The threads burned now.
Needlepoint Hollow screamed with every heartbeat. The veil between Loom and Uncore had not only thinned—it had torn. Rafael felt it in his spine, in his lungs, in the ache behind his eyes. Every resonance now came with a cost: pain, memory, blood. Echo's influence slithered through every seam of the broken world, stitching horrors where hope used to dwell.
"The spire's cracking further," Beatrice shouted from the ridge, her hair soaked in ash and thread-dust. Her violet blade trembled in her grip. "We're running out of glyphstone. If it collapses entirely—"
"Then it becomes a node," Rafael finished grimly. He looked to Lira and Calyx. Their expressions were drawn, drained. "Can we still delay the integration?"
Lira shook her head. "Not without consequences. The Loom is unraveling with us now. Every choice tightens the weave—or breaks it. And the weave is fraying faster than we can follow."
"Then we break something back," Stanley muttered, hoisting his hammer with both hands. He stepped forward, his frame half-lit by the trembling glow of unstable runes. "Give it hell before it takes us with it."
The battle had become a siege. But not just of body—of mind. The twisted echoes of their own memories fought them in humanoid form—threadspawn stitched with familiarity.
Clara's first piano instructor wept corrupted lullabies before lunging. Dasha's mother flickered between comforting presence and barbed shadow. Rafael even saw his younger self, barefoot and wide-eyed, wielding a broken shard of fate like a knife.
He had to kill it.
He did.
The guilt lingered even after the apparition turned to dust.
Elsewhere in the Hollow, Stanley, Calyx, and Lira exchanged a glance—quiet and full of shared exhaustion. It had been days since they'd found one another again after the explosive scattering at the Ruptured Glen.
Stanley had emerged first, clawing his way out of a sinkhole lined with broken spools of memory. His first thought was of the others—of Rafael. But the Hollow was cruel in its separation.
He found Calyx next, defending herself with harmonic detonations inside a crumbling amphitheater. Her instruments were fractured, but her voice was unyielding.
Together, they had traced Lira's location through ruptured threadsongs, following a melody only the three of them knew—a lullaby Rafael had once hummed without realizing it.
When they finally found her, Lira had nearly succumbed to exhaustion and madness in a thread-mire that looped her worst moments on repeat. They had pulled her free—bitten, bruised, but alive.
Now they stood together again, in the Hollow's eye, reforged not just by proximity, but by purpose.
Near the southern flank, Lira was panting. She had overdrawn her chant, voice raw and lined with blood. Calyx supported her with one arm, her other hand twisting dials on the failing resonance stabilizers.
"We can't hold this line!" Calyx yelled. Sparks flew as one stabilizer gave out, warping the air around her.
"It's like the whole place knows we're trying to stop it," Lira rasped.
"We need another anchor," Dasha growled, shielding her side with a broken ward-sigil. "One outside the spire's influence. Something untainted."
Stanley's head snapped toward the eastern gate. "There was a Loom-forged altar there. Before everything fell. It might still hold."
No time for discussion.
They ran.
Through collapsing tunnels and ash-ridden courtyards, under arches that screamed in forgotten languages, past statues that bled thread-ink. Rafael led, eyes half-blind with resonance, guided only by the glimmer of threadlines still untouched by corruption.
They reached the altar.
It was cracked, yes—but not broken. Glyphs shimmered faintly along its base, untouched by the Hollow's poison. Beatrice knelt and began the recalibration, her hands moving in patterns older than the language they spoke.
"I need time," she said.
"You'll get it," Rafael answered, turning to face the oncoming horde.
The others joined him.
Threadspawn poured from the dark like regrets made flesh. Familiar faces, familiar voices—mocking, crying, begging. But they stood.
And for a moment, despite the shuddering world, despite the betrayal of Echo and the whispering Uncore, they fought as one.
Every slash from Stanley's hammer broke shadow and shattered memory.
Every chant from Lira restored lost threads, turning mourning into power.
Every note Calyx hummed reconnected what was frayed, pulling beauty from ruin.
Dasha danced among the enemies with broken sigils and burning eyes, her blade carving new wards into flesh and stone alike.
And Rafael—he didn't just command the Loom anymore.
He became it.
He tore the corrupted weaves with his bare hands, stitched new ones from memory, and sang the binding hymn that only those who had broken understood. The melody was imperfect. But it held.
The Hollow buckled.
The spire cracked entirely, splitting with a sound like finality made real.
Beatrice finished her spell—and the altar lit like a newborn star.
A blinding wave of uncorrupted resonance tore through the battlefield, erasing every false memory, every twisted face, every scream that wasn't real. A purging light that did not erase—but clarified.
The battle stopped.
The world stilled.
Smoke and ash floated like snow. The whispers faded.
And in the center of the Hollow, where the spire once loomed, stood only a single thread.
Uncut. Untouched.
Waiting.
Rafael fell to his knees.
Not in surrender.
In choice.
In silence.
In strength.
The Loom had shattered.
But so had the chains that bound their purpose.
The war was not over.
But for the first time, they could see the path ahead.
And it gleamed like dawn.
***