The moment they stepped past the final rows of shattered bookshelves, the air changed.
Noah felt it like a static charge brushing across his skin—no wind, no sound, but something in the corridor shifted. The walls no longer held dust or decay but shimmered faintly, as if waxed with oil. Thin strands of black thread stretched across the stone—some dangling, some wound tightly around broken sconces or molding. They pulsed faintly, twitching as the pair walked beneath them.
"Charming," Noah muttered. "I love a good 'spiders wove reality here' aesthetic."
Abel didn't laugh. He didn't even smile. His eyes were locked forward, every muscle in his body drawn taut like a bowstring.
"You okay?" Noah asked after a few steps, voice low.
"This place is wrong," Abel said. "I've walked every hall in this wing. I bled in them. Hid in them. Slept in them. But this... wasn't like this before."
"Magic redecorating?"
"Or a trap that's been waiting a long time."
Noah swallowed that thought. They walked on.
The corridor narrowed. Bookshelves gave way to old wall tapestries, rotting and sun-bleached, stitched with half-faded images—symbols of gods Noah didn't recognize. And everywhere, more of those threads. Some swayed without wind. One brushed across Noah's shoulder and disintegrated with a soft sigh, releasing a whisper that chilled his spine.
"—will never be clean again—"
He stopped.
"Okay. Nope. That thread just whispered to me. I'm drawing the line at haunted embroidery."
Abel stepped closer to him, drawing his sword. "Don't touch any more of them. They're not threads. They're remnants of binding rituals. Traces of soul-weaving."
"God, why is everything here so extra?" Noah whispered, sidestepping a cluster of floating threads that knotted into a braid midair.
It was darker now. Not because of the lack of light, but because the walls themselves were dimming—absorbing torchlight like thirsty cloth. Only the way forward remained clear, lit by some pale, flickering glow ahead.
They passed a half-collapsed statue of a man with no face. Just smooth stone where features should have been, and thread wrapped tight around its throat. A small brass plaque beneath read:
"The Patron of Names, Unspoken."
Noah stared.
"I hate it here," he said.
Abel only nodded grimly. "We're close."
That's when they reached it—the sealed door.
It wasn't grand. Just stone. Carved with shallow runes, smeared with old blood and black ash. A sigil Noah didn't recognize throbbed faintly at its center, shaped like an eye with a thread pulled taut through its pupil.
Abel stepped forward, touched the edge of the frame. "This wasn't here before."
"Doesn't matter," Noah said quietly. "We need to go through."
He placed a hand on the sigil.
The stone was cold. Then warm. Then—
[FATE RECOGNIZED]
Divine Candidate confirmed. Access granted.
The door opened with a low, rumbling groan.
Behind it: darkness. Floating threads. And something that watched.
Noah tightened his grip on the cards at his hip.
"Guess this is it."
Abel raised his sword. "Stay close."
And together, they stepped into the sanctum of the final Weaver.
It didn't look like a room.
It looked like a tear.
As Noah and Abel stepped over the threshold, the world around them shifted. Walls fell away. The floor melted into something that reflected nothing—black glass or endless water, it was hard to tell. Above them, no ceiling. Just a churning sky of ink and thread, vast and endless, slowly weaving itself together strand by strand.
The sanctum pulsed with silence. It breathed.
"Abel…" Noah whispered.
"I know."
In the center of it all stood a figure—motionless. Cloaked in shadow, but not the same ragged edges of the other two mages. This one was cleaner. Sharper. The robe flowed like oil, ink-black with white thread looping around the arms, chest, and throat in precise, ritualistic patterns.
He didn't move as they entered. He didn't have to.
He was already watching.
A voice slid through the space—not from the figure's mouth, but from the air itself, smooth and hollow:
"Two broken sons of a broken house… finally crawling to the source."
Noah's fingers twitched. The deck at his side shimmered, reacting to the pressure in the air.
"One wears a corpse's face," the voice continued, "the other hides behind strings and fate."
The mage lifted his head. No face. No features. Just a mask—white porcelain, stitched through the mouth and eyes. The Third Weaver.
"The other two liked to monologue too," Noah said, deadpan. "Guess it's part of the dress code."
Abel stepped forward, blade pointed low. "You cursed my family. Twisted my people. Bound my father."
"Yes." The mask tilted. "And yet, you failed to break your fate. Until now."
The air rippled.
Threads dropped from the sky like webs, forming spirals, cages, dancing shapes of bodies half-woven from shadow. They didn't fall. They descended—calm, intentional.
Noah's heart kicked into gear. "Incoming."
The floor beneath their feet began to fracture, not physically, but magically—arcane diagrams forming beneath their boots, shifting like gears. The sanctum was a living ritual.
"Don't let him weave us in," Abel growled. "Move fast."
Noah didn't need to be told twice.
He darted sideways just as a lattice of glowing thread lashed toward them like a net. Abel swung upward, slicing through the strands mid-air. They retracted with a sound like splintering bone.
The Weaver finally moved—arms lifting slowly, fingers extended like a puppeteer. Threads flowed from his hands and sleeves, each one connected to the half-formed specters now swirling around the room.
The room bent.
Reality twisted with every movement of the Weaver's fingers. Threads looped through the air, carving sigils mid-flight, tangling into razor-thin constructs that danced like serpents. The ghosts were no longer individual spirits—they were puppets, jerked and spun by fate-warped cords.
Noah flicked a card with precision, watching it detonate midair in a crack of sound and light, severing three incoming threads. Abel was already in motion, slashing downward at a puppet soldier's exposed spine, the blow sending it tumbling into shimmering dust.
But for every thread they cut, three more replaced it.
Noah gritted his teeth. "It's like trying to fight a knitting machine that hates us."
The Weaver didn't answer. He didn't need to. His movements were precise, elegant—inevitable. Every thread that missed came back on a curve. Every puppet that fell became reabsorbed into the floor, birthing a new horror.
"We need to get to him," Abel said, ducking low as a barrage of needle-thin cords shot overhead. "He's the core."
"Cool," Noah muttered. "You go first, I'll try not to die again."
But Abel didn't rush ahead.
Instead—he grabbed Noah by the wrist and yanked him into his arms just as a whip of burning thread cracked down where Noah had been standing.
Noah crashed into his chest with an undignified oof.
"What the hell—"
"You weren't looking."
"I was looking, I was—" Noah paused, catching the faintest twitch of Abel's lips. "Oh my god. You're smirking."
Abel didn't let go. "You're warm."
"What?"
"Your hand," Abel said, quietly, holding on a second too long. "It's warm. You're alive."
Noah blinked, stunned. The battlefield around them was chaos, but for a second—just one—time slowed.
"Don't get sentimental now," Noah said, voice suddenly too soft. "Not while I'm sweaty and covered in other people's ghost guts."
"I'm allowed," Abel murmured. "You almost died. Again."
"…I'm starting to think you like me better when I'm unconscious."
Their eyes locked. Close. Too close.
And then—
"Left!" Abel snapped, spinning with him still half-held.
Noah ducked on instinct. A burning puppet flew over them, screaming in an unnatural pitch, impaled a second later by one of Noah's kinetic cards.
They broke apart instantly, back into motion—but something lingered in the space between them.
Something electric.
Something real.
Draw One Activated
Curse of the Entangled Heart
"Love is a thread, too. And when it tangles in battle, it bleeds."
Bonus: Magic power temporarily increased, but defense lowered when fighting near someone emotionally bonded.
Duration: 5 minutes
Status: Mixed Blessing
Noah's eye twitched.
"…That's just rude, I didn't even activate it," he muttered.
"Did you say something?" Abel asked, panting as he blocked a cursed halberd with his sword.
"No. Just my system flirting with me again."
They pushed forward—fighting side by side now with perfect synchronicity. Abel defended. Noah attacked. Threads snapped, spirits wailed, and the air began to smell like burnt silk and ozone.
Still—the Weaver stood untouched.
At the far end of the room, his mask tilted ever so slightly… as if amused.