The rain over Veyrith Pass did not fall.
It hung in the air like crystal threads, trembling, as if the sky itself had forgotten how motion worked.
Viridion stepped through the stillness. His boots pressed into the frost-cracked path without making a sound. The air tasted of iron and equations—dry numbers scraping against the back of his mind. Somewhere, behind the frozen curtain of rain, something waited.
The paradox had awakened.
The Mountains That Shouldn't Exist
From a distance, the Irkhal Peaks were only mountains—vast, serrated giants of stone and snow. But up close, they betrayed their lie. Every slope folded into itself, ridges curled into spirals that should not have met, and horizons bent backward. You could walk toward a summit for hours, only to find you had circled behind yourself without ever turning around.
People avoided these mountains for good reason. A paradox lived here.
But Viridion wasn't here to avoid it.
His left hand rested on the hilt of his Segment Blade, a weapon forged to cut through layered space. His right hand gripped a worn leather-bound journal—its pages filled with diagrams, notations, and names crossed out in uneven strokes. He didn't notice his own jaw clenching.
He was thinking of her again.
The First Fracture
The sound came like a shattering clock — every tick breaking into ten more. Rain shattered midair into a thousand hovering droplets.
Then it stepped out.
The paradox-beast had no name, only a shape that refused to hold. Sometimes it was a stag made of glass numbers, sometimes a serpent of bent staircases. Its body rearranged with every blink, never repeating a form.
A Zeno-type manifestation. The kind that would cross any distance in infinite smaller steps… yet never reach you.
Viridion tightened his grip on the Segment Blade. Count the halves. Break the sequence before—
A voice cut through his thoughts.
"You're holding it wrong."
Viridion spun.
A tall man stood behind him, long coat brushing against the frozen raindrops without disturbing them. His hair was the color of untouched paper, his eyes carrying the stillness of an unsolved equation.
"I— Who are you?" Viridion asked.
"Oriven." No family name. Just the word, as if it were both answer and test.
The beast's hooves — or stair-edges — clattered on empty air, closing in. Viridion shifted his stance.
"Stay behind me," Oriven said. His tone wasn't commanding. It was… inevitable.
Viridion didn't move. "I can fight."
"You can swing," Oriven corrected. His blade — a slender length of steel etched with spiraling numbers — appeared in his hand without transition. "Fighting is different."
The Battle
The beast lunged.
Oriven stepped once. Just once. Yet the space between him and the creature stretched like pulled thread, forcing it to take an infinite chain of half-steps it could never finish.
"First lesson," Oriven said, voice calm against the shuddering geometry. "You don't defeat a Zeno-type by speed. You defeat it by denying the idea of arrival."
His blade cut the air in a single arc. Not at the beast — but at the gap between its movements. The cut held there, a thin seam of light, and when the creature tried to cross it, part of its body failed to render.
Viridion's instincts screamed to rush in, finish it. But Oriven's gaze pinned him still.
"Second lesson. A paradox is not a wound you close. It's a statement you refuse to let the world resolve."
The beast twisted into a staircase that rose into itself. Oriven shifted his grip, the runes on his blade rearranging mid-swing. His strike sliced not across space, but across possibility. The creature collapsed into uncountable fragments, each smaller than thought, and vanished.
The rain fell again. Motion returned.
Oriven turned to Viridion, sheathing his blade with a movement so precise it looked rehearsed by the universe itself.
"Third lesson," he said. "You think you came here to hunt it. But you came here because it would teach you. Paradox always does."
(Aftermath Scene)
The rain slid off Viridion's coat in thin, uneven streams. The sound was almost ordinary again. Almost.
The mountains still folded on themselves at the edges of his vision, like a thought he couldn't finish.
Oriven stood a few paces ahead, blade resting loosely at his side. He didn't look at the spot where the beast had dissolved. He looked at Viridion — as if the fight had only been a preface.
"You hesitated," Oriven said.
Viridion tightened his jaw. "I was calculating"
"Wrong calculation." Oriven stepped closer, his boots leaving no imprint on the frost. "You were deciding whether you should be afraid. Fear is irrelevant. The only question is: Does the sequence complete?"
Viridion's fingers flexed against the leather binding of his journal. "And if it does?"
"Then you no longer exist to regret it." Oriven's tone was almost casual. "Paradox doesn't kill in the way you understand. It erases the you that reached the answer."
A droplet of water rolled down Viridion's temple. He wasn't sure if it was rain or sweat. "You knew what it was the moment it appeared."
Oriven tilted his head toward the peaks. "The Irkhal Range produces them. Zeno-types, mostly. A byproduct of unfinished geologies and forgotten equations. The locals keep their distance." He studied Viridion for a moment. "You didn't."
"I had a reason," Viridion said, more defensive than intended.
"A person," Oriven guessed. Not a question.
Viridion didn't answer.
"You carry her in your posture," Oriven continued. "In your reluctance to commit the cut. You're not here for knowledge or survival. You're here to find the fracture she fell through."
The words landed heavier than the rain.
Viridion's hand tightened on the journal until the leather creaked.
"She's not dead," he said.
"Dead?" Oriven's eyes were sharp, but not unkind. "No. That would be simple. She's unfinished. Which is worse."
They stood in silence for a moment, the sound of dripping water breaking against the mountain's bent horizon.
Finally, Oriven turned away, walking toward a path that seemed to loop into itself.
"You want answers, Viridion. You'll get them. But you'll need more than a blade and stubbornness. You'll need to think in contradictions until they stop feeling wrong."
Viridion followed, his steps slower, but steady. "And you'll teach me?"
Oriven didn't look back. "I'll teach you enough to know when to stop asking."