The first crack appeared three heartbeats after Lucien fell.
Kael remembered it with cruel clarity—a thin, radiant fracture slicing across the reliquary floor, right where Lucien's blood had pooled. It glowed faintly blue, as if reality itself had been scored open. Kael had knelt, fingers brushing the edge. The break felt too smooth. Too precise. Like it had been carved not by steel, but something far sharper.
The System's warning had been brief:
[Sanctum Breach: Stage 1]
[Location: Primary Containment Grid #7]
[Recommendation: Observe]
He'd chosen differently.
Act I: Deliberate Corruption
Kael's private experiment log, recovered from the estate archives:
Day 1:
• Introduced Lucien's blood to select fracture points
• Resonance observed: consistent pulses every 3.33 seconds
• Maw's whispers clearer in proximity to Grid #7
Day 3:
• Sacrificed a captured Church operative
• Blood formed hovering silver triangles before evaporating
• System response:
[ERROR: Containment Parameters Invalid]
Day 7:
• Orchestrated Lyra's arrival via planted prophecies
• Saints are drawn to unstable timelines
• Preparing for controlled breach
Orlan had watched with wax tears staining his parchment-thin cheeks.
"You're not just studying it," he'd whispered.
"You're feeding it."
Kael hadn't denied it.
Act II: The Fracture Sequence
The night Lyra died, Kael recorded everything.
1. Initial Breach (11:13 PM):
• Lyra's crystalline heart resonated with Grid #7
• West wing of estate aged a century in ten seconds
• Three servants died seeing their own skeletons
2. Secondary Effects (11:27 PM):
• Mirrors reflected alternate timelines
• Kael's crown began dripping backward—liquid flowing into the air
• Orlan's third eye ruptured, molten wax spelling out coordinates
3. Critical Failure (11:59 PM):
• A singularity manifested in the reliquary
• Suspended void droplets froze in time, unmoving
• The System displayed:
[Welcome Home]
Act III: The Sleeper's Eye
What Kael saw when he stepped through the breach:
• The Vault's True Purpose: Not a prison, but a cradle
• The Last King's Corpse: Encased in crystal, jaw unhinged in a silent scream
• The Guardian's Face: His own—but the eyes were hollow, weeping liquid time
The vision lasted precisely 33 seconds.
When it ended, he was thrown backward—back into the reliquary. The void-drops shattered in midair, as if struck by soundless glass. From each shard spilled three things:
1. A fragment of the dead king's final memory
2. A whisper from the Maw:
"Finish what he started."
3. A single silver needle, suspended where Kael's heart should be
He did not bleed.
Final Frame
Some doors should never be opened.
Some shouldn't even exist.