The air was too still.
Too heavy.
Each breath scraped like sand against glass.
We stood at the edge of the chasm, where the ruins of the god's chamber opened into endless dark. The storm outside had quieted, but here, beneath the ground, it felt like something was holding its breath.
The walls glowed faintly — veins of crimson light running through the stone like blood through skin. The heat was low and steady, the warmth of something alive but dreaming.
Lirya's cloak clung to her shoulders, soaked from rain and ash. Her silver eyes flickered, scanning the fissures spreading through the walls. "It's awake," she whispered. "You felt it too, didn't you?"
I didn't answer. The answer was the air itself — thick with heartbeat.
[Resonance Increasing.]
Warning: Dormant Deity Connection at 48%.
The Limit System's voice trembled through my skull, colder than usual — like it too was unsure of what it had found.
We descended carefully, the narrow path spiraling downward in jagged circles. Each step echoed, distorted, as though sound itself struggled to escape the air.
The deeper we went, the more I could feel it — a pulse, slow but absolute, deep in the stone.
A rhythm too deliberate to be geological.
And beneath that rhythm, a whisper.
Not a word, not even a thought — just awareness.
Something vast was listening.
Lirya's fingers brushed the wall as we descended. The faint blue light around her hand flickered. "This isn't mana," she murmured. "It's divine blood. Still circulating."
She looked at me then, eyes reflecting the pulsing red glow. "You shouldn't have come this deep."
I smiled faintly. "You say that every time."
"This time, I mean it."
The stairs ended in a plateau — a cavern so wide the edges disappeared into fog.
The center was dominated by a shape half-submerged in molten stone: a colossal ribcage rising from the earth, fused with the bedrock. Each bone was blackened, humming faintly, threads of light weaving between them like veins of starlight.
At its heart — a crystal the size of a temple, cracked through the middle, glowing with an inner red storm.
Every time it pulsed, the air vibrated.
Every time it pulsed, I felt my own pulse answer.
Lirya's voice was almost reverent. "That's it. The Sleeper's Heart."
She stepped forward, slowly. "They say it was the last thing the gods built before they turned on each other. A heart made from the remains of every divinity that died."
I took a step closer. The light responded.
[Synchronization Rising — 73%.]
Caution: Emotional Resonance Breach Detected.]
My head throbbed.
For a moment, I wasn't in the cavern anymore.
I saw cities.
Towers made of white light. Oceans that hung in the air, frozen in time.
A sun that screamed as it died.
And in the middle of it all — a figure standing alone on a bridge of glass, sword dripping with molten gold.
His hair white. His eyes blue.
He looked exactly like me.
He turned his head slightly, as if sensing me. "Still running, aren't you?"
The world cracked.
When my eyes opened again, I was on my knees.
The crystal was pulsing faster now — faster than any heartbeat should.
Lirya's hands were on my shoulders, her voice shaking. "Rin! Stop it! Whatever you saw, you're feeding it!"
"I'm not—" I started, then stopped.
Because I realized I was.
The Six Eyes had opened fully — the world around me a lattice of glowing threads, every vibration visible, every atom trembling. My body wasn't just reacting; it was syncing.
The god wasn't dead.
It was dreaming through me.
[Critical Synchronization — 91%.]
Unknown Variable Detected.]
Lirya shouted something — I couldn't hear her.
The cavern screamed.
The crystal cracked further, splitting open with a sound that wasn't sound at all — like the air had been torn apart.
A surge of light erupted, swallowing everything in white fire.
And from inside the light, a voice spoke — slow, deep, old enough to remember silence before sound existed.
"Another one with my face."
"Tell me, child of infinity…"
"Do you wish to break the world again?"
The pressure threw me backward, my back slamming against the stone.
The voice wasn't coming from the crystal anymore.
It was inside my head.
Lirya's silhouette wavered in the burning light, her body shaking against the storm of energy. "Rin!"
I pushed to my feet, the ground splitting beneath each step.
The Limit System's interface flickered wildly.
[Foreign Consciousness Invading System Core.]
[Identity: Unknown. Classification — Deity Fragment.]
[Possible Objective: Assimilation.]
I clenched my jaw. "You want a host?"
The voice laughed — like thunder scraping against bone.
"No. I want my freedom."
The crystal shattered.
Light flooded the cavern — waves of molten air rolling outward.
Lirya screamed as the shockwave lifted her from the ground.
I reached for her, pulling her into the Limit Field just as the ceiling collapsed.
For a moment, everything was sound and color — a storm of red and blue colliding like the veins of two dying stars.
When it ended, we were outside again.
The tower above us was gone.
In its place, a crater glowed faintly beneath the storm clouds.
The Sleeper's Heart was no longer a crystal.
It was a shape — human, kneeling in the dust.
Its eyes opened, burning like twin suns.
And it smiled.
"So this is what the world became without me."
Lirya's voice was a whisper of disbelief. "You… freed it."
"No," I said quietly. My eyes still burned blue, but now, I saw something else shimmering inside their reflection — faint red threads winding through the blue.
"It freed me."
The god's gaze turned to me — slow, deliberate.
"I remember you."
"The one who killed me the first time."
The storm began to move again, spiraling outward like a heartbeat made of lightning.
In the distance, the earth split open, rivers turning to light.
The world had felt fragile before.
Now, it began to break.
And far away, in the Sanctum of Gods, the Seven Lights flared at once.
The mirror had cracked.
The Limitless One had awakened something older than order itself.