Far beneath the shattered halls of the Celestial Dome, Helios enacted the oldest forbidden rite left in the Triune Codex.
A command once sealed not by spell, but by consensus.
The Fracture Protocol.
Vault of Echoes – Midnight
Black crystal shards spun above an obsidian altar, glowing with unspoken memory. Around Helios, nine cloaked survivors of the Dome circled in silence. No words. Only intent.
Each bore a fragment of the Protocol—etched into their flesh, burnt into their bones.
Helios stood at the center.
"I am Helios," he intoned, "Warden of Order, Breaker of Memory. I offer my soul as witness, my wrath as sigil."
The altar flared.
A rift tore open.
On the other side… was nothing.
Not void.
Not death.
Unreality.
The Fracture.
Forgehouse - Council Chamber
Selene burst through the doors, a scroll clenched in her hand.
"Altharion. Something's wrong."
He looked up from the new city map. "Helios?"
She unrolled the scroll. Glyphs crawled across the page like insects.
"Intercepted transmission from the Dome. They're invoking the Protocol."
Altharion went still. "He wouldn't dare."
"He did."
Kael rushed in. "The leyfield's weakening. No natural cause. Something is… undoing it."
Duskfall - Streets Begin to Crack
Children screamed as walls warped, not from force, but from contradiction.
A statue of a forgotten hero shimmered, then collapsed—not physically, but conceptually.
Memories of it faded. People forgot the street it stood on.
Reality buckled.
Selene shouted orders. "Form memory wards! Protect the anchor-points!"
Altharion, teeth clenched, grabbed his broken staff.
"We face not destruction," he growled. "We face negation."
Lantern Spire - Top Floor
Kael and two young scribes fed raw memory into the Spire's core.
"We have to reinforce the weave," Kael said. "Or this city will cease to exist."
One scribe wept. "My sister… I just forgot her name."
Kael clenched his fists. "Then speak it. Sing it. Etch it in stone. Now."
Fracture Rift - Expanding
Helios stepped to the edge, windless and hollow.
The other cloaked figures fell to their knees, unraveling into ash. The Protocol required a toll.
He offered it freely.
"Let this world learn obedience. Let will be undone."
He raised a blade forged of mirrored memory and sliced his palm.
Blood struck the rift.
It pulsed.
The sky turned wrong.
Forgehouse - Altharion's Decision
Selene arrived breathless. "The last Seraphim—it's reacting."
Altharion's eyes widened. "To the Fracture?"
"It's humming with power. Not destruction—memory alignment."
He nodded. "Then it still remembers its true purpose."
He stood, weary but resolute. "I must enter the rift."
Kael gasped. "You'll die."
"No," Altharion replied. "I will remind it."
Sky - The Great Confrontation
As the Fracture widened, swallowing the stars, Altharion ascended one last time.
The last Seraphim followed, wings outstretched.
Helios stood on the other side, laughing, ragged, mad with purpose.
"You can't fight the end!" he screamed. "Unmake it all!"
Altharion stepped forward, Codex in hand, voice calm.
"I don't need to fight it. I just need to remember better than you forget."
He opened the Codex.
Memories surged forth.
Names.
Songs.
Pain.
Helios raised his blade.
The Seraphim spoke for the first time:
"We remember."
Then light consumed them all.