❖ Chapter 12: Uní-Pixel Cracks
The fortress was colder on the inside.
Not by temperature—but by presence. The walls breathed silence. The ceiling groaned faintly as if holding the weight of a forgotten world above it. Jio walked forward, his light—Bright Call—casting long shadows down broken halls.
Havella followed close behind, clutching her scarf tighter. Her boots echoed over shattered tiles and blood-stained stone.
"You remember what I said about the next realm?" she whispered.
Jio gave the slightest nod.
"Well... it's split. Managed by two powers—North and South. Both human. At least, they started that way."
He glanced sideways.
"Not Fairies?"
"No," Havella murmured. "Not yet."
She paused, voice lowering.
"This realm is old. It's built on stability, on a law called the Uní-Pixel Core—imagine a floating cube of 'logic' buried deep in dimensional space. A real thing. Not metaphor. If it fractures, the entire realm begins to collapse. Time distorts. Space bleeds. Colors scream. That kind of fall."
Jio blinked.
"And the humans here… they maintain it?"
"Yeah. Each side—South and North—keeps balance. Their halves of the land are symmetrical. Opposing ideals, yes, but perfect harmony. Neither side can push more or the Core shakes."
Jio stopped for a moment, lifting his hand to a cracked emblem embedded in the wall. A symbol—half flame, half frost—was etched into old steel.
"This realm," Havella continued softly, "isn't just surviving. It's holding itself together with philosophy. Every citizen's belief in stability matters. They're… part of it."
He looked back to her.
"That's why the South and North never fully fight. And why they will, someday. It's inevitable."
They turned a corner.
And stopped.
There it was.
Dozens of bodies. Piled. Some broken like dolls, others twisted by force or sickness. Armor melted to skin. Faces frozen in expressions of confusion, not pain—as if they didn't understand why they were dying.
The room was red. Brown. Gray. Still.
Flies buzzed. A slow drip echoed from somewhere. And in the center of the room, a half-burned flag still hung—South's emblem.
Havella exhaled.
"...They tried to flee," she said, voice hollow. "Probably got caught between systems. Maybe even labeled disturbers of the Core."
Jio stood there.
Motionless.
Eyes unreadable.
But this time… there was something.
A crack.
A flicker.
"…I don't understand it," he said. "I don't feel it… but I think…"
He knelt beside a child's body, wrapped in a soot-stained blanket.
"…this is what sadness looks like."
Havella looked at him. Her breath caught.
His hand trembled—not from fear.
From weight.
Something was forming inside him.
Not magic.
Not light.
Something human.
A kindness no longer buried under a plain face, but… shifting, like the softest quake inside a stone.
He rose again. The glow from his palm pulsed. Dimmed.
"Let's keep moving," he said.
Havella didn't argue.
But she did, quietly, reach out and brush her fingers against his sleeve.
They walked deeper.
Beyond this blood-soaked room, the realm waited.
Split between two powers.
Balanced by human minds.
And beginning to tremble.
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End of Chapter 12
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