Darkness.
Not the quiet kind. Not the safe kind.
This darkness had weight. It pressed down, filling my lungs, pushing against my eyes. The fall never ended, yet the ground came all the same.
I hit hard.
Stone cracked beneath me. The impact stole my breath, but the silence that followed was worse.
The Neutral Zone was gone.
✦
I staggered up, every muscle screaming. The sky above wasn't sky—it was a void smeared with drifting shards. Fragments of the Zone spun lazily overhead, slabs of plaza and broken islands dissolving into sparks before fading out entirely.
The world beneath was no better.
Ruined ground stretched in every direction, jagged like shattered glass. The air tasted burnt, heavy with smoke and iron. The silence wasn't silence—it was an echo, as if a hundred voices had screamed here and never stopped ringing.
The system's voice cracked through the emptiness, faint and broken.
[ Survivor count… unknown. ][ Reconnection attempt… failed. ][ Neutral Zone… terminated. ]
The words cut sharper than any blade.
I wasn't standing on neutral ground anymore.
✦
"Dev?"
My voice went nowhere.
"Kavya?"
The echoes laughed back, empty and hollow.
"Arjun?"
The silence that followed was worse than a scream.
I gripped the Inkblade tighter. The shadows pulsed, eager, whispering in a language I didn't want to understand.
"…the others live… scattered… torn through the cracks…"
My jaw clenched. I didn't believe the blade. I didn't want to.
But I had nothing else.
✦
I walked.
The land shifted with every step. A ridge of stone stretched ahead, then folded inward like paper, collapsing into a valley that hadn't been there before. The air flickered. Sometimes it smelled of fire, sometimes saltwater, sometimes blood.
And the visions—
Flickers of other worlds bled into the ruin.
A pair of Murim duelists clashed in the distance, their blades sparking with qi, but when I blinked, the ground where they stood was empty.
A pack of Beastborn prowled a ridge, snarling, fire dripping from their jaws—then gone, like smoke.
Ruins flickered into existence and then crumbled before I could take a step toward them.
I wasn't in one world.
I was inside a hundred.
Overlapping. Bleeding together.
And I was the fracture in the middle.
✦
The system coughed static again.
[ Warning: Anomaly detected. ][ Current position: Uncatalogued Script Layer. ][ Survival status: Variable. ]
Uncatalogued.
Even the system didn't know where I was.
The Neutral Zone had been a cage. A battlefield.
This was worse.
This was the story itself.
✦
The Inkblade pulsed in my hand, shadows crawling across my fingers.
"…walk deeper… bleed with it… the script bends only for you…"
I wanted to throw the blade into the void. Watch it vanish and take its whispers with it.
But when I thought of Dev's calm eyes, Kavya's blades, Arjun's light—
I tightened my grip.
The blade was cursed. But it was mine.
And right now, it was all I had.
✦
Something shifted in the distance.
Not a flicker. Not a vision.
Real.
The ruined plain twisted, folding into the shape of a battlefield. Shadows of both Murim disciples and Beastborn flickered across it, striking endlessly, neither side dying, neither side alive.
A phantom battlefield.
The echo of wars fought across different worlds, all bleeding together here.
And I was walking straight into it.
✦
The whispers rose again, softer this time. Almost amused.
"…welcome to the real script… fracture… let's see if you can survive your own story…"
I didn't answer.
I stepped forward, blade in hand, into the war of ghosts.
The battlefield breathed.
Shadows clashed across the ruined plain—Murim duelists frozen mid-strike, Beastborn mid-howl. They weren't alive, but they weren't gone either. Every motion repeated in an endless cycle, as if the air itself remembered too much to forget.
I walked through them. Their blades passed through me without touch, their claws without pain. Echoes. Ghosts.
At least, that's what I thought.
Until one of them turned its head.
✦
It shouldn't have noticed me.
A Murim disciple, face blank, sword glowing faintly with qi. His strike froze halfway… then resumed, not at his opponent, but at me.
The Beastborn he fought twisted too. Its wolf head snapped toward me, flame dripping from its jaws.
They both blurred.
And then they fused.
✦
I stumbled back as flesh and shadow bled together. A wolf-headed disciple stepped from the echo, qi burning across its beast-clawed hands, eyes gleaming with fire.
Its sword was wrong—steel and bone fused, its edge glowing with both qi and hunger.
It opened its mouth and spoke in two voices.
"Fracture."
The Inkblade hissed in my hand.
"…perfect prey… devour it… devour yourself…"
✦
The creature lunged.
Its blade screamed as it cut down, qi exploding outward. I raised the Inkblade, shadows flaring, and the clash shook the plain.
The fused disciple snarled, jaws snapping at my throat even as its sword pressed harder. I shoved it back, shadows lashing, but it spun, claws raking across my arm. Blood sprayed, sizzling where it touched the ground.
Pain seared, but the Inkblade only screamed louder.
"…feed… bleed… become…"
I slashed. Shadows burst, impaling the creature's chest. It roared, tearing itself free, half its body dissolving into sparks before reforming again.
It wasn't bound by one world. It was bound by none.
✦
The fight blurred.
Steel on shadow. Qi on void. Claws snapping, jaws dripping flame. Every strike cracked the plain, fissures spilling light into the storm.
I stumbled, nearly falling into a chasm, the whispers deafening in my head. The creature slammed me back, its jaws snapping an inch from my throat.
And then—
The Inkblade sank through its chest.
The creature froze, eyes wide, its two voices screaming in perfect unison. Shadows erupted, devouring it whole, sparks dissolving into nothing.
The battlefield fell silent.
✦
I stood shaking, blood dripping from my arm, chest heaving. The Inkblade pulsed, satisfied, whispering softly.
"…more will come… many more… until you are the only story left…"
I almost dropped it.
Almost.
But the silence that followed was worse.
✦
The system's voice flickered faintly, like a candle guttering in a storm.
[ Hidden Title condition continues. ][ Progress… 38%. ]
I froze.
Even here, after collapse, the system hadn't let go.
It was still watching me.
Or maybe it couldn't stop.
✦
The phantom battlefield flickered, its echoes unraveling, fading back into smoke. The ruin stretched again, silent and endless.
And then I saw it.
A glow.
Faint. Distant. Flickering on the horizon like firelight through fog.
I couldn't tell if it was a survivor's torch, a god's lure, or another fracture waiting to kill me.
But standing still wasn't an option.
I gripped the Inkblade tighter, shadows crawling across my hand.
And I walked toward the light.