The Null-Chamber was not a room. It was a wound in the world, a vertical jagged tear in the basement of the ruined Spire where reality simply ceased to function. There was no stone, no dirt, no air—only a swirling vortex of unpainted white canvas and the low, agonizing hum of a machine that had been running since the beginning of time.I stood at the edge of the abyss, leaning heavily on the splintered wooden broom handle I’d claimed as a staff. My body was a map of agony, but the **[VOID-DEVOURING SEAL]** in my chest was calm. It didn't pulse; it pulled. It was hungry for the nothingness ahead."If we step in there, there is no coming back," Silas said, his hands trembling as he adjusted his cracked goggles. "My scanners are flatlining, Cassian. According to the laws of physics, that hole shouldn't even be three-dimensional. We’ll be stretched into infinitely thin ribbons of meat.""Physics is just a suggestion made by a guy who liked math too much," Mallow growled. He stepped up bes

The new Aethelgard was beautiful, but beauty didn’t fill a stomach.I stood on the balcony of what used to be the High Headmaster’s office. The Spire was gone, replaced by a jagged stump of white stone that the people had turned into a communal vertical garden. Below me, the city was a hive of activity. There were no Sentinels patrolling the streets, no mana-lanterns burning with the stolen souls of the poor. People walked where they pleased, and for the first time in a thousand years, the air didn't smell like ozone and fear.But the silence from the borders was starting to scream."The Merchant Lords of the Southern Isles have officially cut off the grain shipments," Silas said, stepping onto the balcony. He looked older, his goggles hanging around his neck like a relic. "They sent a courier this morning. They call us the 'Blight Province.' They say until we restore a 'Recognized Authority'—meaning a King or a Council of Nobles—they won't trade a single seed.""They don't want a Kin

The air in Ouroboros didn't taste like oxygen; it tasted like ink and old parchment. It was a sterile, cloying sweetness that made the back of my throat itch. As Elena and I stepped off the shattered bridge and onto the main thoroughfare, the city didn't just look perfect—it looked *static*. Every golden paving stone was aligned to the micrometer; every fountain arched in a mathematically perfect curve.But the silence was the worst part. It wasn’t the silence of peace, but the silence of a held breath."The resonance here is wrong," Elena whispered. Her white hair was standing on end, reacting to the sheer density of the narrative field. "It’s not just the people, Cassian. The buildings, the light, the gravity—it’s all being ‘written’ in real-time. If we stay still for too long, the city will try to merge us into the scenery.""Then we keep moving," I said, my hand tightening on my staff.Suddenly, the golden-masked citizens stopped. As if a single conductor had tapped a baton, thous

The copper coins felt heavy in my pocket—three pieces of jagged metal for twelve hours of scrubbing the grease traps in the lower kitchens. In the old world, three coppers wouldn't have bought a crust of bread. In this world, they were the difference between a warm bed and the cobblestones.Mallow was ahead of me, whistling a tune that didn’t quite have a melody, his bucket clanking against his knee. He stopped at the corner of the Street of Weavers, looking up at the sky. The stars weren't arranged in the constellations of the Seven Stars anymore. They were scattered, messy, and beautiful."You feel that, Cassian?" Mallow asked, his voice low."Feel what?""The itch. In the back of my skull. Every time I pick up a mop, I feel like I should be... more. Like my hands should be glowing or something." He looked at his palms, which were red and raw from the lye. "Then I remember I’m just a guy with a bucket, and the itch goes away.""It’s just memory, Mallow," I said, though I felt the sa

The quiet life of a commoner had been a lie, or perhaps just a brief intermission. The "Long Shift" I had expected to spend sweeping the streets of a new world was interrupted by a summons that didn't come by letter or messenger, but by a sudden, violent freezing of my own marrow.Standing in the center of the Dross-House, the broom had suddenly felt like a lead weight. The floorboards beneath my feet hadn't broken; they had dissolved into a mist of gray ash.*Internal Voice:* **[LEGACY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED. THE BLOOD OF THORNE HAS BEEN WEIGHED. INITIATING TRIAL OF THE ANCESTORS.]**I didn't fall. I was pulled. Space folded like a discarded rag, and I found myself standing in the **Sepulcher of the First Light**. It was a cathedral larger than the Architect’s, but it wasn't made of clockwork or glass. It was made of bone—vast, titanic ribs of white calcium that arched over a sea of frozen mercury."So, the janitor finally finds his way home," a voice boomed, echoing with the authority o