Silence. Then — rebirth through ruin. The explosion of the Vault had not merely destroyed; it had divided. The world splintered like a cracked mirror, each shard reflecting a different version of reality. Some bled violet light — alive with Riftstorm essence and Kael’s influence. Others pulsed cold and metallic, locked under the Crown’s final remnants of control. Mountains folded inward. Oceans hovered in the air like suspended glass. The sky itself rippled, showing glimpses of other skies — other timelines. In one, Kael stood victorious atop the Crown’s ruins; in another, he lay dead beneath a collapsing city. But this… this was the true world. The fracture point. Kael awoke in the middle of a Rift field that hummed with broken stars. His armor was cracked, his system burning across his vision. [SYSTEM REBOOTING…] [MERGE STATUS: 93% STABLE / 7% FRACTURED] [REALITY INDEX: 3.17 / 7.00] [NEW PARAMETER: WORLD SHARD STABILITY — 41%] [WARNING: MULTIPLE REALITIES DETECTE

Silence. Then wind. Lyria awoke to the soft hum of a world breathing again. The air carried warmth—not the sterile glow of artificial dawns that the Crown once manufactured, but a living, pulsing sunrise. Gold and violet painted the horizon, curling over glass-like seas and crystalline plains that seemed to ripple with memories. She lay on the shore of what looked like the city of Eryndor—only… different. Where steel towers once rose like jagged spears, now grew spiraling formations of living metal intertwined with vines of light. The skyline sang, faintly, like the hum of a heartbeat. The Riftstorm was gone—or perhaps, it had become everything. Lyria slowly sat up, wincing. Her armor was fractured, her body still echoing with the phantom ache of the final battle. [SYSTEM CONNECTION: LOST] [NEW ENVIRONMENT DETECTED: REWRITTEN LAYER PRIME] [UNRECOGNIZED ENERGY SOURCE: “Kael Resonance”] Her breath caught at that last line. “Kael…” The name stirred the air. The horizon

The world hummed with static light. Every horizon shimmered like broken glass beneath the sun. Lyria walked through the ever-shifting landscape with her cloak drawn tight — though no wind stirred the crystalline trees anymore. The world itself was breathing. Each inhale bent the land; each exhale sang in the hum of distant data. And through it all, Kael’s echoes whispered. Some were gentle — guiding lights in the mist, murmuring in his voice words she once knew: “Left here. Keep moving. You’re almost there.” Others were wrong. Distorted. The sound of him dragged through corrupted code until it no longer resembled speech, but hunger. [SYSTEM ALERT: PROXIMITY TO NULL VEIN — 47%] [DATA INTERFERENCE DETECTED] [WARNING: HOSTILE ECHO SIGNATURES PRESENT] The Null Vein was closer. The closer she got, the less stable reality became. The ground occasionally fractured into suspended cubes of stone and metal, hanging weightless in midair. Trees unfolded like origami, then refolded in rever

The world she opened her eyes to was no longer the one she had known. The sky burned in fractured bands of violet and gold, drifting clouds coalescing into impossible geometries, while the horizon itself rippled like liquid glass. Buildings she recognized rose and fell in the blink of an eye, half-formed, half-collapsed, as if the world itself were learning to breathe again after centuries of distortion. Lyria rose slowly, feeling the faint tremor of residual Rift energy beneath her boots. Her body was bruised from the Null Vein, but something in the air invigorated her, like the pulse of a heartbeat that belonged to the very planet. She instinctively raised her hands, sensing threads of energy weaving through the environment — faint echoes of Kael’s presence, guiding her, alive in ways she could feel but not see. [System Fragment Detected: Kael’s Core Echo — Active] [Residual Rift Energy: 82%] [Environmental Instability: Moderate — Proceed with caution] She scanned the fractured

Lyria stood at the edge of the luminous chasm, the pulsing light of Kael’s Core Echo swirling around her like liquid fire. Riftstorm energy roared in the fractured skies above, its consciousness now fully aware, semi-autonomous, and watching her every move. The weight of what she was about to attempt pressed down on her, but she could feel Kael’s presence — scattered, fragmented, yet reaching for her. [System Alert: Core Echo Integration — Initiation Pending] [Residual Riftstorm Influence: Extreme — Semi-Conscious Control Required] [Navigation Objective: Central Convergence — Engage Crown Remnants] Taking a deep breath, Lyria extended her hands toward the radiant core. Light poured into her, intertwining with her own essence. She felt a shiver of power unlike anything she had known — the Core Echo probing, testing, stretching the limits of her mind and soul. [System Notification: Core Echo Merge — Phase One Complete] [Mental Stabilization: 70%] [Riftstorm Interface: Active — Li