The scream cut through the dead silence of the obsidian city like a serrated blade. It wasn't just a sound of fear; it was a sound of absolute, jagged ruin. It was the sound of a mind being flayed alive.

"Anna!"

I was on my knees beside her in an instant, my hands gripping her shoulders. The [Armory of the Ashen Soul] dissolved instantly, my combat instincts overwritten by pure, panicked fraternal terror. Beneath my palms, her body was convulsing. It wasn't a seizure; it was a full-body rejection of reality. She was thrashing, her muscles locked tight as steel cables, her eyes wide and staring at a horror that didn't exist in our timeframe.

"Get away! Get away!" she shrieked, her voice shredding raw. She scrambled backward, her nails scrabbling for purchase on the polished black stone, kicking out blindly. Her boot caught me in the chest, hard, but I didn't even feel it. "No more!"

"Anna, it's me! It's Eren!" I shouted, trying to project my voice through the wall of panic surrounding her. "You're safe. Look at me. You're right here."

She didn't hear me. She was trapped in a loop, her breathing coming in desperate, whistling gasps. "It's been so long… please… I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

The words hit me like physical blows. It's been so long.

We had been standing here for less than ten seconds.

"Eren," Arthur's voice was beside me, urgent but controlled. The clone knelt, his hand hovering over Anna's forehead. "Her soul… it's oscillating wildly. She's suffering from severe chronological displacement trauma. She's here, but her mind is reeling from a timeline that… snapped."

My blood ran cold. Her Rewind.

She had used it. My little sister, the brave warrior who had just flawlessly executed a squad of Tier 5 predators, had been forced to use her ultimate failsafe. The ability that rewound time by over two hours now.

But she was standing right here. She hadn't even taken a step toward the door. Which meant whatever had happened, whatever had broken her, must have happened inside.

"Rexxar! Defensive sphere, now!" I roared, my voice cracking with a fury directed entirely at myself. "Kaelen, close protection! Don't let anything near us!"

The giant leonine warrior slammed his claymore down, creating a shimmering dome of golden force around us. Kaelen whined, a high-pitched sound of distress, and nuzzled frantically against Anna's side.

I grabbed her hands, pinning them to her chest to stop her from clawing at her own face. I flooded my aura with the warmth of the [Phoenix Rebirth], focusing purely on the concept of Home, Hearth, and Safety. I tried to impose my Truth on her shattered reality.

"Anna, listen to me," I commanded, my voice low and vibrating with the power of a Sanctum Lord. "You are Anna Kai. You are at the base of the tower. You are with your brother. The threat is gone. You rewound it. You are not there anymore. You escaped."

The golden warmth of my mana seeped into her, fighting the cold terror gripping her heart. Slowly, agonizingly, the thrashing stopped. Her eyes, wide and bloodshot, darted frantically around the plaza before finally, mercifully, locking onto mine.

Recognition flickered, fragile as a candle in a hurricane.

"E… Eren?" Her voice was a whisper, rasping and dry, as if she hadn't used it in days.

"I'm here," I said, pulling her into a crushing embrace. She felt tiny, shivering so violently that her teeth chattered. "I've got you. You're back."

She collapsed against me, sobbing into my chest. It wasn't the cry of a child scared of the dark. It was the weeping of a survivor who had made it back from war, only to find the scars didn't fade.

"I was alone," she choked out, clutching my armor like it was the only solid thing in the universe. "I walked through the gate. Just one step. And then… you were gone. Everyone was gone. The door was gone."

"It's okay," I rocked her, smoothing her hair, my heart twisting with a vicious, acidic guilt. "You're okay. You're safe now."

"It wasn't seconds, Eren," she sobbed, burying her face deeper. "It was weeks. Or maybe months, in the dark. I couldn't… I couldn't see anything, but I could feel them. They were eating the memories. One by one. I forgot Mom's face first. Then Dad's. Then… then I couldn't remember your name. I just knew I was in pain, terrible, horrifying pain, and I was alone."

She pulled back, her eyes wild again. "I couldn't die. That was the worst part. I tried. I tried to make it stop, but it wouldn't let me. It kept me there. Suspended. Like… like a battery. I had to… I had to claw my way back to consciousness. It took everything just to remember I had a skill. Just to remember I was Anna."

I closed my eyes, swallowing the bile rising in my throat. While I was standing here admiring the architecture, she had lived a lifetime in hell.

"We are leaving," I stated, my voice made of absolute granite. I stood up, scooping her effortlessly into my arms. She didn't protest; she just curled into a ball against my chest. "Now. Rexxar, hold the rear. Arthur, guide us out. We are retreating to the tree line."

We moved with a speed born of desperation. I didn't care about stealth anymore. I dared the silent city to challenge us. My domain flared around us, a raging bonfire of Ashen flame, a warning to every shadow in this accursed place. Touch her again, and I will burn this entire reality to ash.

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We didn't stop until we had crossed the boundary, leaving the pristine black pavement for the messy, organic earth of the jungle. We pushed another half-mile in, finding a hollow beneath the roots of one of the titanic trees. It was defensible, enclosed, and most importantly, it was away from the tower. The sounds of the jungle — the distant shrieks of predators, the buzz of insects — felt incredibly grounding compared to the dead stillness of Va'lour.

"Make camp," I ordered.

Within minutes, a fire was crackling, fueled by jungle wood, smelling of smoke and sap. Rexxar stood at the entrance of the root-cave, an unmoving sentinel. Kaelen curled around Anna's feet, acting as a living heater. Arthur sat cross-legged, his eyes closed, maintaining a sensory web that stretched for miles.

I sat beside Anna, pressing a mug of heated nutrient tea into her hands. She took it, her hands still trembling slightly, but the manic terror had receded, replaced by a hollow, haunted exhaustion.

"I'm sorry," she whispered into the cup.

"Don't," I cut her off, harsher than I intended. I softened my voice, turning to face her fully. "Don't you dare apologize. You saved yourself. You used your head, and you used your power. You did exactly what a high-tier combatant does. You survived."

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, staring into the fire. "I'm the one who should be sorry, Anna. I got arrogant."

She looked at me, surprised. "Eren, you couldn't have known—"

"I should have suspected," I interrupted, the self-loathing bitter on my tongue. "Tier 6. Lord of a Sanctum. Administrator. The titles… they went to my head. I saw the portal, I felt the danger, and I treated it like just another dungeon run. 'Let's push our limits,' I said. Ignoring the risks, the fact that we know almost nothing of this violet essence."

I looked at her, seeing the dark circles under her eyes that hadn't been there an hour ago. "You're my sister. My job is to keep you alive, to protect you. I walked you right up to the mouth of a beast, and I didn't even realize it until you were already being chewed on."

Anna was quiet for a long time. She sipped the tea, the warmth seemingly helping to anchor her back in the present.

"It wasn't a beast, Eren," she said softly. "It was… a system. It felt like the System, our Prime System, but wrong. Sick. When I stepped through that gate… it didn't attack me physically. It attacked my concept of self. It isolated me."

She looked at the fire, her eyes reflecting the dancing flames. "I don't remember much, or how it made me feel that way, but I do remember some. It wanted me to despair. It wanted me to give up. It felt like it feeds on… submission. The moment you stop fighting and just accept that you're nothing. That's why I felt the pain. It was trying to break me down so I'd just… belong to it."

She shuddered. "If I hadn't had the affinity for 'Decision'... if my soul wasn't built around the concept of making choices… I don't think I would have been able to activate my Rewind. I would be in there right now. Forever."

"The Conqueror," I murmured, the name tasting foul. "That's what it called me. A system based on domination. On crushing the will."

I stood up and paced the small confines of our shelter. The pieces were clicking together, forming a picture I hated. This city wasn't abandoned. It was harvested. The people here hadn't left; they had been consumed, absorbed into that violet void in the tower. Their wills broken, their identities erased, leaving only pristine, empty shells behind.

And this thing was infecting other worlds. It was connected to the Spire network.

I looked back at the entrance of the cave, toward where the city lay hidden by the trees. My anger was a cold, dense thing in my chest. I wanted to leave. I wanted to open a portal right now, take Anna back to the Cradle, wrap her in blankets, and pretend this universe wasn't filled with horrors beyond comprehension.

But I couldn't.

Because if this thing was here, if it could connect to Spire portals… it could connect to ours. It could connect to Earth. Ignorance was no longer a shield; it was a death sentence.

"I have to see it," I said.

The silence in the cave was instantaneous. Anna's head snapped up, terror flashing back into her eyes. "No. Eren, no. You can't go back there. You didn't feel it. You're strong, but this thing… it doesn't care about strength. It cares about existence."

"I'm not going in physically," I said quickly, raising a hand to forestall her panic. I walked over and knelt in front of her again. "I promise you, Anna. I am not taking another step toward that city today. We are leaving as soon as I'm done. I'll use [Glimpse of a Path]. I can walk into that tower in a vision. If I die in the vision, I just snap back to reality with a headache at worst. It's safe. No risk to my body, no risk to my soul."

Arthur spoke up from his corner. "Be careful, Eren. Glimpsing a future involving a conceptual entity of this magnitude carries risks. Even a vision can convey psychic backlash, you saw what happened to Anna."

"I know," I said, not looking away from Anna. "But I can't walk away blind. We need to know what killed this civilization. We need to know what we're fighting. If I don't look now, while we're here, we might never get another chance to understand this threat. Maybe this thing, whatever it is, is connected to The Static the Kyorians are so worried about."

Anna stared at me. I could see the war in her eyes — the terrified sister I haven't seen in so long, the sister who wanted to run, but the pragmatist who knew I was right won. She took a ragged breath, setting her mug down with a trembling hand.

"You swear," she said, her voice fierce. "You swear that the second it goes wrong, the second you feel it take over, you sever your Glimpse and come back."

"I swear on the Veiled Path," I said solemnly. "I just need to see what's behind that door. I need to know the face of the monster that hurt you."

She held my gaze for a long moment, then nodded once, stiffly. "Okay."

I moved to the other side of the fire, creating a bit of space. I sat in a meditative posture, Rexxar looming over me like a mountain, his presence a comfort.

I closed my eyes and centered myself. I reached inward, past the humming mana of my core, past the warm gold of my Ashen bloodline, finding the abstract, shifting mechanism of my precognition.

I visualized the path. Me, standing up. Leaving the cave. Walking back through the jungle. Crossing the line into the silence. Walking up the obsidian street. Climbing the stairs to the tower. Reaching out for that sealed, glyph-covered door.

I took a deep breath, steeling my mind against what was to come.

Show me, I commanded the skill. Show me the path where I open the door.

[Glimpse of a Path]

The world of the cave — the smell of woodsmoke, the sound of insects, Anna's worried breathing — vanished instantly.

I was back in the plaza.

In the vision, I was alone. The silence of Va'lour pressed against my ears, heavy as water. The central tower loomed above me, the violet resonance no longer a whisper but a thrumming vibration that made my teeth ache. It felt… inevitable.

I walked toward the massive double doors. Up close, the glyphs were nauseating to look at. They didn't stay still; they writhed like worms under the skin of the stone. They were telling a story of absolute surrender.

I didn't hesitate. In this vision, I needed to see it, whatever it is.

I gathered my Tier 6 mana, cloaking myself in a mantle of Flame, prepared to burn my way through. I placed my hand on the cold, black metal of the gate.

Open.

With a grinding sound that echoed like a scream across the dead city, the gates parted.

And I stepped into the violet dark.

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