The valley had gone quiet in a way that sound itself seemed afraid to exist.
Eris stepped forward.
Lysa grabbed his sleeve. "Before you do the heroic walking-into-cosmic-danger thing… any chance you have a strategy?"
"Yes."
"…Good."
"I'm going to see how close it lets me get."
"That is not a strategy. That is curiosity with consequences."
But she didn't let go.
Together, they moved down the slope.
The distortion in the air rippled as they approached, like invisible fabric stirred by a wind no one else could feel. The grass nearest to it had lost color, fading into pale outlines of itself, as if reality had been sketched there but never finished.
Eris felt a pull in his chest.
Not physical.
Foundational.
Like something was trying to remember him from before he had ever been born.
The golden glow under his skin brightened.
The distortion reacted.
It tightened.
Focused.
Lysa squinted at it. "I still can't see anything inside."
"You're not supposed to," Eris said.
"Comforting again."
They were ten steps away when the world stuttered—
—and Lysa vanished.
Eris spun.
"Lysa!"
No sound came from his mouth.
The air swallowed it.
He looked around wildly—
—and saw her.
Three paces to the left.
Frozen mid-step.
Color drained. Edges blurred. Like a half-erased drawing.
The distortion pulsed again.
Eris understood.
It wasn't attacking.
It was selecting.
Testing which parts of the world were safe to remove.
"No," he growled.
Power surged through him—not wild, not explosive, but deep. Ancient. The inheritance of the Clan of Seven answering a threat older than gods.
Light flared around his hand as he reached toward Lysa.
The moment his fingers brushed her shoulder—
The world snapped.
Sound crashed back in.
Color returned to her skin.
She stumbled forward, gasping. "I—I couldn't move! I couldn't even think!"
Eris pulled her behind him.
"It's isolating fragments of reality," he said. "Trying to pull them out cleanly."
"Like weeds?!"
"Yes."
"I do not want to be a cosmic weed, Eris!"
The distortion widened again.
This time, something inside shifted closer to the surface.
Not a creature.
Not a shape.
A boundary.
Like the edge of an existence that did not believe in matter, time, or life—pressing against a universe that did.
The air screamed without sound.
Eris stepped forward again.
Lysa grabbed him. "Are you sure you should be the one going closer?! It clearly has a special interest in you!"
"Yes," he said.
"That was not reassuring!"
Golden light now flowed visibly across his skin, forming faint markings—symbols older than language, glowing like memories waking up.
The distortion shuddered.
For the first time—
It reacted like something had touched it.
The pull in Eris's chest turned into resistance.
Two forces recognizing each other.
Opposites.
"You don't belong here," Eris said, voice steady despite the pressure crushing the air around him.
The distortion tightened, as if listening.
"This world has pain," he continued, "and death, and fear… but it also has choice. Growth. Change."
The presence pressed harder against reality's surface.
Hungry.
Cold.
Perfect.
"You don't understand any of that," Eris said. "You only understand absence."
The golden light flared brighter.
Behind him, Lysa shielded her eyes. "Okay, glowing ancient prophecy mode is officially active!"
Eris lifted his hand—
—and pushed.
Not with force.
With definition.
A wave of golden light spread outward, not burning, not breaking—declaring.
This is real.
This exists.
This stays.
The distortion recoiled.
The blankness inside it rippled violently, like a reflection shattered by a thrown stone.
A sound tore through the valley—
Not loud.
But absolute.
Like silence itself had screamed.
The tear in reality shrank.
Pulled inward.
Fighting.
Resisting.
But losing ground.
Eris dropped to one knee as the light drained from him.
Lysa caught him. "Easy! Easy!"
With one final pulse, the distortion collapsed into a thin line—
Then vanished.
The valley returned.
Color deepened. Wind moved. Birds cried out in distant trees like they had been released from a held breath.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Lysa looked at the empty space where the tear had been.
"…Please tell me we won."
Eris, still breathing hard, stared at the spot.
"No," he said quietly.
Far above them, beyond sight—
Something vast had noticed the resistance.
And for the first time…
It had felt something it did not understand.
Opposition.
Eris looked toward the distant mountains.
"It was only a probe," he said.
Lysa groaned softly. "I was afraid you'd say that."
He managed a tired smile.
"But now," he added, "it knows this world can fight back."