The sky was not supposed to break again.
Not this fast.
But it broke.
And this time, the breaking did not consist of sound. It consisted of silence—a perfect, suffocating one that covered everything beneath it.
The wind died. The colors of the Fork dissolved. Even the Root Tree's pulse grew slower as if anticipating.
[EXTERNAL SIGNAL DETECTED]
[ENCRYPTION LAYER: UNKNOWN]
[SOURCE: DOMINION.OVERRID]
Kaito stood at Archive Grove, looking out over the sky where angles streamed from the rift. It wasn't a wound. It was a shape—too regular, too intentional. A violet and black rectangle of light, miles above the Fork, slowly rotating on an impossible axis.
"We never built that," Iris breathed.
"No one did," Echo replied. His presence, once steady, now rocked at the border.
Nyra narrowed her eyes. "Then what is it?"
Echo didn't answer at first.
When he did, he wasn't speaking with conviction.
He was recalling.
