They departed the Warden outpost at first light.
The path to Sigma-Twelve was a trial unto itself. It led through the Vireline Chasm, a rift in the world carved not by tectonics, but by an ancient burst of raw magic—one of the final dying screams of the Accord. The Wardens called it the "Howling Vein," because the wind that moved through its jagged canyons echoed like voices—voices that sometimes spoke your name.
Haraza heard his name within the wind within minutes of descent.
("Haraza…")
He paused once, and Lirien gave him a sharp look. ("Ignore it.")
("I heard—")
("We all do. The Vein wants to show you something. Don't let it.")
Easier said than done.
They descended in silence, their footsteps kicking loose pebbles into the void. The sky above narrowed into a jagged wound of blue, and the canyon walls pulsed with veins of Rift-glass—crystallized strands of memory and power that bled faint light even in shadow.
An hour into their journey, a shadow moved ahead.
It wasn't natural.
The creature rose from a wall of stone, unfolding itself like liquid silk. Its body was vaguely humanoid, but taller than any man, made of shadow and ink and bone that glistened like obsidian. Two pale eyes opened across its chest, and its real face had no mouth—just endless, whirling patterns etched into its surface like a shattered mirror.
Lirien drew both blades.
("A Screamer,") she said under her breath. ("One that survived the Great Sleep.")
Haraza stepped forward. ("It's watching me.")
The creature tilted its head—and then screamed. Not with sound. Not with breath. With memory.
Haraza stumbled as images invaded his mind—visions of ancient cities, of blood-soaked fields, of entire mountains splitting beneath a single spoken word. He dropped to a knee, gripping the Seed embedded in his chest as if it might anchor him.
Lirien struck the creature mid-scream, her blades flashing with wardfire. It recoiled, screeching in pain and twisting through the air like smoke. Haraza felt it trying to escape—not away from them, but into his shadow.
He rose just as it lunged, and for the first time, he let the Seed act.
It responded instantly.
A pulse of golden light erupted from his chest, slamming into the Screamer mid-dive. The creature howled, unraveling into ribbons of void that shattered against the canyon wall.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Lirien stared at him. ("You've done that before.")
Haraza shook his head, breathing hard. ("I haven't.")
She didn't press further. But the look in her eyes changed—from wary distrust to something closer to belief.
They pressed on.
By dusk, the canyon gave way to a wide expanse of broken terrain—an ancient battlefield, frozen in time. Shattered siege engines lay half-buried beneath red snow. Bones, long fossilized into stone, jutted from the ground like warning spears. Above them loomed a massive stone gate, half-collapsed and overgrown with thornvine.
Sigma-Twelve.
It was more than just a gate—it was an anchor. Haraza could feel it before he even saw it, like a second heartbeat thrumming in his bones. The Seed inside him ached with recognition.
The remaining Wardens from the outpost had followed at a distance. Serah Voran approached, her armor caked in wind-dust, her eyes distant.
("This is as far as we go,") she said.
Lirien blinked. ("You're not coming?")_
Serah shook her head. ("What lies beyond is not meant for us. The Gate will open for the Seed-Bearer and no other.")
Haraza stepped toward the arch.
The stone was ancient—older than the Accord, perhaps even older than the Rift itself. Glyphs lined the arch, half-worn away, but still humming with dormant power. In the center, a spiraling emblem glowed faintly.
He reached out—and the Seed reached back.
A pulse echoed from his chest into the stone.
The gate screamed.
Not aloud. Not physically. But reality screamed. The air around them rippled, shimmered, split. A line of golden light drew itself across the archway like a wound opening slowly.
And then, with a sound like thunder turning inside out, Sigma-Twelve opened.
What lay beyond was not another cave, or tunnel.
It was a void.
A space between spaces. A bridge built through silence. The threshold between the waking world and the last sliver of the Rift's prison.
Haraza stepped through.
Lirien followed.
The light behind them vanished.
They stood in a place that was not a place. A space that had no walls, only suggestion. Stars swam beneath their feet like fish in a black sea. Above them, memories drifted like clouds—images of cities rising, crumbling, burning, rebuilding.
And in the center, suspended in silence—
A monolith.
It pulsed with light. Not fire. Not power.
Memory.
Haraza knew what it was.
("The final lock,") he whispered. ("This is where he sleeps.")
Lirien exhaled slowly. ("Then you know what comes next.")
Haraza approached the monolith.
As he neared it, the Seed inside him began to burn. Not painfully—but as if it were waking up. As if every moment of his life had been building to this second. The monolith responded—its pulse syncing with his own, its surface unraveling like threads being drawn from a tapestry.
And then—
("Welcome, Sleeper.")
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere.
A form began to take shape behind the monolith—vaguely human, vaguely not. Tall, draped in shifting robes of starlight. Its face changed with every heartbeat. At one moment, it was Haraza. The next, a woman. A child. A god. A beast.
It was the Rift.
("You have come to finish the dream.")
Haraza swallowed. ("Or to wake from it.")
The figure tilted its head. > ("Then choose.")
He stepped forward.
Inside him, the Seed howled.
It showed him everything—the truth behind the Accord, the first breach, the reason the Rift had formed in the first place. A dream made to protect the world from itself. A containment, not of evil, but of unchecked will. A prison designed to hold choice itself.
He could merge.
He could become the Sleeper, rewrite the dream, start again.
Or—
He could shatter the Seed.
End the cycle.
Risk everything.
Lirien's voice cut through the madness. ("Haraza! You are more than what he was. You don't have to repeat his path!")
He looked at her. Then at the Rift's reflection.
And he made his choice.
The Seed erupted in golden flame.
But he did not let it consume him.
He shaped it.
Not into power.
Into truth.
With a cry that was half agony, half defiance, Haraza drove the Seed into the core of the monolith.
There was a sound like a bell being struck beneath the ocean of the stars.
And then—stillness.
The figure of the Sleeper recoiled, fragments of dream unraveling from its body like smoke in a gale.
("You would end me…?")
("No,") Haraza said. ("I would free you.")
The Rift's memory screamed.
The monolith cracked.
Light filled the void.
And the dream—
Broke.