I. Keveran's Hold: Fortress of Unerring Certainties
Atop Mount Arren, guarded by towers of clanging iron and walls carved with the names of ancient judges, lay Keveran , the last city fully aligned with Serak. It was a bastion not by numbers, but by conviction. It was here that the black root had been revered, protected, and nurtured as an absolute symbol of the new order.
Each citizen wore a piece of black stone around his neck. They didn't speak of judgment or flourishing. They spoke of order, and of a world in which nothing should change if the structure was perfect.
Keveran's black roots didn't grow haphazardly. They were tamed : channeled into geometric shapes, forced to blossom into tight spirals, forced to vibrate to an imposed metronome.
And for years, it worked.
Until they stopped responding.
II. The first cracks in the absolute order
The first to notice were the forgers on the central level. The black roots, which normally obeyed pure vibration commands, began to tremble without a pattern. Some split. Others retracted. One even changed color for milliseconds , displaying a shade of gray that no one could identify.
The council of spiritual engineers, led by Master Arken Virell , declared a state of technical exception.
—"The pulse of the black root has entered into specular dissonance. Something external is contaminating it."
But it wasn't pollution.
It was rejection.
III. The Arrival of the Unmarked Bearer
Amidst the silent chaos, a young man appeared at the gates of Keveran. He had no registered name. He carried no visible root. And yet, the spirit tracking device on the border vibrated in an unusual way: not with resonance… but with pure absence.
They brought him before the Council. There, amid ancient eyes and untouchable codes, the young man said:
—"I don't come to bloom. I come to hear what the black root no longer wants to say."
The councilors ignored him.
But the black roots stopped completely.
IV. Symbolic disobedience
In the plaza of the Obelisk of Judgment, where each black flower had been carved in marble, a black root was publicly broken.
Thousands saw it. No one believed it. It was impossible. And yet, there it was: the purest flower of inverted judgment, split at its center.
The faithful were in crisis. Some demanded explanations. Others began to talk about sabotage. But what no one could deny was what came next: a white root sprouted from the hole.
And with her, a familiar figure descended into the icy winds.
Akihiko.
V. The judgment without words
Akihiko didn't speak. He walked through Keveran without guidance, without permission, without resistance. No one could touch him. No one wanted to look directly at him. But with each step, the black roots vibrated differently. They didn't collapse. They didn't burn. They retreated ... as if waiting for something more.
In the Hall of Final Structure, where Serak once dictated his creed of sacred denial, Akihiko placed his hand on the core of black roots.
And he did not impose his vibration.
Heard.
And the black root… cried.
Not with tears. But with inverted vibrations : muted tones, echoes of what never wanted to bloom, sounds of pain denied for centuries.
"Not everything that didn't blossom was a mistake," Akihiko whispered. "But that doesn't mean you should live in silence."
VI. The breaking of the symbol
That night, Keveran's oldest black root splintered in six directions. From its remains , six new shoots grew , each a different color: white, gray, black, red, gold, and one completely transparent .
No one knew what they meant. But their presence marked the end of the spiritual monopoly in the city.
Serak, from his tower, felt it in his chest.
—"You failed me," he said to his root.
And the root answered:
"I wasn't created to obey. I was created to protect what couldn't flourish. But now… I no longer have anything to protect."
VII. The new undefined order
Keveran did not fall.
But it ceased to be a bastion. It became a field of study. Its inhabitants, still loyal to the form, began to debate without dogma. The roots were freed from their geometry. New flowers emerged with previously unseen forms: double spirals, symmetrical networks, even floating fragments.
Akihiko left the city at dawn. In his palm, the white root throbbed intermittently. Not out of weakness.
By synchronicity.
And on the horizon, a figure watched him from a snowy hill. It wasn't Serak. It wasn't Sora. It wasn't anyone he knew.
But it had a transparent root…
And he smiled.
END OF CHAPTER 123