The sky looked tired. Not dark. Not clear.
Just… unconvinced.
In the air, there was still the silent pulse of the Spirals, like a resonance only the sensitive could perceive. It wasn't magic. It was the trace of absolute intent.
In one of the oldest corners of the Central Academy — the Crypt of the Bastion of Time — Zhelenya knelt, her hands dusty, before a mirror that hadn't reflected anything in centuries. It was no ordinary mirror. It was said that each era has a single moment when it can be fully seen, and this mirror — once — had been the only witness.
— "Here…" she whispered. "Here the fracture began… and here it will swallow us."
A subtle echo moved through the air.
— "You felt it too?" asked a masculine voice.
Zhelenya didn't turn around. She knew who it was. Leon. He had driven his sword into the wall of time and refused to move until he could once again sense Albert's shadow.
— "I didn't feel him. I heard him. Or… maybe he heard me," she said, staring at the ceiling covered in ancient runes.
Leon stepped beside her but didn't raise his gaze. His expression was unusually calm, but in his eyes something flickered — not fear, but the need to understand what he was missing.
— "The guilds have started to react," he said. "They're gathering in the big cities. I think they feel… the void."
Zhelenya ran her hand across the mirror.
— "It's not a void. It's too full. Too full of him."
—
[Corvin City – Adventurers' Market]
In a square where not only weapons and potions were sold, but also crystallized memories, a man in a gray cloak shouted:
— "S-rank quests available! Double pay! Zones are breaking! Creatures are appearing from nothing!"
A young elven girl with a blue bracelet on her wrist looked up.
— "Nothing comes from nothing…" she whispered. "Someone is breaking the order."
Beside her, a dwarf armed with a twin-blade laughed:
— "Who could it be? Some demon who learned how to think?"
She closed her eyes for a moment.
— "No. It's someone who… wasn't supposed to exist, but does."
And at that very moment, the wind stopped abruptly across the marketplace. A cursed artifact displayed on a merchant's table began to tremble.
[Academy – The Forbidden Level of the Watcher's Tower]
Kaelya ascended step by step, each footfall leaving behind a trace of blue light. No other student or professor was allowed to climb this high — not because it was dangerous, but because no one could see what lay there anymore.
— "You came," spoke a feminine voice.
At the top of the staircase, an old woman with skin covered in living inscriptions awaited her. She was the Guardian of the Unseen Threshold, a being who hadn't left the tower in over a hundred years.
— "I felt... a tremor in the structure of the world," Kaelya said. "And a call."
The Guardian looked at her long and steady.
— "The call wasn't for you."
Kaelya stepped forward, her eyes burning with determination.
— "But I heard it. And I know the one who made the world tremble."
The woman closed her eyes for a moment, then stepped aside.
— "Then enter. But what you'll see... cannot be forgotten."
—
[Corvin City – Temple of the Severed Blessing]
In an abandoned temple, a group of adventurers gathered in a circle. Each wore a different symbol — a dragon, a book, a sword, a tear.
— "Creatures are appearing in sacred zones, not in the wild," said a man with a silver mask.
— "The signs are clear," added a woman with a low voice. "Someone is approaching who... breaks laws. Not just of magic. Of existence."
An old elf raised a crystal from the center of the circle.
— "Only an entity summoned beyond our will could cause such a rupture. But forbidden-grade summonings... are death itself."
Silence.
Until, from a corner of the room, a child spoke:
— "But what if death was... chosen?"
—
[The Spiral – Edge of the Wave]
Albert stood on the edge of a world he had created unintentionally.
It wasn't a dream. Nor a memory.
It was possibility.
Before him, reality began to coil around an unknown concept — something not even those of level 10 would understand.
Albert didn't smile. Nor was he solemn.
He was simply attentive.
Because he knew: what follows is no longer a test. It is the beginning of a reformation of what we call "reality."
[The Watcher's Tower – Chamber of Absolute Stillness]
Kaelya stepped beyond the door opened by the Guardian of the Threshold.
The air was heavy, not with density but with awareness. You could feel that every step was being recorded by something unseen, as if reality itself was observing, analyzing, deciding.
On the walls, the light didn't come from torches but from words: living runes that shifted with each thought of the one who entered. In the center of the room stood an edge-less table, and above it… a sphere that pulsed rhythmically.
Kaelya placed a hand over her heart.
— "It's… like when Albert was summoned."
— "Not 'like.' It is exactly the same thing," said the Guardian from behind her.
— "This is the perfect copy of the energy used in the summoning of the Absolute."
Kaelya frowned.
— "Why do you have it here?"
— "Not us. The world itself left its memory here. I merely guard it so no one touches it."
Kaelya moved her hand closer to the sphere.
— "And if I do?"
The Guardian fell silent.
— "Then you're ready to remember… what you've forgotten."
—
[Academy – Basement of the Darkened Archives]
Leon read an ancient text that was not supposed to exist: "The Manuscript of the Unnamed."
— "He wasn't created by men," he said quietly. "But by the space between thoughts itself."
At that moment, a voice emerged from the shadows.
— "You're not allowed to read that."
Leon looked up. It was a hooded figure bearing the symbol of a secret guild — the Summoners' Shadow.
— "You've gone too deep, Leon."
— "Too deep?" he repeated calmly. "No. I've gone just far enough to realize… Albert wasn't summoned. He was called back."
—
[Ancient Temple – Ruins of the Southern Hollow Earth]
A priest forgotten by the world awoke from a thousand-year slumber.
— "He… is no longer a question."
A statue cracked. And from inside, a beam of purple light shot skyward, splitting the heavens in two.
[Corvin City – The Underground Adventurers' Bazaar]
Beneath the main square, hidden among old canals and forgotten columns, there was a place only A- and S-ranked adventurers could enter.
There, reality felt less... stable. The realm seemed to breathe with those who entered.
A woman with a black sword on her back walked in. On her shoulders, she bore the emblem of a suppressed, nearly banned guild: The Phalanx of Silence.
— "What's the report?" she asked curtly.
A man in heavy armor unrolled a scroll.
— "Four ruptures detected in under twenty-four hours. Two in the elven forests, one in an old draconic altar, and one… in the Tower of Mirrors."
— "The Tower of Mirrors?"
Her voice tightened.
— "That's near Zhelenya's sanctuary zone."
The man nodded, then closed the scroll.
— "Some say it's not an attack. That it's… a calling."
— "A calling?" She gripped the hilt of her sword.
— "Then who's hearing the echo?"
—
[Academy – Within the Chamber of Reversible Runes]
Kaelya stood with her hand inches from the sphere.
Only one centimeter separated her from what she instinctively knew she wasn't allowed to touch.
But she didn't hesitate.
When her hand met the sphere, a burst of light filled the room. It wasn't painful — it was truthful.
And for a moment, Kaelya was no longer in her body.
She was in an immense field, where all the forgotten memories of the world rose like flowers.
On each petal was an image. A name. A sacrifice.
Albert was in all of them.
In every form, in every memory, in every loss.
— "You… are in all things lost," she whispered.
— "And yet… you are always present."
When she returned to reality, the sphere no longer pulsed. But Kaelya's eyes did.
They burned blue.
[The Spiral – Unformed Zone]
Albert walked through a space that had no shape, but also no chaos.
Here, things weren't constructed. They were decided.
A wrong step could cause the world itself to take a different form.
Around him floated unborn, unchosen ideas: battles that never happened, alliances broken before they began, beings almost created… but never named.
Albert closed his eyes.
When he opened them, his gaze cut through reality.
— "I know what I must do."
It wasn't a thought.
It was a resolution crossing through planes.
From the other side of the Spirals, a silhouette began to form. It wasn't a being. It was a presence.
The voice didn't come from a mouth, but from the very structure:
— "You've returned to the center. But the center is no longer where it used to be."
Albert didn't move a muscle.
— "Then I'll move it."
—
[Academy – The Runemaster's Hall]
Zhelenya burst through the doors. Sparks of magic crackled on her shoulders.
— "It activated… the Absolute Core!"
The old master, wrapped in layers upon layers of robes, raised a single finger.
— "No… it didn't activate. It aligned."
She blinked.
— "With what?"
The old man sighed.
— "With himself."
—
[Corvin City – Basement of the Unatoned]
A group of adventurers panicked as an ancient door, sealed for a thousand years, opened on its own. Beyond it, a corridor carved from bone seemed to lead nowhere.
An old man whispered:
— "When reality is afraid… unspoken gates unlock."
—
[Spiral – The Final Circle]
Albert had reached the point where nothing needed to be decided.
Because everything was already waiting for him.
From the front, a familiar silhouette stepped out of the light. She wasn't of this world. Nor the next.
She was… the girl with the blue eyes.
But not in flesh and blood.
In the memory he had hidden from himself.
She looked at him.
— "Why did you come?"
Albert answered simply.
— "Because I can't go forward… without knowing what I left behind."
She smiled.
— "Then look."
And between them, a door opened — the eleventh — with no name, no lock, no magic.
Albert took a step.
[The Eleventh Door – The Interior Without Echo]
Albert stepped forward.
But not into a space.
He stepped into a thought. A moment belonging to no time.
Everything was white. Not light. But the absence of all that can be perceived.
And yet, it wasn't empty. It wasn't cold. It was… familiar.
A voice came, not from around him, but from within:
— "This is not a memory. Nor a choice. It is your origin."
A pulse moved through his body. It didn't hurt. But it reminded him of something he had never lived.
In front of him, a silhouette took shape. Not a person. But a personified idea — a child quietly crying, draped in blue cloth.
When Albert looked at him, he understood.
— "You are... what I denied?"
The child raised his head. His eyes were empty, yet filled with unspoken words.
— "I am what you refused to become."
Albert stepped closer. Without fear.
With gentleness.
— "And yet, you're still here."
— "Because you're not done with me. And I… am not done with you."
—
[Outside of Space – Near the Forgotten Plane]
The girl with the blue eyes stood still in front of the closed door.
She could no longer see. But she could feel.
She felt that Albert was confronting something that could not be explained.
Another space opened beside her, and from it stepped a figure robed in calm flames — Ithrial.
He said nothing.
Just looked at the door.
— "You knew he'd get here?" she asked.
Ithrial shook his head.
— "No. But I knew the door wouldn't stay shut forever."
— "Are you afraid?"
— "Not for me. For him."
—
[Albert – Within the Heart of Forgetting]
Albert sat in front of the child. Not to dominate. But to listen.
The child spoke a single word:
— "Help me…"
Albert didn't answer immediately.
Then he stood, reached out a hand, and said:
— "I won't help you. I will accept you."
The child smiled.
And the entire white space fragmented — becoming colors, sounds, worlds.
In that moment, Albert integrated what he was with what had been hidden.
It wasn't just power.
It was totality.