Ren didn't say a word after leaving the courtyard.
Didn't say goodbye. Didn't ask for directions. Didn't wait for someone to care.
He just walked.
Straight back to the Emberflame Inn, up the creaking steps, and into a room that smelled like dust and quiet resentment.
He slammed the door shut, dropped face-first onto the bed, and let his body breathe in the silence for the first time since the dungeon.
No vampires.
No witches.
No demon secretaries.
Just him.
And the ache that came from surviving what others didn't.
He closed his eyes.
The Core inside him pulsed once — soft. Reassuring.
Then the air above the bed shimmered.
Light flickered.
Lines glitched.
A figure appeared — hovering like a half-rendered memory, all white-gold shimmer and broken frame data.
Her voice crackled like a recording trapped between dimensions.
??? (soft, fractured):
"Do you believe in God?"
Ren sat up so fast he nearly punched the air out of his lungs.
Ren:
"Okay, what the fu—who are you?"
The figure didn't answer. Her face was blurred. Her outline flickered. Only her eyes were clear — glowing, aware, old.
??? (calmly):
"Complete this cycle…
Then you'll understand what you were really chasing."
Ren stood, backing toward the wall, eyes narrowed.
Ren:
"If this is about the Crestflare, I've already got enough people trying to kill me over it."
??? (fading slightly):
"The answer was never the Crestflare.
It was the fracture.
And what came before."
Then she vanished.
No sound.
No echo.
Just gone.
The room dropped back into silence.
For about two seconds.
Inside Ren's mind — and soul — all hell immediately broke loose.
Blaze (from his left eye):
"WHAT THE SHIT WAS THAT?! A floating sparkle ghost just trauma-dumped philosophy and dipped?!"
Frost (from the right eye, ice-calm):
"She wasn't a ghost. She was real. And more dangerous than Ashrunner."
Ren (gritting his teeth):
"Yeah, thanks for joining the conversation after she left."
Time (flickering into view inside the Aetherium Core):
"Ooooh, spooky memory-goddess glitch lady. I liked her. Very cryptic. Zero context. A+ style."
Space (stretching inside the Core, voice smug):
"She knew where to find us. That means she's not from here.
This dimension's narrative doesn't recognize her."
Gravity (finally speaking, heavy and cold):
"She is tied to the fracture. To the cycle. To the original source."
Ren (snapping):
"Which means what, exactly?!"
Snarksteel (muffled, furious from the sheath):
"IT MEANS YOU SHOULD HAVE STABBED HER! OR AT LEAST ASKED IF SHE WANTED TO BE STABBED! WHAT KIND OF MAIN CHARACTER JUST STANDS THERE AND LISTENS?!"
Ren (growling):
"I didn't even know she was real until she unloaded cosmic poetry into my bedroom!"
Blaze:
"She said it wasn't about the Crestflare. So what the hell is it about?"
Frost:
"The fracture. Something older. Something we missed."
Time (giggling):
"Or something we weren't allowed to remember."
The crew went quiet at that.
Not because they were out of jokes.
But because they all knew the tone.
The kind of tone the universe used when it was trying to warn you... and failing.
Ren (quietly, to himself):
"Alright.
You want me to complete the cycle?
Then give me a fucking place to start."
And deep inside the Core — way past the known layers —
something flickered.
A signal.
A pulse.
Not from this dimension.
But calling from the edge of it.