The arch pulsed again, slow and steady, as though waiting for her heartbeat to align with its own. Nora’s chest burned with the weight of indecision. Behind her, the battlefield howled—screams, steel, fire, grief. Before her, the abyss of stars beckoned, vast and merciless.
She tightened her grip on the shifting sword.
Then—she stepped forward.
At once, the world inverted. There was no ground, no sky, no sense of up or down. She fell—or rose—through liquid darkness that shimmered like oil, a thousand colors writhing just beneath the surface. The arch collapsed behind her, yet its echo rang inside her bones.
Then stillness.
She stood upon nothing, yet her feet were steady. Around her spread a sea of stars—closer now, burning and whispering with voices of their own. She reached for one and felt it pulse against her palm like a heartbeat. Visions spilled out: people she had never met, places she had never seen, battles she had never fought. Each star was a world, alive with stories.
The figure from the threshold appeared again, but here it had no cloak. Its body was a silhouette filled with galaxies, its face a void where suns were born and died. Its voice was quieter now, though infinitely more present:
“You have crossed where few dare tread. You are not lost, but neither are you whole. Here, the Weave shows itself. Here, truth wears no mask.”
Nora swallowed. “Why me?”
The being extended a hand, and when she took it, fire and shadow surged through her veins. Images consumed her—threads of time stretching and breaking, roots coiling through worlds, armies of light and ash colliding in silence. She saw her own reflection multiplying, branching—hundreds of versions of herself across realities, some triumphant, others shattered, all staring back with the same question burning in their eyes.
“Because you are the fracture-point.” The being’s voice cracked like thunder across eternity. “Through you, the current of countless worlds converges. To step through the arch is to bear the weight of the unseen war.”
Nora gasped as the visions tore at her, burning with meaning she could not grasp. Her sword—still in her hand—flared brighter than the stars. It no longer felt like a weapon. It felt like a key.
The being leaned closer, its form flickering like a dying star.
“One path leads to salvation. The other, to collapse. Both are already written. You must choose which script to burn.”
The sea of stars surged around her, pressing closer, each whispering her name.
And she knew—stepping through the arch had not given her answers.
It had only placed the questions into her hands.