They didn't sleep that night.
Not because they weren't exhausted.
But because sleep felt like surrender.
The crack in the sky—no longer a mere fracture—now pulsed with a heartbeat of its own. Rhythmic. Unnatural. Each throb sent waves of mana through the terrain, distorting gravity, displacing color. Trees bent without wind. Stone rang like bells. The mist turned black where it touched the pulse.
It was no longer just a warning.
It was a summons.
---
Lyle stood on the cliff's edge, the Codex floating beside him, pages rotating slowly.
Juno sat cross-legged nearby, polishing her sword in silence. Her eyes hadn't met his since he unlocked his full name.
"Greenbottle," she'd accepted.
But Ashen Greenbottle?
That was a different story.
---
> [Codex Update: External Convergence Imminent]
Dimensional Alignment: 91%
Estimated Time Until Breach: 4 hours, 36 minutes.
Warning: Fracture Origin Detected – Not native to any known timeline.
Lyle narrowed his eyes.
"What do you mean not native?"
The Codex answered not with words but with visions.
Cities that had never been built.
Battles that had never happened.
People he'd never met—yet they remembered him.
Different Lyles.
Different Codices.
Different fates.
Each one ending in the same way:
A tree burning. A name erased. A ring—shattered.
---
He turned to Juno.
"We're not just dealing with another system."
She raised a brow. "What then?"
"Something between them."
"Like the Variant?"
He shook his head. "No. The Variant was warped by choice."
"This… is born from absence."
---
The Variant was gone.
Not vanished—but left. No note. No trace. Just a single glyph carved into the earth where he'd sat sharpening his blade:
> "When the first step falls, follow the light that bleeds."
Lyle had no idea what it meant.
Juno had her own theory: "He's running from something he can't kill."
But Lyle wasn't so sure.
Something told him the Variant wasn't afraid.
He was preparing.
---
They made camp at the mouth of a narrow canyon as the first tremors began to ripple through the soil. Stones jumped. The wind twisted like rope. Lyle watched as his shadow pulled slightly to the left, even though the moonless sky above remained motionless.
The Codex chimed again.
> [Fracture Manifestation: Phase One]
Manifested Entity: UNNAMED
Thread Classification: Inverted Warden
Strength Class: Unknown
Approach vector: 7.2 km – rapid closing.
Juno stood, sword half-drawn.
"Talk to me."
Lyle's voice was flat. "Something's coming."
"How big?"
"Big enough for the Codex to stop guessing."
---
It wasn't long before they saw it.
The horizon bent inward, like a hole was being sucked toward them. And out of that dip came something walking.
It didn't run.
It didn't fly.
It walked.
Like a man.
Like a shadow pretending to be a man.
But every step it took left a crater of silence in the world. Birds stopped singing. The mist peeled away. Even the fractured sky above turned gray, unable to hold its color.
Juno raised her sword.
Lyle held up a hand.
"Wait."
---
He stepped forward, the Codex open at his side, glyphs rotating faster now, pulling in new spell threads.
> [Auto-Thread Suggestion: Ethereal Hookbind + Glyph Split + Pressure Spike]
Estimated Outcome: 52% success rate. 27% backlash.
[Do you wish to override Codex suggestion?]
Lyle didn't answer.
Instead, he whispered under his breath. "Let me feel it first."
He reached out—not with his hand, but with his mark.
The Soulmark inside his chest flared once, then again, resonating with the distorted field around the creature.
And what he felt made him stagger back.
---
This thing wasn't just void of mana.
It was anti-thread.
It unwove spells.
Lyle had seen disruption spells before. Energy nullifiers. Even thread dampeners.
But this thing didn't cancel glyphs.
It unmade the part of the caster that believed in them.
---
Juno grabbed his arm. "What is it?!"
He shook his head. "Not a creature. A test."
"A test of what?"
"Faith."
She scowled. "This isn't a philosophy class, Lyle!"
"No," he said, swallowing hard. "It's worse. It's a purification."
---
The shadow-man raised his hand.
It didn't cast.
It didn't conjure.
It simply pointed.
And the very threads around Lyle began to fray.
Not from damage.
From doubt.
For a moment, he felt… ordinary.
The Codex flickered.
His ring dulled.
Even his Soulmark's light dimmed slightly.
"Lyle!" Juno shouted, stepping in front of him.
The shadow didn't attack.
It turned… and walked away.
Back into the horizon.
Vanishing.
As if… satisfied.
---
> [Codex Status: Temporarily Nullified]
Thread Confidence: 84% restored.
Warning: Fracture Entity appears to be a Seeker-class.
Intent: Not to kill—but to catalog.
Lyle's breath came fast.
"They're scanning us."
Juno sheathed her blade with shaking fingers. "Scanning?"
"Testing our systems. Seeing what holds up under unweaving pressure. It didn't try to kill me. It wanted to see what I'd do."
He sat hard on the ground.
"They're not just attacking."
"They're studying."
---
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Juno crouched beside him.
"Lyle… if this is just the first fracture… what happens when the real invasion begins?"
Lyle looked up at the sky.
At the crack widening like an open mouth.
He didn't answer.
But deep inside the Codex, something stirred.
A name.
Not his.
Not Asera's.
Not Quinn's.
But one Lyle had never heard before.
> [Fragment Identified: "Valen the Hollow-Eyed"]
Status: Waking.
Thread Behavior: Incompatible.
Codex Instinct: Avoid at all costs.