Nora landed on her knees, gasping as though breath had just been invented. Her sword lay in her hand once more, its glow faint and fragile.
She looked around.
This place was unlike the cosmic loom. There were no stars, no rivers of threads. Instead, titanic roots coiled through the void, each the width of a mountain, glowing faintly with veins of light. They stretched endlessly, twisting into patterns too vast to comprehend, their surfaces etched with shifting glyphs that burned and faded like living script.
The air itself pulsed, carrying whispers not of words but of intent. She could feel it in her bones: this was older than the loom, older than any war. A realm beneath realms.
Something stirred.
From between the roots, a shape emerged—vast, yet deliberate, as though time itself bowed around it. It was neither shadow nor light, but both, braided together in spirals. Where the faceless being had worn galaxies, this one wore epochs. Ages bled across its form—civilizations rising and collapsing in endless cycles across its skin.
Its voice did not speak. It resonated.
“The fracture-point endures. Even in the void, the thread clung. Few have fallen so far and still remained.”
Nora pressed a trembling hand to the root beneath her. It thrummed like a heartbeat, deep and slow. She realized the truth then—these roots were not just supports. They were veins. She was standing within something alive.
And it was watching her.