The river swallowed him whole.There was no splash, no weight only the abrupt sensation of falling through molten glass. His breath burned in his lungs, yet he did not drown.
Colors bled upward, thick and heavy, twisting around him like living ribbons. Shapes drifted in the depths warped fragments of faces, half-formed hands reaching, and eyes that blinked without lids. The further he sank, the quieter the world became, until only the steady thud of his heartbeat remained.
Then the thing appeared.It wasn't pushing through anymore it was waiting. Its body stretched far beyond sight, a shifting cathedral of bone and shadow, crowned with the molten cracks that pulsed like veins of gold.
Aloysius floated before it, every instinct screaming at him to move, but the space itself resisted his will. Here, the Fracture was alive. The air thickened when he reached for his weapon, and the divine energy within him stung like a wounded animal.
A voice seeped through the water.It was not sound but a pressure in his skull, shaping words out of weight.
You carry my brother's breath. Give it to me.
The "breath" the spark of godhood he had taken from the fallen sky years ago pulsed faintly inside him. He realized then what the girl meant. This thing wasn't here for him; it was here for that power.
"And if I refuse?" he said, his words vanishing into the liquid air.
Then I will drink your world until it is empty.
Its claw rose, each segment shifting like a serrated blade. The water boiled around it, distorting the space. Aloysius knew he couldn't match its strength here this was its domain.
But if he could bait it… if he could force it to follow him out before it was ready…
He let go of his fear.And then, with a deep breath that felt like inhaling molten fire, he opened the seal within his chest, letting the god-spark blaze through the crimson depths like a flare.
The thing reacted instantly every spire of its body snapping toward him. The current seized him, and suddenly the fall became a violent pull upward.