The canyon known as Delta-9 had no roads.
Only whispers.
Jagged cliffs formed its sides like the spines of dead titans, and beneath it, the land breathed—a slow, rhythmic pulse, as if Exarune's very heart beat beneath the stone.
Kael's team ran silently along a narrow ledge, wind howling past their ears, the thunder of approaching sky-skiffs echoing behind them.
Dren glanced back.
"Three squads. They're not slowing."
"Good," Kael said, not looking. "The field activates at the next bend."
Zarith was pale.
"You're sure about this?"
Kael's eyes were steady.
"The Interlace doesn't lie. Not to me."
Below, the valley floor cracked open—revealing massive glyphs carved into the rock, glowing faintly like veins of thought. Runes in patterns no one alive should understand.
But Kael did.
He felt them.
Tessia stopped.
"Here. The echo field starts here."
Kael turned to the others.
"Once we step in, you'll feel like you're being watched. That's the threadlayer. It reaches through time. Don't fight it. Just move."
Sera nodded.
"And the enemies?"
Kael raised his arm, palm glowing.
"They won't be able to tell which version of us they're chasing."
Then the first flare arced overhead—blue light from a scout team.
Runeblade had spotted them.
"Go!" Kael shouted.
They dove into the memory field.
Delta-9: Inner Fault Layer
The moment they crossed the boundary, the world fractured.
Colors twisted. The rocks shifted positions when no one looked. Shadows flickered where there was no light source.
And above them… the threadline pulsed again.
Red-gold. Watching.
Dren cursed.
"I see—us? Up ahead!"
Indeed, copies of them—echoes—flickered through the canyon, running a few meters ahead like projected ghosts.
"Those are our memory patterns," Kael said. "The ruin is rerouting time through observation."
Sera muttered,
"You mean we're bait, but we don't even know where we are."
Kael smiled grimly.
"Now you get it."
Behind them, the enemy entered.
A detachment of Crimson Vultures. Then Veinhold skiff-knights, descending by aerial spell arrays. Runeblade scouts surged in formation—three squadrons strong.
And all of them saw the same thing:
Kael's team.
Over and over.
In front. Behind. Above. Below.
"Multiple signals!" shouted one of the mages. "I—I can't lock on!"
A knight screamed as he slashed an echo that wasn't real—and was rewarded with a blade through the back by a real Tessia leaping from the shadows.
Chaos.
The canyon howled.
"Now," Kael said. "To the faultcore."
They moved.
Threadbound Emergence
The center of Delta-9 was a hollow where the land refused to obey geometry. Stairs folded into each other. Bridges led to nowhere. Floating stones orbited a massive core—
—a sphere of broken thought and rune-weave, suspended in threads.
Then it opened.
Not like a flower.
Like a jaw.
And from it, the Aberration spilled out.
It had no defined form. Limbs twisted and reformed like strands of thought unraveling. Its face—if it could be called one—was a smear of symbols, rearranging constantly.
Zarith fell to one knee.
"It's... made of rejected timelines."
Kael stepped forward, rune-marks glowing bright.
"It's a threadbound warden. The ruin's immune system."
The creature screamed, and three enemy scouts nearby were erased. Not killed—removed. Like their memory was untyped.
Kael's eyes narrowed.
"Everyone. Break formation. Don't think in patterns."
"Why—" Dren began.
"Because it feeds on predictability."
They scattered.
The Aberration lashed out—one limb twisting toward Tessia, who dove beneath a collapsing arch. Another swipe met Thorne's shield, cracking it in half but slowing the beast.
Sera threw a sigil charge.
"What kills it?"
"Nothing," Kael said. "But we can confuse it."
He raised his hand, channeling Interlace energy. His mind synced to the ruin's ambient logic.
And then—
Kael split.
Three illusions of him ran in different directions, all equally real, equally reactive.
The Aberration paused.
Hesitated.
Confused.
That was the moment.
"Strike its core!" Kael roared.
Sera, Dren, Tessia—all converged.
And with a synchronized blow, the core shattered.
The Aberration screamed as its body unravelled into thread, the sound like ancient code being deleted.
It didn't die.
It reset.
The threadline above blinked out.
And silence fell.
Aftermath
Kael dropped to one knee, breath ragged.
"They're getting smarter."
Sera helped him up.
"We just fought a concept. Not a beast."
Dren picked up a shard of broken threadcore. It shimmered, then faded.
Zarith touched the glyph-ring left behind.
"The ruin is waking up, Kael."
Kael stood, staring into the unravelled void left behind.
"Then we move faster."
He looked to the others.
"The Interlace isn't just watching now."
He clenched his fist.
"It's responding."
[ END OF CHAPTER 18 ]