The capital was quiet.
Not in grief.
But rather in procedure.
Chains clinked once as Ryuji was brought to the platform. The sound echoed too cleanly across the stone courtyard of Caelthorn's lower tribunal square. A group of guards were positioned in an orderly arrangement, aligned carefully and formally. Nobles watched from the elevated balconies; People are deliberately keeping their facial expressions controlled, emotionless, and restrained.
The charges were read in a tone devoid of malice.
"Unauthorized entry into restricted chamber. Conspiracy against House Vareth. Treason."
Each word struck with bureaucratic finality.
No one mentioned what he had found inside the chamber.
No one mentioned the sealed relics, the forbidden archives, the documents bearing the ruin of altered fate. No one mentioned the names redacted from history.
House Vareth stood present.
Lord Aldren's expression did not waver.
Queen Seraphine's gaze did not lower.
Prince Caelum's eyes were unreadable; they were cold, assessing, and detached.
Ryuji didn't look at them for long.
He had already learned the truth.
Isolation was not accidental.
Witnesses had withdrawn with convenient memory losses.
Letters of defense had vanished in transit.
Allies had shifted allegiance in a span too precise to be a coincidence.
Order had been restored.
But he was the only one who had to pay the price.
A priest approached, offering final rites.
Ryuji said nothing.
He did not plead.
He did not proclaim innocence.
Hatred settled inside him like cooled iron; heavy and unyielding.
The executioner stepped forward.
Mana gathered faintly along the blade's edge. Wind blew without direction. The square felt subtly thinner, as though space tightened itself in that moment.
Somewhere in the crowd, a witness who had once spoken in his favor was absent.
The rotation schedule for the inner guard had shifted that morning.
A document regarding chamber clearance had been misplaced three nights prior.
Small adjustments.
Perfectly aligned.
The blade fell.
Sound vanished.
He felt no pain, only suffocating pressure.
As if the world attempted to fold him into silence, he felt his existence tightening to a breaking point as the air inside him crumbled.
But something resisted him from vanishing.
His consciousness didn't scatter.
His sense of self didn't dissolve.
His Core Resonance was in some way preserved.
Darkness opened up in size, then stopped.
A being that was both ancient and hostile watched him.
There was neither kindness nor cruelty.
Only Verification.
There was just one line marked in the emptiness:
Confirmed "Collapse Compatibility".
Continuity was severed.
His memories were flipped upside down.
The sky exploded into white.
Ryuji woke up to the sound of a baby's first cry.
It was the day of the birth of Prince Caelum.
The hatred he felt returned with him, along with his memories.
This time he won't disappear.