The first creature fell before it even finished lunging.
Elian didn't move fast.
He didn't move violently.
He moved inevitably.
A step forward.
A twist of the shoulder.
A grip around a broken spine that barely remembered its shape.
The creature spasmed in midair, choking on its own corrupted thread, before collapsing into a heap of slick ash.
The girl stumbled backward, shielding her eyes.
The rotborne woman growled low, a sound of primal recognition.
Not fear.
Respect.
Because they both understood:
Elian wasn't fighting.
He was rewriting the battlefield around himself.
Another entity surged from the ruins — a bloated mass of stitched memories, arms bending in directions no body should allow.
It screamed into the threadspace.
A plea.
A curse.
A warning.
Elian caught it mid-charge, driving a bare hand into the creature's chest — past flesh, past thread, into the hollow thing that had once been a will.
He whispered as the creature shuddered:
"Survival without purpose is just rotting slowly."
He clenched his fist.
The creature imploded — not exploding, but folding inward, vanishing into a wet, black knot of silence.
The ashes didn't even touch the ground.
They disappeared into the cracks of the grave.
[Hostile Entity Eliminated]
[Threadgrave Response: Escalating]
[Warning: Presence Detected – Dreamborn Sovereign Approaching]
Elian straightened slowly.
His breathing didn't quicken.
His eyes didn't narrow.
He simply… waited.
Because he could feel it now.
Something deeper was waking in the Threadgrave.
Something that had been dreaming for so long it had forgotten it wasn't dead.
The ground split open again — not violently, but surgically.
A figure rose from the depths:
A towering mass stitched from broken monuments and dead memories, crowned by a writhing halo of shattered glyphs.
Its voice wasn't sound.
It was gravity — a pull at the soul.
It tried to impose a command:
"Kneel."
Elian smiled thinly.
He took a single step forward.
And the pressure shattered like cheap glass around him.
He spoke, not loudly, but with weight that the ruined world itself couldn't ignore:
"Only fools kneel to the architects of cages."
"Only corpses worship their executioners."
"And only gods forgotten by the dirt pretend their thrones still exist."
The thing hesitated.
It remembered enough to fear.
The girl stared, frozen, as Elian walked forward — not with haste, not with caution, but with the cold certainty of a man who no longer saw opponents.
Only footnotes.
Rot and memory spiraled around him like a slow storm as he reached the Dreamborn Sovereign.
The creature tried to reach out — a claw of broken prayers and half-forgotten oaths.
Elian didn't bother dodging.
He stepped through it.
Threadlines unraveled behind him, unmaking the Sovereign's arm mid-gesture.
The creature howled.
Elian tilted his head slightly.
"Dreams are only chains the dead forgot to hate."
He plunged a hand into the Sovereign's chest.
Not physically.
Conceptually.
Threadspace rippled outward in a silent shockwave.
The Dreamborn Sovereign collapsed inward, screaming its final thought into the ruined sky:
"YOU—ARE—ANOMALY—"
Elian leaned close as the Sovereign died.
His whisper was almost kind:
"No."
"I am your correction."
[Entity Terminated: Dreamborn Sovereign]
[Threadgrave Authority: Broken]
[System Warning: Threadmaker Status Beyond Containment]
[New Tag Assigned: Devourer of Forgotten Threads]
Ash rained down.
The ruins trembled.
And far, far above, the stars cracked wider — the hollow voids behind them pulsing.
Elian stood in the center of the broken field, threadmarks swirling invisibly around him.
The girl finally found her voice:
"Elian… what are you becoming?"
He smiled, slow and razor-sharp.
"Not a god."
"Not a hero."
He looked skyward, eyes reflecting the shattered heavens.
"I am what wakes when the world pretends it's already dead."