"Do not misunderstand," Vorta said, eyes narrowing slightly as if he'd heard my thoughts. "Affection from an Emperor War Beast is not trivial."
My pride deflated like a punctured balloon.
"It is not because you are charming," he continued.
"Okay, rude," I muttered.
Nico snorted.
"It is because you resonate," Vorta said.
That made pause.
"Resonate how?"
"With the cores."
The word landed heavy.
"The Leyline cores?" I asked.
"Yes."
The hum beneath us surged faintly in response.
"You carry its mories," Vorta said. "The fragnts that integrated with your soul."
Right.
That.
The cosmic USB drive I accidentally installed.
"So you're saying I'm basically a walking hotspot?" I said weakly. "Free Wi-Fi for world-ending monsters?"
Nico laughed despite himself. "That's… not the worst analogy."
Vorta ignored us.
"The Emperor War Beasts are not loyal to individuals. They are loyal to power. To resonance. To sothing that mirrors their origin."
"And I mirror… what exactly?" I asked.
"Continuity," he replied.
The word sank deep.
"You are not destruction," he continued. "Nor pure creation. You are stabilization."
The hum below steadied, as if affirming.
I didn't know whether to feel honored or horrified.
Stabilization.
That ant responsibility.
That ant if I cracked, sothing else might too.
"So," I said slowly, "if Kaleon is fighting the Stragglers at the border… and the Fragnt Realm is pushing harder… and Leyline fragnts are appearing because of pressure from the other side…"
Nico's jaw tightened.
"Then the border is weakening," I finished.
"Yes," Vorta said.
A tremor rippled through the chamber.
Not violent. Subtle.
Like sothing knocking from very far away.
We all felt it.
Nico's eyes flicked upward. "That wasn't normal."
"No," Vorta agreed.
The hum beca uneven.
My skin prickled.
And suddenly the mory of the fragnts—of them appearing unpredictably, violently—felt less like random anomalies and more like stress fractures.
Like cracks in a dam.
"If the Fragnt Realm breaks through," I said quietly, "what happens?"
Nico didn't answer imdiately.
When he did, his voice had lost all theatrics.
"They don't invade," he said. "They overwrite."
Overwrite.
As in replace.
As in erase-and-install.
My stomach dropped.
"They are Ruin refined," Vorta said. "Not re monsters. They consu Leylines. They distort laws. Ecosystems collapse. Magic destabilizes. Sentience fractures."
I pictured Mythica's forests withering. The Dragonling Den going silent. Princess's ridiculous tiara lying in ash.
My chest tightened painfully.
"No," I whispered.
Nico looked at sharply.
And sothing shifted inside .
Because this wasn't abstract anymore.
This wasn't lore.
This was my second ho.
These creatures—chaotic, dramatic, occasionally diva-tier dragons—they were mine to protect.
I straightened slowly.
"So Kaleon's holding the border," I said. "And I'm… what? The backup battery?"
"You are the anchor," Vorta corrected.
"That sounds worse."
"It is heavier," he agreed.
I exhaled slowly.
"Okay. Hypothetically," I said, forcing logic into my voice, "if the border weakens further… can it be reinforced?"
Silence.
Then Vorta spoke.
"Yes."
Hope flared—small but alive.
"How?"
He t my gaze.
"By strengthening the core."
Of course.
And who was currently bonded to a fragnt of that core?
.
I rubbed a hand down my face.
"Please tell this doesn't involve diving into so cosmic blender."
Nico gave a sideways look. "Define blender."
I groaned.
But beneath the dread, sothing else stirred.
Resolve.
Because if the Fragnt Realm was pressing harder…
If Kaleon was fighting alone at the borderlines…
Then eternal slumber wasn't rest.
It was warfare without a body.
And if he fell—
No.
I didn't let the thought finish.
The Leyline beneath us pulsed again.
Stronger this ti.
Like a heartbeat quickening.
Vorta's wings flickered into partial manifestation—shadowed feathers cutting through the chamber's light.
"It begins to stir," he murmured.
"What begins to stir?" I asked.
His eyes lifted—not to the ceiling, but beyond it.
"The pressure."
And sowhere deep beneath us, sothing answered.
A distant, grinding sound.
Like stone shifting.
Like glass cracking.
Like a mirror under strain.
My heart pounded in rhythm with the Leyline's pulse.
Stabilization.
Continuity.
Anchor.
Titles I never applied for.
But here I was.
Carl. Zoology graduate. Caretaker of mythical creatures. And now, Interim Owner of Mythica realm.
I swallowed.
"Alright," I said, forcing my voice steady. "Then we don't let it break."
Nico's gaze sharpened.
Vorta's manifestation wings stilled.
"How?" Nico asked quietly.
I felt the core's resonance within respond—faint warmth spreading through my chest.
"If Kaleon's fighting at the border," I said, "then we reinforce from this side."
The hum deepened.
"And if the Fragnt Realm wants to overwrite Mythica?"
I lifted my chin.
"Then it's going to have to get through first."
The Leyline flared.
And for the briefest second—
I felt sothing press back.
Not from below.
From beyond.
A presence.
Watching.
Waiting.
Hungry.
The border was thinning.
And whatever lived on the other side…
Had noticed .
"Oh no," I breathed, the sensation prickling along my spine sharpening into sothing unmistakable. "I think it noticed . Quick—tell where the core node is."
The words tumbled out too fast, tripping over each other.
For a heartbeat, neither of them moved.
Then Vorta lifted his hand.
No chant. No dramatic flourish. Just a precise, economical motion of his fingers.
The air split.
It didn't tear like fabric. It parted like water displaced by sothing imnse. A vertical seam of light unfurled in front of us, edges shimring in hues too complex for a single color—azure bleeding into violet, streaks of molten gold threading through the rift.
A portal.
Stable. Controlled. Silent.
"Follow ," Vorta said evenly. "Right this way."
The casualness of that statent nearly gave whiplash.
The portal looked eerily familiar.
The last ti I'd conjured sothing like it, I'd been half-panicking, half-dying, and one hundred percent unsure for what I was doing. Agnos barged with questions, Jiuge had been in a dazed, and Heim—
Heim had his face smacked by one of Jiuge's tails.
And above us, the Eternal Prison guardian beast had been tearing reality apart like tissue paper.
The portal I made back then had felt unstable—like holding a live wire wrapped in prayer.
This one felt different.
This one felt… obedient.
The Leyline beneath us throbbed again. Harder.
A pressure wave rippled through the chamber, knocking loose faint dust from the vaulted ceiling. Nico stiffened.
"That knock wasn't polite," he muttered.
"Carl," Vorta said sharply.
Right. Focus.
I stepped forward.
The edge of the portal humd as I approached. Not loud—more like the resonance of a wineglass singing when brushed by a fingertip. The air around it tasted tallic, charged. My skin prickled.
I glanced once at Nico.
He rolled his tiny shoulders. "If this turns into another near-death sprint, I'm billing you."
"Put it on my tab," I shot back automatically, though my pulse was sprinting.
Then I stepped through.
—
The sensation of transit was different from before.
When I had forced the fragnt to rip open space in the Eternal Prison, it felt like falling sideways into cold, uncharted water.
This—
This felt like being threaded through a needle's eye.
The world compressed into a narrow corridor of light. My body didn't move so much as reassemble one inch forward at a ti. For a fraction of a second, I felt aware of things beyond the passage—vast, distant pressures brushing the edges of the tunnel.
Sothing scratched along the outer mbrane of the transit path.
Not physically.
Conceptually.
I clenched my jaw.
Don't look. Don't think about it.
The corridor narrowed further—
Then released.
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