overwritten."
But the other Avatars weren't fazed.
Dozens surged.
Eira raised her hand, her luminescent mark flaring alive. Glyphs spiraled around her wrist, weaving into floating shields, rotating like celestial discs.
The Avatars struck.
Their logic-blades clashed against Eira's barriers with a sound that resembled shattering glass mixed with static.
Aeryn stepped beside her, lines of silver appearing at his fingertips again.
"On your right," she warned.
He didn't answer.
He moved.
A silent arc sliced through three Avatars, their forms cracking apart like brittle porcelain.
Eira followed suit, releasing a burst of light that fractured the very space around her, bending the Avatars' cohesion.
But there were too many.
Dozens became hundreds.
Hundreds became an unending tide—a storm of concept-constructs descending like a flood designed to erase mistakes.
Eira gasped, her shields flickering. "It's adapting!"
Aeryn grabbed her wrist, pulling her behind him as he carved a path through the onslaught, silver lines splintering space like shattered mirrors.
Another Avatar appeared above them—
Eira unleashed a surge of radiant force—
The Avatar dissolved—
But then a deeper tremor shook the void.
Every Avatar froze.
The subspace stilled.
Then the Engine's voice thundered with renewed authority.
"UNACCEPTABLE. MERGE MUST RESUME."
Aeryn snarled. "Not happening."
The sphere at the center of the cosmic construct pulsed.
A beam of light shot from it—straight toward them.
Eira screamed. "Aeryn—!"
He reacted instantly, embracing her, twisting their bodies to shield her.
The light swallowed them.
---
THE WORLD OF FRACTURES
He woke in a corridor of mirrors.
But the mirrors didn't show reflections.
They showed possibilities.
Aeryn as a soldier.
Aeryn as a scholar.
Aeryn as a king.
Aeryn never meeting Eira.
Aeryn dying before he ever left his village.
Aeryn losing what little he had.
His breath shook.
Eira appeared beside him, trembling. "This place… is showing us alternate realities. The Engine is trying to destabilize our identities."
Aeryn clenched his jaw. "Then don't look."
But the mirrors flickered.
Some showed Eira.
Eira alone.
Eira imprisoned.
Eira erased.
Eira merged with another.
Eira forgetting him.
She staggered. "Stop… stop showing me this…"
He caught her before she collapsed.
"Eira, stay with me."
"It's not real…" she whispered. "But it feels real."
"I'm real."
He lifted her chin.
She met his gaze.
And for a moment, the mirrors dimmed.
But then—
A voice echoed in the distance.
Not the Engine.
A whisper.
Smooth.
Terrifyingly gentle.
"Little deviants. You have wandered where you do not belong."
The mirrors darkened.
A single figure stepped out from the shadows, wearing the appearance of an elf—but not any elf Aeryn had ever seen.
His hair was white like crushed moonlight.
His eyes were starfields.
His presence was suffocating.
Eira's face turned white. "Aeryn… that's—"
"I know."
Not a construct.
Not an Avatar.
Not a piece of the Engine.
Something above it.
A Custodian.
A being entrusted with maintaining the Engine's laws long before mortal history began.
The being smiled warmly, like a parent addressing wayward children.
"You have created a paradox," he said softly.
"A fracture without precedent."
He stepped closer.
"Now you must be reset."
Eira trembled violently. "Aeryn… we can't fight a Custodian."
Aeryn's jaw tightened. "So we run."
She blinked. "…run? In this place?"
"No. We escape."
He looked up at the fractured mirrors, the shifting realities.
And he understood.
These weren't prisons.
They were exits.
But not stable ones.
He could tear into one and hope it led somewhere that wasn't the Engine's domain.
The Custodian raised a hand. "Do not struggle. Your identities will be reconstructed gently."
Aeryn grabbed Eira's waist. "Hold on to me. No matter what."
She didn't hesitate.
He sliced the nearest mirror with a burst of Conceptual Severance.
It shattered—light bursting outward.
The Custodian blurred, moving instantly—
Too fast.
Aeryn leapt into the collapsing mirror, pulling Eira with him—
The Custodian's fingers grazed his shoulder.
A burning sensation seared through bone and soul.
Eira screamed his name—
And the world inverted.
---
THE PLACE BETWEEN WORLDS
Aeryn didn't know how long they fell.
He didn't know where they landed.
He only knew he was lying on something soft—grass?—and that the air tasted real again.
A hand touched his cheek gently.
"Aeryn…"
Eira's voice.
He blinked open his eyes.
They were lying on a hill beneath a vast twilight sky. Not the void. Not the Engine. A real sky with real stars.
Eira hovered above him, tears streaming silently down her face.
"You're hurt," she whispered.
Aeryn glanced at his shoulder.
A black mark.
Spreading.
Cracking.
Like a curse.
The Custodian had touched him.
"What… is this?" Aeryn muttered.
Eira swallowed hard. "A Custodian's imprint. It means it can track you."
"Can we remove it?"
"No," she whispered.
His fists tightened.
She leaned her forehead against his, trembling. "But we're alive. We escaped the Engine. That shouldn't be possible."
Aeryn raised his hand, brushing her cheek.
"We made it out because we refused to die."
Her breath hitched.
"You stubborn idiot…" she whispered, tears falling onto his skin.
Then she hugged him.
Not trembling from fear.
Trembling from relief.
Aeryn closed his eyes, steadying his own heartbeat.
But he knew one truth without needing the System to tell him:
They had escaped the Engine—
But they hadn't escaped its wrath.
The Custodian would come.
The Engine would adapt.
The fracture they created would ripple across existence.
And their identities—partially merged, partially rewritten—would never be the same.
Aeryn exhaled slowly.
"Eira…"
"Yes?"
He opened his eyes, meeting hers directly.
"We start running tomorrow."
She nodded.
"And then… we fight."