The storm was alive.
Not with rain or thunder, but with the ripping sound of the world itself coming undone.
Strands of light and darkness lashed across the sky, snapping and knotting together for brief moments before falling apart into drifting ash. It was like watching veins of lightning tear the heavens open, only for some ancient hunger to swallow it all again.
Every step forward meant risking being torn out of existence—yet Kaito pushed on, Nyra at his side, both wrapped in the faint, fractured glow of his broken aura.
The Fork was collapsing, and it screamed as it died. Bridges split and fell into the endless abyss like ribs breaking in a giant's chest.
Towers made of stone, steel, and shifting code folded in on themselves, spiraling down into clouds of dust. Whole districts vanished in a blink, their light snuffed out as if someone had pressed fingers over a flame.
