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Chapter 12 - (Part II: Echoes in the Core)

Haraza followed Tarsis down the spiraling path of light, the glaive strapped across his back, its weight oddly comforting in this foreign place. The further they descended, the more surreal the surroundings became. Gears rotated silently through space without touching, suspended by unseen forces. Veins of silver light ran across vast machines shaped like constellations, each emitting a hum so deep it could be felt in the bones.

("Is this all part of the Rift?") Haraza asked. ("This… machine-world?")

Tarsis nodded without turning. ("The Sanctum is both within and without. It is the Rift's memory. Its blueprint. When a world is born from the Rift, it begins here.")

("That doesn't make sense," )Haraza muttered. ("I've seen forests. Castles. Cities. Not… this.")

("Most never see it,") Tarsis said. ("You passed beyond a gate few ever reach. The Vault saw potential in you—and the Rift responded.")

They came to a platform shaped like a sigil, floating above a basin of spinning golden rings. Tarsis gestured to the center, where a crystalline pedestal pulsed with rhythmic light.

("This is the Core of Remembering. Step forward. Place your hand on it.")

Haraza hesitated.

He had touched enough mysterious artifacts for one lifetime.

But something in him stirred again—the Rift inside—and he moved forward.

When his hand touched the crystal, the world changed.

He stood in another place.

Not the Sanctum.

Not any world he knew.

A battlefield beneath a green sky.

Dozens—no, hundreds—of people like him. Each bearing different weapons, garb, even shapes. Humans, beasts, machines. All marked by the Rift's glyphs, all fighting against a tide of horrors: shadows with teeth, lightning-born titans, serpents made of shrieking stars.

And at the center of it all—

A man.

Cloaked in white fire.

Face hidden beneath a helm of shifting runes.

The Seed burning in his chest like a star.

The Rift incarnate.

He lifted a hand, and the battlefield froze.

Haraza's heart stopped.

That man turned slowly—and looked at him.

("One more gear… in the wheel…") he whispered.

Then the vision shattered.

Haraza stumbled back, gasping. Tarsis was already at his side, supporting him with one brass-plated arm.

("What was that?") Haraza asked.

("A memory. But not yours,") Tarsis replied. ("The Core shows echoes of the Rift's past… or perhaps its future. Even it does not know which.")

("That man,") Haraza said, eyes wide. ("He saw me. He spoke to me.")

Tarsis was silent for a long moment.

Then: ("That is not possible. Echoes do not see the living.")

("Then what did?")

Tarsis finally said, with a grave tone,( "Something is waking. Something ancient. Something that remembers what the Rift tried to forget.")

Haraza looked up at the swirling vault above, at the endless gears and the whirring stars.

("I don't know what it wants from me," he said. "But I won't run.")

Tarsis turned to him, slowly.

("Then you are further along the path than most.")

From the outer edge of the Sanctum, something watched.

A crack opened in the fabric of the Sanctum's gears—a fracture not meant to exist.

From it, an eye blinked.

Not a creature. A presence.

The Rift remembers.

And it was hungry.....

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