I didn't know where I was.
Well—scratch that. I knew I was in a hallway.
A wide, polished one with sunlight slanting through tall arched windows, stained with patterns I didn't care to interpret.
The air smelled faintly of lavender and old stone—one of those weird combinations that were supposed to feel luxurious but only reminded me of how out of place I was.
A trio of students walked past, robes rustling softly.
Third years, judging by the embroidery on their cuffs and the silver threading that wove through their sashes.
They glanced my way—just once, in that half-curious, half-dismissive way older students tend to look at the clueless.
Like I was a first-year who had taken a wrong turn through someone else's story.
…Which, to be fair, I was.
It wasn't until I passed another group—four this time, two of them laughing about something I didn't catch—that I actually paid attention to the uniform pattern.
Not just the cuffs, but the sigils pinned near their hearts.
Third-year quarters. Somewhere else in Silver Mist Academy entirely.
{Snowflakes} Echo's voice stirred in my head, like silk brushing against cracked glass.
{Why the sudden jump? You haven't fully recovered from your last use.}
I sighed, rubbing my temple with one hand as I kept walking.
'I just needed to get away from Cassia before she dragged me into something even more unhinged.'
{I think she likes you.}
'Yeah, in the same way a dragon likes flammable villages.'
Echo hummed. {And what exactly was your plan, using the Eyes of Horus mid-assembly just to escape a vampire's attention?}
"To think," I muttered, "to clear my head. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere she's not."
As if the universe had been eavesdropping and decided to cut me a break for once, I turned the corner and saw it: a wrought-iron sign above a heavy oaken door.
Astrolithus Archives – Third-Year Division
A library.
Thank god.
Echo said something, maybe a warning, maybe more sarcasm. I didn't register.
My legs moved before I even gave permission.
I shoved the door open with more desperation than grace and stepped inside.
I could have described it.
The sweeping shelves stacked sky-high with ancient tomes.
The enchanted lanterns floating near the vaulted ceiling.
The air rich with ink and whispered knowledge. I could have described all of that.
But I didn't have the strength.
I waved it all off with a groan as I dragged myself to the nearest empty table by the window and collapsed into the seat like a man who had been carrying the weight of multiple plotlines on his back.
Because I was.
{Are you going to tell me what you're doing?} Echo asked gently.
I leaned forward, elbows on the polished wood, staring out at the courtyard below.
'Trying not to die.'
{That's fair.}
I sank lower into the library chair.
Somewhere across the tables, a few upperclassmen whispered to each other over floating tomes and softly glowing glyph-sheets.
I could barely focus. My thoughts were too loud. Too jumbled. Too real.
{So what's really bothering you, Snowflakes?}
I exhaled slowly.
'The only advantage I have in this world… is the knowledge I brought from the game.
That's it. Without that, I'm just another glass-fragile nobody with no class and a cursed ring.'
'And now…' I sat forward, elbows on the desk.
'Things aren't happening the way they're supposed to.'
{Because you dodged the bump with Justin?}
'Exactly. That little avoidance? That one butterfly-wing flick? It already veered the storyline.'
'And then there's Valois Laurent.'
Even saying his name felt like spitting smoke.
'He's not in the game files. Not a hidden boss.
Not a DLC teaser. Not even in the data-mined archives the players got after patch 6.0.
I know every character the devs ever worked on. Every single one.
But Valois?'
'He's a goddamn ghost.'
{And not the friendly kind.}
'Exactly. His presence alone has already thrown everything out of sync.
I took a deep breath, but it didn't help the tightness in my chest.
And Sylvara…'
I paused, fingers clenching.
'She wasn't supposed to be saved by Renlor Vynes.
Hell, Renlor wasn't even metiy in this part of the storyline.
In the original game, Justin saved her. He risked everything—barely pulled through—and she formed a bond with him.
That one event kickstarted a whole alliance arc.'
{Why does that matter so much?}
'Because when Justin saved her, it formed the bond between them.
That connection? It unlocked a whole chain of quests, alliances, and in Arc 4, it's the reason Justin survives the siege of Mirrorvale.'
'But now?' I swallowed.
'That sequence didn't happen. There's no bond. No path. No flag to track the corruption.'
Echo went still. I could tell—processing.
{Wait... Corruption?}
'Yeah.' I nodded slowly.
'Sylvara wasn't just kidnapped. She was marked.
They embedded a Phantom Sigil into her during the struggle.'
{Like a cursed mark?}
'No.' I closed my eyes.
'It's worse. Way worse.
The Phantom Sigil is a curse forged in the Hollow Deep—an abyssal realm beneath even the Nether planes.
It's not just a marker. It's a slow, spiritual poison. One that eats away at an Anchor's purity.'
{So… she'll die?}
I shook my head.
'No. She'll become something far worse.'
'Once the sigil fully roots in her soul, she'll lose the qualities that made her one of the Six Anchors.
Her connection to reality will sever—she'll stop being an Anchor altogether.'
'And when that happens… the veil between reality and the Hollow Deep will fracture.'
{Fracture?}
"Break," I said flatly.
'Once one Anchor falls, the veil tears open just enough for it to whisper through.'
{…It?}
'Caryth'mor. The Forgotten Seed.
The dead god buried in the Hollow Deep. The thing they were trying to bring back.
He needs a vessel to claw his way back into this plane.'
'Sylvara becomes his first foothold.'
I stood up and paced quietly between the bookshelves, running a hand through my hair.
'From there, it gets worse. Once he has his claws in one Anchor, he'll use her to locate the rest.
The goal isn't to kill them—not at first. It's to break them. Strip them of their role.'
{And if all Six Anchors are destroyed?}
'Then reality doesn't just bend. It breaks. The veil collapses.
The Hollow Deep rises. Caryth'mor fully awakens—unsealed.'
'And this?' I gestured at the air around me.
'This isn't even Arc Two. We're still in goddamn Arc One.'
Silence.
{…That's what makes it worse.}
'Yeah.' I nodded.
'Because originally, Justin was the one who would cleanse the Phantom Sigil.
He unlocked a Lightroot Blade that severed the tether.
But since the rescue never happened the way it should, that cleanse event was never triggered.'
'Which means Sylvara's still corrupted. And slowly losing her grip on reality.'
I sat back down, the chair creaking as I slumped again.
{And now that we're off the rails, she's just… corrupted, unanchored, and drifting?}
"Worse," I whispered.
'She's glowing like a beacon for every dark thing that knows what to look for.'
Echo was quiet for a long beat.
{"…Eden?}
'Yeah?'
{You were right.}
'About what?'
{Whoever wrote this game script… was absolutely insane.}
I huffed a dry laugh that didn't quite reach my eyes.
'And now I'm living it.'
"But worst of all?" I whispered.
'I didn't even unlock the Caryth'mor boss in my playthrough. I skipped that entire arc.
So I don't even know if or how it could be defeated, if it ever fully awakens and is unsealed.'
{You… skipped it?}
'It was hidden behind a cursed side route, okay?!
The guide said to avoid it unless you wanted your soul data rewritten and your companions turned into abstract furniture!'
{Unbelievable. This is what I get paired with.}
'Hey! That side route had no rewards. None. It wasn't even patched correctly—'
{We are so dead.}
I slumped forward, face-first into the table like the weight of everything was trying to crack my skull open from the inside.
The grain of the wood felt cold and unforgiving against my cheek.
'I need a plan.'
{We need a plan.} Echo corrected, her voice somehow both dry and softly exasperated.
{And the plan… is to remove the Phantom Sigil from Sylvara before it corrupts her soul completely.}
I groaned louder.
'Yeah, great plan. Just one problem: there's only one known method that works.'
I slowly sat up, eyes still glazed from everything swirling inside my head.
'The Phantom Sigil can only be severed with the Lightroot Blade.'
{The Lightroot Blade?}
"Yes the Lightroot Blade," I muttered, leaning back as the chair gave a soft creak beneath me.
'An ancient radiant weapon hidden inside the Duskbane Triarch estate.
A cursed house with more sealed vaults and shadowed history than a necromancer's journal.'
{...That sounds complicated.}
'It was.' I sighed.
'In the game, you only got access to the Blade through a hidden side quest.
And that quest? Was only unlocked after Sylvara invited you over to the Duskbane compound—Lunargale Sanctum.'
I paused, chewing the inside of my cheek. Just saying the name made my nerves buzz.
Lunargale Sanctum—a name whispered in old guild forums with equal parts fear and fascination.
{Lunargale Sanctum… sounds like something out of a gothic poem.}
"It was," I muttered.
'The whole place was crawling with traps, illusions, specters of old ancestors whispering riddles in languages that hadn't been spoken in three eras. And the kicker?'
{Let me guess. Sylvara doesn't just hand you an invite.}
'Exactly.' I pointed vaguely at nothing.
'She's the youngest daughter of the Duskbane Triarch, one of the ruling houses of the Old Lunar Syndicate.
She doesn't 'hang out' with people.
In the game, the only reason she even considered inviting you to Lunargale was because Justin saved her. That moment built the trust.'
{So now that Renlor Vynes stepped in and saved her instead…}
'She has no reason to give a damn about Justin—or anyone else.
Let alone invite them into her ancestral home. Meaning the Lightroot Blade? Still locked up tight.'
{And there's no other way to sever the mark?}
I gave a tired look.
'If there was, I'd have mentioned it like three mental breakdowns ago.'
Echo went quiet for a beat, before her voice floated in again—low, speculative.
{Sylvara... she was terrifying in the game, wasn't she?}
"Oh yeah," I muttered.
'There were threads about her just titled 'Please Make It Stop'.'
{Even scarier than Cassia?}
I blinked.
Then laughed—actually laughed.
'Okay no, come on, let's not lose our minds.
Cassia is chaos incarnate in thigh-highs. Sylvara is cold, calculated dread. There's a difference.'
{So Cassia's worse?}
"Way worse," I whispered with mock horror.
'At least Sylvara won't kiss you on the cheek after exploding a mana crystal two feet from your skull and calling it 'foreplay'.'
Echo snorted—a rare thing.
I slumped again, face pressing into my folded arms.
'But jokes aside, we're screwed. If I don't do something—anything—this whole arc spirals. Sylvara's corrupted. She's unanchoring.
And that demon's just scratching at the fabric of this reality waiting for an opening.'
{Then what do we do, Snowflakes?}
I closed my eyes.
"I need access to Sylvara."
{How do we get it?}
'That's the question, isn't it?'
I exhaled, leaning back in the creaky chair, arms folded across my chest.
'I can't just walk up to Sylvara and tell her she's been marked with a curse that could unravel reality.'
{Why not?} Echo asked, though her tone already knew the answer.
'Because that's the fastest way to make things worse,' I said, rubbing my temples.
'She'd think I'm either insane, a liar, or worse—part of the conspiracy that got her targeted in the first place.'
{...Valid.}
The truth? Sylvara Elyss Duskbane was one of the sharpest minds in the game, and probably sharper here in real life.
You didn't become the youngest heir of the Duskbane Triarch by trusting strangers whispering apocalyptic nonsense.
'And if she thinks I know something I shouldn't?'
I glanced upward toward the towering library shelves.
'That's how I end up 'missing.'
{So what's the plan then?}
"I don't know," I muttered, standing up just to sit back down again.
'That's the part I'm trying to figure out. Because everything—everything—is already veering off course.'
Around me, the third-year library was calm but not silent.
Heavy footsteps echoed from students passing down marble walkways between the rows of arched, rune-lined shelves.
A few quiet murmurs drifted between study tables, magical scrolls humming softly with latent energy.
The scent of old parchment, ink, and faint lightning hung in the air.
Candles floated overhead, suspended in place by soft runes that flickered with a pale blue glow.
The library ceiling arched high above, painted with constellations that slowly shifted across the sky like a living mural.
A tall half-giant girl with glasses walked past dragging a stack of books almost taller than I was, barely sparing me a glance.
Somewhere in the far back, someone sneezed and accidentally activated a fire glyph—there was a small pop, followed by a very apologetic "Sorry!" and hurried spell-chanting.
All this bustling serenity, and yet I felt completely still—like I was standing in the eye of a storm.
"She's an anchor, Echo," I murmured under my breath, voice low.
'If I screw this up… if Sylvara breaks…'
{You don't need to finish that sentence. I know.}
I shut my eyes briefly, letting the hum of distant flipping pages and whispered research fill the silence between us.
"And I'm not even supposed to be involved," I whispered.
"This wasn't my fight. This wasn't my arc."
{But now it is.}
'Yeah.' I gave a bitter smile. 'Now it is.'