The fortress city of Drelith had always prided itself on being untouchable. Its walls rose so high they cut into the clouds, its soldiers clad in steel so polished they gleamed like statues. The streets beneath bustled with vendors, mercenaries, and lords who whispered politics as if the world's fate was theirs to write.
Then the ground trembled.
At first, people thought it was thunder. A distant quake, perhaps. But the tremor didn't fade—it pulsed. A rhythm. A heartbeat that rattled cups in taverns and shook swords on the walls.
The bell tower in the center of Drelith began to shudder. Its great bronze bell, centuries old, split down the middle with a screeching crack that echoed across the city. The tower crumbled, stone collapsing into the square below, crushing stalls and scattering panicked citizens like insects.
And in the dust that rose, crimson threads flickered—thin as hair, sharp as razors. They weren't seen by most. But those with even the faintest spark of resonance felt them against their skin like invisible needles.
Far beneath the city, Yurin stood in silence. His eyes glowed faintly as his threads stretched through the fissures, piercing upward into the world above. The collapse echoed in his chest like a song only he could hear.
"So fragile," he whispered. "The proud walls of Drelith, undone by the pulse of inevitability."
His threads writhed outward, tasting the chaos above. Screams. Steel clashing as soldiers tried to restore order. The prayers of priests who didn't know their gods were powerless against this kind of fracture.
Yurin tilted his head, listening deeper. It wasn't just the city. The tremor had spread beyond it, rippling through villages, shaking farmhouses, cracking the stones of old shrines. Not enough to annihilate—not yet. But enough to warn.
He closed his eyes. "They will look upward to the heavens for answers. They will curse their gods, blame their kings, sharpen their blades against one another. And all the while, the fissures will swell. Until nothing remains to distract them."
A voice stirred in the fissure around him. Not the Architect's full weight, but a murmur of it, sliding like ice along his spine.
You destroy their faiths to replace them with your own?
Yurin's threads coiled like serpents, yet his voice remained calm. "I replace nothing. I reveal what already lies beneath. If they worship, they will worship survival. And in survival, they will bow to power. Power I will give them… through me."
The voice hissed amusement. You believe yourself their savior, yet you are only a crack in the stone. When the Vessel rises, even your threads will snap.
Yurin smiled faintly. "Perhaps. But by then, my design will already be woven into her. Into Clara. Into everything."
He released his threads from the fissure walls. Above, the tremors ceased. Drelith lay in ruin, but not completely destroyed—only marked, scarred. A taste of what was to come.
Yurin adjusted his cloak, his crimson gaze turning inward. The city's chaos was just a fragment of the loom he had begun. Soon, every kingdom would tremble in rhythm with the Architect's pulse. But they would not see the Architect. They would see him.
The thought stirred something darkly satisfying in his chest. Not joy—he had forgotten what joy truly felt like—but certainty.
He began walking deeper into the labyrinth of fissures. Each step was deliberate, threads anchoring into stone behind him. Sigils bloomed like crimson flowers in his wake, burning faintly before sinking into the rock.
The further he walked, the louder the hum became. The Architect's presence pulsed in the distance, vast and patient. Waiting. Watching.
And though his face remained expressionless, his words were edged with quiet defiance.
"Wait all you like. Watch all you like. When she reaches you, she will not kneel."
The fissures trembled, as if the Architect's laughter rolled through them. Yet Yurin did not waver. His steps carried him forward into the dark, toward a place even his threads could not fully map.
Toward the Architect's sleeping heart.