At the moment Trystan closed his eyes, exhausted from the training and the screams he could no longer silence, an invisible rift opened elsewhere.
In a place without seasons.
Without hours.
Without sky.
A world frozen in reminiscence.
Time no longer beat there; it crawled, creaking like a tongue of steel, rusted with suffering. Even the echoes died in silence.
Suspended above an infinite abyss, an overturned city creaked in the void. Its towers, torn from all logic, hung downward like the fangs of a hungry titan. The wind did not exist. Only sounds rose—muffled prayers, recited by voices no one remembered.
At the top of this city, a throne sat at the center of a suspended abyss.
It was carved from the blackened carcass of an ancient god.
And on that throne, V'Korr sat.
It was said he was born from the first fault of the universe.
Not from an act. From a word.
He was made of shifting, living letters, impossible to read. His entire body was an angry parchment.
Between his hands, an open manuscript breathed. The pages trembled like wounds. Each line bled. Each word wept.
Around him, the Editors of the Apocalypse whispered:
> "The Book has been opened."
A woman's voice, soft and crackling like fire in the rain:
> "The Son of the Hourglass has awakened."
A child's voice, too ancient to be human:
> "Then the page may begin to turn."
Then V'Korr closed the Book.
The sound cracked through the air—dry, final.
Like a coffin closing.
He raised his eyes. They were not bright.
They were hollow. Two inverted wells, devouring the light.
> "Send Zareth."
The city trembled.
Chains groaned.
Columns split.
Somewhere, a child cried.
But there was no child here.
Only the memory of those who had dared to love.
Zareth, the Flayer of Stars, emerged from the black clouds like a refusal to die. He did not walk—he hovered.
His steps touched nothing, yet behind him trailed marks of frost and fire.
His body was too symmetrical, too perfect, too smooth to belong to this world.
His mouth was sewn shut with threads of black crystal. He did not speak. He commanded.
He knelt before V'Korr in a gesture so unnaturally elegant it became obscene.
> "Zone D," said V'Korr, without raising his voice.
"There is a chosen one there. A Reader. An echo of the Ancient Word.
You must not kill him.
You must break him.
Slowly.
Until he writes his own submission."
Zareth rose. He turned on his heel.
And disappeared into a fissure of shadow.
---
In an inverted temple, with columns sculpted into silhouettes frozen mid-scream, a ritual had begun.
A runic circle pulsed.
A child was offered within.
His blood traced a phrase too ancient to comprehend.
Only one voice dared to read it:
> "He who reads the Book must die three times."
At the heart of the pentacle, a young girl stood upright.
Blindfolded. Barefoot.
Her white hair floated toward the sky, as if pulled by an inverted breath.
She smiled.
> "I was waiting for him."
Then she laughed.
Not a joyful laugh.
A laugh like a knife beneath the tongue.
Above them, in the cracked heavens, a map of fire appeared.
The world was etched not in roads, but in scars.
Each country bore a name written in screams.
Each sea was a sea of tears.
But on this map, only one city still shone:
Zone D.
Its light was not hope.
It was that of the candles lit at the edge of a grave.
> "Humans still believe training will save them," whispered the young girl.
"Let them sleep well… for the dream is the last thing they will have."