The smoke hadn't cleared yet.
But even through the haze, they saw it—
a ripple in the very air, like Eden itself had flinched.
Hiragi rose slowly. His body was intact, but his mind felt stripped—as if every lie he'd told himself had been scraped clean by the ritual.
"It's done," he muttered.
Ishigami stood a few paces back, notebook in hand, glasses cracked from stray void-bursts earlier.
Airi, still dazed, kept her gaze locked on Hiragi, her mouth trembling to speak—yet she didn't.
Not yet.
Because something else answered first.
From above, the sky screamed.
It wasn't thunder.
It was Eden.
The city. The code. The soul.
The sentient construct that had once kept the utopia running…
…was awakening again.
But this wasn't a peaceful reinitialization. It was agony. Glitches in the sky. Fragmented buildings reconstructing and tearing themselves apart mid-loop.
"You tore the dream," Ishigami said softly.
"Now it's trying to overwrite itself to compensate."
"So… what happens now?" Airi asked.
Hiragi looked up.
And saw roots descending from the heavens.
Digital tendrils, like corrupted vines of code, bleeding red as they slithered through the clouds.
"Eden's final defense system," Ishigami continued, flipping his notebook.
"Project: ROOT_00. It's trying to rebuild the core AI that governed this place."
A pause.
"But without a stable dream structure… it's going to go berserk."
Suddenly, they weren't alone.
The Hollow Monk reappeared.
His thousand faces twisted in sync, grinning, drooling, weeping, screaming—all at once.
"Ahh, the boy who slays dreams has awoken," he cooed.
"But now, what will you do, boy?"
"Will you let this place kill itself—or become its new god?"
Airi raised her weapon. Her fingers trembled.
"Don't listen to him, Hira. He feeds on collapse."
"Maybe," Hiragi answered flatly. "But he's not wrong."
He stepped forward.
Toward the roots.
Toward Eden's collapsing heart.
End of Chapter 67 – Eden Recoils. You thought it was over? No... This is where the Void begins to stare back."