Night covered Bali Kumbat like a slow curtain falling over a giant stage. The chrome city lights glowed silver-white. The paradise forests glowed moon-green. The two worlds looked peaceful, but the sky above them was not the same.
Far beyond sight, a star cracked.
It did not explode like fire. It split like glass, clean, sharp, silent — and then it fell.
Salemadon looked up just in time. The Gemini constellation above him shimmered brighter than normal. Then one star detached itself and dropped toward the world like a spear of light.
He jumped forward, Threads spinning out from his ceremonial armor.
The first star hit the paradise side. The ground did not burn. Instead, the soil rose upward like water, forming a giant wave of earth that climbed into the sky. Trees bent sideways, floating in the air, leaves spinning like rain frozen in time.
The second star fell toward the chrome city. The metal streets melted upward like mirrors, forming huge silver ramps that bent into loops, twisting cars, buildings, and street signs into floating sculptures of chrome.
People screamed — not from heat, but from the impossible motion around them.
Salemadon sprinted toward the center line between both realities. His Threads burst outward, catching flying chrome shards and floating trees, holding them in midair like strings suspending a world-sized puppet show.
Then the third star fell.
This one aimed for the village itself.
Salemadon dropped to one knee and slammed his palm onto the platform. Threads shot out like roots and spread across both worlds. The platform turned into a white glowing circle that stretched wide enough to cover the entire village.
The star hit.
BOOM — but not fire. Not smoke.
A ring of white light blasted outward like sound made visible. The ground rippled in slow motion, like a movie moment stretched too long. Houses lifted gently into the air, spinning without breaking. The air hummed like vibrating glass. Time itself felt thin, pulled tight like fabric.
Salemadon struggled. The Threads were reacting, but this time they were not listening fast enough. The stars were not attacking to kill. They were testing to transform.
Maweh's whisper reached him again, gentle but urgent:
"Not strength. Pattern. Answer with shape, not force."
Salemadon opened his eyes. They glowed brighter, reflecting the star rings around him. He raised both hands and let the Threads flow in circles, copying the energy rings instead of fighting them.
The Threads began to glow blue-white like a movie energy effect, but softer. The lattice reshaped itself into a massive symbol in the air — something never written before, a moving thread-map that looked like a living machine of spinning stars, ground, and energy loops.
The falling stars paused mid-air, spinning slowly above him like judges considering a verdict.
Salemadon whispered, barely audible:
"Then let me answer you properly."
He spread the Threads again, but not as a shield. This time they formed reality harnesses — giant soft nets that matched the shape of each star's energy pulse.
One Thread spiral turned into a ramp that guided floating houses back down gently.
Another turned into a circulating wind tunnel that redirected spinning leaves into rain that fell normally again.
Another formed magnetic loops that pulled the chrome sculptures back into solid streets without destroying them.
The stars hummed louder, like cosmic approval.
Then the sky split again — horizontally this time — like a film scene cut. A red glow appeared across the fracture line, forming words written in light, not letters, not sound.
"You learn by watching. Next time, learn before you move."
The message flashed once, then vanished.
The stars faded back into the sky. The ground slowly returned to normal. Houses landed gently. Cars dropped without damage. Waterfalls continued falling.
Silence followed. A Great Silence, heavy, meaningful, and observing.
Salemadon stood, breathing hard but calmer now. His Threads retreated, coiling around his ceremonial armor like a cape-shaped crown, recognizing that he had passed the test by thinking with rhythm instead of fear.
The villagers watched him again. They still did not know who he was. But they now knew one thing:
The sky itself had tested someone in their world — and the world had survived.
Maweh said nothing more. She stayed faint, hidden, silent — still not a mother to him in his knowledge, but a guide shaping his steps from afar.
Salemadon looked up again at Gemini and whispered:
"I hear you now, universe. But next time… warn me before you break the sky."
The wind hummed gently around him. The Threads answered softly.
And far above, a star shimmered twice — like a quiet laugh.
"When stars fall, they don't burn. They rewrite the ground they land on."
"The stars had fallen. The test had spoken. And Salemadon walked away knowing: the sky does not burn its chosen. It trains them."