Beneath the rotting heavens, Ascheritt walked alone.

  The landscape had changed again—not by will, but by consequence. With each step he took, reality bent to accommodate what should not exist. Trees with roots that grew upward like skeletal fingers clawed at a blood-soaked sky. Lakes reflected stars that no longer shone. Time ticked in reverse beneath his shadow.

  This place was a scar—a realm untouched by order or chaos. Forgotten by the gods. Denied by history.

  A world that should not be.

  Ascheritt paused at the crest of a hill made of rusted chain-links and shattered memorials. In the distance, he saw it—a city suspended upside down above a black sea, tethered only by streams of static and crumbling prayer. It pulsed like a dying heart.

  The Citadel of Refrain.

  Somewhere within, truths lay buried. Not just of the world, but of himself. The Watcher had said little before vanishing, but Ascheritt remembered one thing clearly:

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  "If you want answers, find the one who weeps beneath the citadel. The one even gods forgot."

  As he descended, memories whispered—fragments not his own. Screams. Chains. A lullaby sung to a child never born. It was unclear whether the world itself was grieving or he was simply remembering what had never happened.

  The citadel grew closer, and with it, so did the presence of her.

  She watched from the edge of non-existence.

  Perched on a twisted cathedral spire, a girl in white. Pale skin. Hair like starlight that had forgotten how to shine. Eyes dim, but infinite. She looked at him not with fear… but with recognition.

  Ascheritt froze.

  He didn’t know her.

  And yet—she knew him.

  The girl smiled faintly, then vanished into mist as the wind screamed her name—a name Ascheritt couldn’t yet hear.

  He stepped into the breach, and the air grew thin.

  Inside the Citadel of Refrain, silence ruled. Not peace—absence.

  Of time. Of judgment. Of divine eyes.

  And buried within its core, something pulsed with a rhythm that didn’t belong in any world.

  Ascheritt approached the heart of it all.

  And something within him stirred.

  Not anger. Not fear.

  Familiarity.

  Like he was returning home to a place he never should’ve known.