The cave was more than a place now. It was a wound, a breathing fissure in which life hemorrhaged. Every tremor was not a tumble of stone but a tumble of meaning.
Every pulse from the Root appeared to destroy something—space, sound, even memory—before filling it with something else, something off.
Shadows twisted into impossible shapes. Light warped, bending towards the center like prey toward the jaws of a predator. The Fork wasn't shaking—it was being remade under their feet.
Kaito was at its center, his scythe set deep in stone to anchor himself, every heavy breath a struggle against the weight bearing down on him.
The Root's vibration thrummed inside him, blending with his heartbeat until he could no longer tell which was his and which was the Root's.
The Root was not awakening. It was pulling him along with it.
Mika screamed as another chasm opened up beneath their feet.
