> Location: Western Fringe – Old Flamefield Mines (abandoned Sovereign site)
Target: Dagan Ke, age 16 – formerly detained for uncontrolled fire-spike awakenings
Status: Unknown | Skycleave Spread: 19% | Memory Drift Detected: Severe
---
Into the Ghost Zone
Jiang Han stepped through the collapsing threadgate and immediately dropped into a crouch.
The minefield valley was silent.
Too silent.
Even the sky above seemed blurred, as if it had been drawn hastily and left unfinished.
Tian Xue followed moments later, blades drawn, flame barely sparking in the unstable atmosphere.
She looked around and muttered, "This whole place feels like it doesn't want to exist."
"It's on the edge of erasure," Jiang replied. "We're inside a drift field. Memory, form, purpose—all loose."
A distant crack echoed.
Then a scream—high, terrified, echoing like a torn wire.
They broke into a run.
---
Dagan Ke
They found him deep in the heart of the ruined mine—half-buried in stone and unraveling.
Flame threads looped around him like worms, twitching erratically.
His eyes glowed violet-white, and he was muttering to himself.
> "It's burning wrong. It's burning wrong. I wasn't supposed to—did he come? Was I saved?"
Jiang froze.
That voice.
It was still him. Still there.
But fading.
He reached forward. "Dagan. It's me. Jiang Han. Emberveil. You remember, right?"
The boy didn't answer.
Instead, his body convulsed—and the flame around him inverted.
A burst of blankfire erupted, disintegrating a chunk of the rock wall.
---
Battle for Memory
Jiang leapt back, shielding Tian Xue.
"He's slipping into flame-null," she warned. "If he tips too far, there won't be anything left."
"We're not losing him," Jiang growled. "Not today."
He drew Echofang and stepped forward—not to fight, but to channel.
With his free hand, he activated a soulthread Su Lian embedded before they left: a flash-memory burst encoded with their first meeting.
> A boy, chained to a harvest gate. Jiang cutting him free.
"You burn too wild," Jiang had said. "But maybe that's the point."
Jiang projected it now, flame surging with urgency.
> "Dagan! You said you wanted to control it—so you could protect your sister!"
The blankfire quivered.
The convulsions stopped.
> "My… sister…"
A single tear ran down Dagan's cheek.
> "I remember you."
---
The Snap
Just as the memory reattached, the mine shook.
Above them, glyphs long-buried in Sovereign code sparked to life.
A trap.
A Skycleave Reinforcement Ward.
They hadn't just abandoned the mine.
They'd turned it into a dead zone trigger.
Tian Xue shouted, "We need to move—now!"
Jiang grabbed Dagan and activated the beacon glyph. The threadgate shimmered, unstable.
Then—
The whole mine began to unwrite.
Stone by stone. Flame by flame.
Reality itself peeling.
---
Escape
The trio dove through the collapsing breach just as the mine collapsed into static.
Back in the Emberveil buffer zone, Jiang dropped to one knee, holding Dagan—breathing, conscious… and real.
Tian Xue bent beside them.
"He's stabilized. Barely."
Jiang looked up at the horizon.
"Every one of them we reach gets harder. They're rewriting faster now."
"Which means," Tian Xue said, eyes sharp,
> "We're getting close to something they're afraid of."