The moment the rift sealed, Threadspace fell into a silence so absolute it felt like a confession. Gone was the Fulcrum’s tri-colored glow.Gone was the harmonic pulse that had anchored every thought, every tremor, every fragile thread.Gone was the presence that had unified Aria’s warmth, Jason’s brilliance, and the Third’s fearless possibility. In their place, an aching quiet.The Wardens stood motionless, masks dimmed. The Architect hunched in on itself, massive frame twitching like an abandoned engine struggling to remember purpose.Prime knelt on the fractured platform, his hands trembling violently where they touched the fading imprint of the Fulcrum’s final step. His voice broke into the silence. “Unity… please come back…”No answer. Only the faint hum of a universe being held together by a sacrifice no one knew how to undo.Prime doubled over, fists pressed to the floor. Every breath hurt. Every heartbeat felt wrong, too heavy on the left side, as if a missing piece of the Ful

The reborn Collapse hit the Anchor Realm like a thunderclap. Not with sound, there was none here, but with force, a blunt, devouring pressure that warped the very currents holding the Fulcrum in place.Prime was thrown backward, tumbling across an endless surface that changed texture with every impact. Smooth. Fractal. Liquid. Solid.None of it mattered, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t, He slammed to a stop. The Anchor Realm rippled beneath him, as if the floor itself winced. Prime forced himself up, coughing hard. “Unity !”The reborn Collapse towered ahead, its form savage and shifting, black fractal limbs woven from absence, framed in shimmering edges of uncolor.Unlike the original Collapse, which had been pure consumption, this one watched. And it hungered with intention. It lashed out again.The Fulcrum caught the strike with both hands, but their shimmering outline dented inward like soft metal under a hammer. Gold flickered. White sputtered. Uncolor wavered.The

Aria stood between two impossibilities. Behind her, the crack she’d slipped through pulsed faintly, the path back to the mortal worlds she’d known.Ahead of her stood the Fulcrum, Jason-Aria-Third, merged into a being who carried entire realities on their shoulders.The Anchor Realm quaked with every second of indecision. Gold-white-uncolor threads warped. Collapse strained against its bindings.Worlds flickered in distant currents. The Fulcrum was unraveling. Aria was destabilizing everything simply by being here.Prime stood between them, trembling. “Okay,” he whispered. “Nobody move. Nobody decide anything. Just… breathe.”But no one breathed. Finally, Aria spoke. “Jason… you didn’t answer me.”Her voice cracked. “What do you want me to do?”The Fulcrum’s form flickered, a crushed inhale in the shape of light. Prime grabbed her shoulders. “Aria, don’t ask him that.”Her eyes, wet, furious, afraid, snapped to his. “Why not?”Prime’s voice trembled. “Because he’ll choose the option t

Jason hung suspended in the air, not by force, but by decision. The Anchor Realm held him as lightly as breath, gently as a hand cupping water, yet with the terrifying certainty of a verdict waiting to fall.Threads of tri-colored light wound around him like vines deciding how to bloom. Prime clung to Jason’s arm, heels skidding across the shifting surface. “Don’t pull away!” Prime yelled.“I’ve got you, Jason, I’ve got you, stay with me!”Jason’s eyes were wild. “I can’t, Prime, it’s in my head”He gasped sharply, as if something reached inside him. “Let me go, before it drags you too!”Prime snarled through his teeth. “I’m not letting go! I’ve watched too many people get torn apart by this universe! You’re not adding yourself to the list!”The Fulcrum stood utterly still. Their glow dimmed. Their form trembled. Their expression—whatever could be read from three interwoven selves, looked like grief sharpened into dread.Collapse writhed in its tethers, fractals flaring. “ANCHOR… EVAL

The cage shattered. Not with sound, with release. Light burst outward in a sphere of collapsing geometry, dissolving the Anchor Realm’s perfect symmetry.Currents twisted, folding into new shapes. The lattice rippled like fabric hit by a storm. Prime stumbled backward, half-blind, the Aria-shard clutched to his chest like a burning heart.Jason hit the ground beside him, gasping. The Fulcrum crumpled entirely, their form flickering to barely a silhouette, four selves stretched thin and ragged.Collapse hissed in shock. “IMPOSSIBLE. ANCHOR RULES ARE ABSOLUTE”But the Anchor Realm trembled again. A pulse rolled through it, not a command, not a correction, not a judgment. A hesitation.Jason forced himself upright, trembling as if the shock still echoed through his bones. “What… what just happened?”Prime stared at the Aria-shard glowing against his palm. Except, it wasn’t glowing the same way. It wasn’t fading. It was growing.The shard pulsed like a heartbeat. Aria’s heartbeat. Prime w