"You cannot bury dreams. You only delay their awakening."— Fragmented Scripture, Volume V
The Threshold
The gate did not open.It unraveled.
Threads of space peeled away like a spider's cocoon, and the Traveler stepped into a realm where the sky pulsed like a heartbeat and the ground was stitched from memory.
Elen gasped.The stars here wept sideways, dripping in reverse into a distant sea made entirely of whispering skulls.
"Where… are we?" she asked, her voice barely a thought.
"We've passed into the Dreamtomb," Cael whispered."Where every fallen god is buried... and every regret is alive."
The Dreamtomb
It wasn't a tomb in the traditional sense.
It was a city of spiraling monoliths—each one thousands of feet tall, engraved with living runes that shifted when you looked away. Shadows moved without light. Bells rang where there were no towers.
But the most terrifying part?
Every building breathed.
The tomb itself was not just a monument. It was a god's corpse.
"We're standing on the remains of Vahl'Zir—the Dream-Eater," Cael said."He was slain during the Age of Collapse… but his mind still stirs."
As they walked deeper, Cael could feel it.
Thoughts that weren't his.Feelings that didn't belong.
One whispered,
"Why did you choose to forget her?"Another:"She still waits beneath the mirrors."
Elen suddenly froze.
Her reflection in a nearby pool of mercury smiled back at her.
"That's not me," she whispered.
"It's what you could have been," Cael said grimly. "This place reflects the paths never walked."
The Mirror Prince
They saw him from a distance—standing atop the ribs of a sleeping colossus.
A boy.No older than thirteen.Barefoot.Wearing tattered royal robes and a crown of thorns.
His face…It wasn't a face at all.It was a mirror.
And in that mirror—Cael saw himself.
Not as he was now.But as he had once been.
The scared boy who watched his village burn.
The boy who chose to forget.The boy who let her die.
"Do you know me?" the child's voice echoed like shattering glass.
"You're my failure," Cael said.
"No," the child answered."I am your reflection.The version of you that chose to survive without guilt.Without sacrifice.Without... love."
The First Clash
The Mirror Prince raised a single hand.
And the tomb itself shivered.
Thousands of shadows leapt from the ruins—memory wraiths, malformed versions of Elen and Cael from twisted timelines. One bore Elen's face but wore black chains of fire. Another had Cael's body but eyes that glowed red with cruelty.
They attacked.
"Elen—don't let them touch your shadow!"
"Why?!"
"Because they'll overwrite it!"
They fought through illusions and horrors—slashes of blade and bursts of etheric force lighting up the crumbling city.
Cael summoned the Shardblade—but now it burned white, not silver.
Elen raised her hand—and dreamlight poured from her veins, her dreammark evolving, fracturing, reforming.
"Cael… I can see them."
"See what?"
"The paths that could have been. All of them."
"Don't look too long," he said, panting. "The more you see, the more real they become."
The Mirror Fractures
The Mirror Prince began to descend, hovering above the tomb's core—a spiraling pit of forgotten gods. Every step he took warped the world.
"I am not your enemy," he whispered."I am your freedom."
"Lies."
"I am who you would've been… if you hadn't loved her."
"Then I'm proud to be your opposite."
With that, Cael leapt.
The two clashed mid-air—Shardblade against mirrored arm. Each impact shattered part of the tomb. Echoes screamed. Time buckled.
And the Mirror Prince laughed.
"Kill me, and you kill your innocence."
"Spare me, and I become your god."
"So what will it be, Traveler?"
Cael snarled.
"Neither."
He raised his hand—and summoned not a weapon…But a memory.
A moment he had forgotten:Him holding Elen's hand.Telling her he'd protect her—even if the stars burned for it.
He turned it into light.
And drove it into the Mirror Prince's chest.
The boy shattered.
Not into blood or dust…
But reflections.
A thousand shards of "what-if," screaming as they flew into the void.
The Tomb Opens
With the Mirror Prince gone, the core of the Dreamtomb yawned open.
A stairway of silver bones descended into nothingness.
At the bottom, something waited.
A throne.
Empty.
But upon it was carved a name:
The First Dreamer.
And next to it, a final inscription:
"The world ends not in fire or silence... but in awakening."