The ground under Eastbridge was no longer still.
Tunnels once used by the Veil now pulsed with an unnatural rhythm, as though the earth itself were breathing. Corin and Lucas descended into the old catacombs, guided only by the distant echo of the Hollow Choir's chant.
Lucas paused, touching a stone that throbbed like a heartbeat.
"The breach is awake," he murmured. "It's not just a tear in the world—it's becoming something else."
Corin scanned their surroundings, her blade drawn. "You mean it's alive?"
"No," Lucas said, "Worse. It's becoming aware."
Ahead, a corridor blinked into existence—stone that hadn't been there before, architecture shifting like memory under pressure. The Seed inside Lucas pulsed in harmony, and for a moment, he saw through time.
Not as a vision. As a participant.
He stood at three places at once—past, present, and something not yet born. Each version of him bore a different scar, a different wound, and in the furthest timeline, no eyes. Only flame.
He recoiled, gasping.
"I saw… myself. But wrong."
"That's the breach's price," Corin said grimly. "It shows you the shape you could become. Then asks which you'll feed."
They pressed on, until they reached the chamber beneath City Hall—once a crypt for Ashen Elders, now warped into something fungal and massive. The Choir was gathered there, circling a pulsing cocoon of thought-flesh and echoing light.
Lucas recognized it.
It was a new breach.
And it had his face.