The air shimmered like glass under pressure. Darkness wasn't empty anymore; it was breathing. It trembled as if aware of its own existence, stretching thin where light began to bleed through.
They stood together—Atlas, Lara, Aurora, Merlin, Gabriel, Eli—on the threshold of something too vast to name. The Fourth Layer.
And in that layered dark, light began to stir.
Far away—like a heartbeat seen through smoke—a sword ignited.
White flame. Pure. Trembling.
Michael.
Atlas felt it before he saw it; the pulse of divinity hitting his chest like thunder trapped under ribs. That light wasn't gentle—it demanded, commanded, seared. Every instinct screamed to move toward it.
He raised his hand, voice rough from dust and disbelief. "Follow him!"
Their footsteps echoed hollow against a floor that wasn't quite solid, wasn't quite air. The darkness shifted under their feet as if they walked on the surface of a dream.
Each step should have closed the distance. It didn't.
