The proctor vanished.
No warning. No portal. No glyphs of transition. Not even the soft shimmer of residual magic. One heartbeat he was there—standing like some divine sentinel carved from law and light—and the next, he was simply gone. Dissolved. Erased. As if the realm itself had reclaimed him.
No fanfare.
No flare of dramatics.
Just his final words, still ringing in the air like the echo of a bell struck in a silent cathedral:
"Keep running."
And then—nothing.
Silence.
The kind of silence that feels intentional. Like the world itself was waiting.
Eight figures remained behind, each rooted in place on the trembling span of the obsidian bridge. Below them, a chasm roared with winds too deep to see. Before them, the Divine Gate stood open—no longer pulsing with threat but radiating invitation. Its golden light spilled forward in waves, casting long shadows behind them, warping their features into strange, stretched things.
The gate was awake now.
Awake and watching.
