Ka'thar didn't welcome them.
It waited.
The city stretched across the horizon like the ribs of an ancient beast—buildings bent at impossible angles, shardlight bleeding through cracks like veins of frozen lightning. Even the wind didn't dare cross the broken gate.
Law stopped first. Shardlight rippled across his golden eyes.
"This is it," he murmured. "The city that remembers."
Zero stepped beside him, silent as a shadow. His cloak brushed a wall and came away glowing.
"It doesn't just remember," he said. "It watches."
Nysera's ears flattened. "And it already knows we're here."
They entered.
The air shifted the moment their boots crossed the threshold—dense, charged, alive.
Shards embedded in the street pulsed with every step, murmuring soft echoes beneath the surface.
Liora let her fingers graze a wall. Silver light sparked along her skin.
"It reacts to emotion," she whispered. "Fear. Intent. Resolve. It feeds on them."
Zero snorted. "Good thing I'm empty."
Law led the way, careful, controlled. "Stay aligned. Don't touch anything humming."
Nysera shot him a dry look. "That's everything."
The city narrowed around them, guiding them through twisting corridors of broken towers.
Every flicker of shardlight changed color as they passed—curious, testing.
They reached a shattered plaza where shards rose from stagnant water like jagged mirrors.
Liora froze.
Her reflection blinked half a second late.
"It's copying us," she whispered. "Learning."
Laura knelt to inspect the distortions, her amber pendant glowing faintly.
"It's tracking rhythm. Movement. Reaction speed."
Her reflection smiled a beat too slow.
Law's voice cut in. "Laura?"
She stood quickly. "It's fine. Just reflections refusing to obey."
A deep hum rolled through the ground—layered, discordant, like a heartbeat buried under stone.
The city began to sing.
Shardlight cascaded across rooftops, the rhythm pulsing through Law's chest.
His shard responded—unbidden.
"No."
His breath shuddered as his reflection split into multiple afterimages—one second behind, then two.
Then they vanished.
Liora stepped closer. "It tried to align with you."
Laura's pendant brightened. "Meaning it can synchronize… and adapt."
Zero exhaled sharply. "Fantastic. A city that learns."
They entered a wider street, quieter, as if asleep.
"This works," Law said. "Short rest. Then we find a route that doesn't kill us."
Zero glanced at the shadows. "If the city allows it."
Laura sat against a fallen column, coaxing faint gold light between her palms—splitting, merging, flickering.
Nysera watched. "Still trying to separate time?"
Laura's smile was small. "If I can momentarily split a moment from itself… it might save us."
Law's voice softened but firmed. "Not here. Ka'thar reacts to everything."
"Ka'thar hates everything," Zero added.
Liora looked toward the glowing spiral at the city's center.
"Then let's test if it hates survivors."
Silence fell—brief, brittle.
Then the city exhaled.
Shardlight flickered in waves along the walls, like eyes opening across stone.
The hum deepened, pulsing beneath their feet.
Ka'thar had noticed them.
And the next step would not go unanswered.