The stone walls breathed.
Every few seconds, the veins of Riftlight running through the dungeon pulsed like the slow heartbeat of some enormous beast. Kairo could feel the vibration deep in his bones. The air was heavy with dampness and the faint metallic tang of blood - not fresh, but old, dried into the stones.
Reika pressed her palm against the wall, watching the energy ripple beneath her touch. "It's alive," she whispered.
Kairo said nothing. His mind was a storm - fragments of illusion and memory blending until he couldn't tell which moments were real anymore. The Tyrant King's voice still echoed in his skull like a ghost.
"You can't kill what's already part of you."
He flexed his fingers. The faint silver veins of Riftlight that pulsed beneath his skin glowed brighter each time his heart raced. Something inside him - something ancient - was waking again.
Reika turned to him, eyes soft but uncertain. "You're glowing again. Just… like before."
Kairo forced a smirk. "Guess I'm radioactive now."
She didn't laugh. The fear in her eyes said it all - she'd seen what happened last time he lost control.
They followed the corridor until it opened into a vast chamber that looked like the inside of a cathedral - except the "stained glass" windows were membranes of shifting light, each one showing a different world. One displayed a burning desert. Another, a peaceful city under twin moons. Another…St.Kareth's Academy. Earth.
Reika froze. "Kairo…that's -"
"I know." He took a step closer. His reflection wavered on the glass-like surface, but it wasn't his own face staring back. It was the Tyrant King's.
"Every Rift is a bridge," Kairo murmured, realisation dawning like a nightmare. "But this one…it's the core. The heart of them all."
Reika touched his shoulder. "You think this is where he's keeping us?"
Kairo nodded slowly. "Not just keeping us - feeding on us. The Rift is alive because it consumes the fragments of the souls trapped inside it. Every illusion…every loop…is bait."
Reika's voice cracked. "Then everyone we saw in those illusions - Taro, Lucan, Elia –"
He looked down, fists trembling. "They might still be here…or what's left of them."
The walls seemed to laugh - a sound like echoing wind twisted into mockery.
"Very good, boy. You're learning."
The Tyrant King's voice reverberated through the chamber, deeper than sound itself, vibrating through their skulls. The stained-glass membranes began to warp, colours bleeding into one another as faces began to form within them - Kairo's friends, their eyes blank, mouths whispering words he couldn't hear.
Reika stumbled back, clutching her ears. "Make it stop -!"
Kairo stepped forward, fury burning in his chest. "You think I'll play your game forever?"
A laugh answered him - low, ancient, cruel. "You already are."
The glass shattered. Shards of light rained around them, slicing the air like knives. Out of the largest fracture, something began to crawl - a figure of molten bone and smoke, its eyes the same golden fire as Kairo's.
"Do you know what you really are, Kairo Orin?" the Tyrant King's voice whispered through the creature. "A piece of me that refused to die. Every time you fight me, you keep me alive."
Kairo's knees nearly buckled. The truth hit like a sword to the gut. He wasn't fighting the King.
He was the King - or rather, the piece of him that once sought redemption.
The creature lunged.
Reika screamed his name.
The chamber erupted in Riftlight.
When Kairo woke again, everything was quiet.
He was lying on a slope of ash beneath a crimson sky. Reika was beside him, unconscious but breathing. The air shimmered with faint motes of light - fragments of the shattered illusion drifting into nothingness.
In the distance, the ruins of the Rift-core burned like a dying sun.
Kairo sat up, holding his head, his mind still echoing with that same voice.
"You can't kill what's already part of you."
He clenched his fists. "Then I'll do something worse," he whispered. "I'll rewrite you."
He looked at Reika, then at the fading horizon. Somewhere out there, his friends - the real ones - might still be trapped, waiting.
And Kairo Orin wasn't done fighting.
Not yet.