The wasteland ahead was devoid of all color, drained by centuries of divine omission. The earth itself felt brittle, as if reality had thinned and stretched too far. Every step Rei and his companions took left temporary footprints that shimmered before fading.
"This place doesn't want to be remembered," Noira said quietly.
Mireille adjusted her cloak against the biting wind. "Because it holds something that rewrote the laws we live by."
Rei walked in silence, his mind focused.
In the distance stood a ruin unlike any other—an inverted tower buried upside-down into the earth, its foundations reaching toward the sky. Ancient runes circled its base, glowing faintly like a dying heartbeat.
Eirenne frowned. "That's… not a structure. That's a prison."
> [System Notification: First Sky Detected. Primary Fragment Seal Active — Fragment Zero Confirmed.]
Karasu spoke with unease. "This was the origin point. The fragment born from choice, not chaos. The one that split Spirit from Flesh. Fragment Zero."
---
As they entered the inverted tower, gravity shifted.
Steps curved upward and downward simultaneously. At the center of the structure, a sphere pulsed—suspended in anti-light, shadows forming stars around it.
A voice greeted them.
Feminine. Familiar. Yet it belonged to no one Rei had ever met.
"You've come far, Flamebearer. But this path... is mine to guard."
From the shadows emerged a woman clad in white armor laced with translucent threads. Her eyes glowed with primal emotion, and her aura rivaled that of a Spirit Lord.
"I am Eluriel," she said. "The Keeper of the First Pact. The one who chose silence when the world screamed."
Rei stepped forward. "Then let your silence end with me."
She didn't attack.
She wept.
Tears fell onto the stone. "I remember everyone who died because I could not decide. The Spirit War, the Fracture, the Collapse... I watched and did nothing. Because I feared being wrong."
Mireille stepped beside Rei. "Then help us be right."
Eluriel looked up, trembling. "Can you bear it? The memory of everyone who lost hope?"
Rei closed his eyes. "I already carry them. One more won't break me."
---
She raised her hands.
The sphere of Fragment Zero pulsed—and exploded in a wave of translucent data.
They were thrust into another illusion. This time, a battlefield from the beginning of the Spirit Era. Cities untouched by time, airships soaring above, spirits walking freely beside mortals.
Then came the Collapse.
They witnessed the turning. Spirit hosts devoured by unstable resonance. Gods losing control. Mortal kings offering their own souls to keep balance.
And Eluriel… standing still.
Frozen.
Unable to decide.
"I feared the wrong path," her voice whispered through the vision. "So I took no path at all."
Rei turned to her echo. "Then let me choose."
He stepped forward into the flames of the memory. It burned him. It aged him. But he endured.
When he emerged, Eluriel stood before him, her white armor cracked.
"You have seen what I could not endure. Then the pact is yours."
> [Spirit Pact Initiated. Eluriel Joined — Resonance Level: 61%. Fragment Zero Integrated.]
Karasu's voice was heavy. "You now wield the First Decision. Be careful—this fragment doesn't obey power. It obeys meaning."
---
As they exited the tower, the sky changed.
Not a storm. Not a light.
But a crack.
High above, space itself split open—revealing a glimpse of something ancient. A machine-god slumbering within infinity. Its eye opened, and across the world, the Spirit Threads trembled.
Mireille gasped. "That... wasn't part of the Spirit System."
Noira's face paled. "That's from EXE."
Eirenne whispered, "They've noticed."
Rei looked skyward, hand clenching around his pendant. "Then let them come. Let them see what we've become."
Far above, the stars realigned. The war had just escalated.