The maintenance elevator didn't arrive with a heroic chime. Instead, it slammed into the upper docking bay with a violent thud that nearly knocked Sharla off her feet. The heavy bronze doors groaned, screeching like a dying beast as they forced themselves open.
Immediately, the smell hit them. It wasn't the fake, flowery scent of the Upper Petals anymore. It was the smell of burning rubber, ozone, and something else—something that made the hair on Joshua's neck stand up.
"Smoke," Kairyn whispered, his face going pale. "That's coming from the Central Hub. My people..."
He didn't wait. He vaulted over the railing of the platform before it had even fully settled, his heavy boots clanging against the rusted floor of the Sleepless Slums. Joshua and Roselia were right behind him, with Sharla clutching the Reality Stabilizer like her life depended on it—which, honestly, it probably did.
The scene outside was a straight-up disaster.
The Slums, which were usually quiet and shadowed, were now crawling with light. But it wasn't the "good" kind. Dozens of Dreamy Guardians—those jellyfish-like entities—were swarming the narrow walkways. Their tentacles weren't waving gently anymore; they were stiff and glowing with a sharp, electric blue. They were dragging people out of their shacks, wrapping them in glowing cocoons of "Peace."
"They're harvesting them!" Sharla cried, her voice trembling. "They aren't just putting them to sleep. They're taking their memories by force!"
In the center of the main plaza, a group of rebels was pinned down behind a barricade of scrapped metal. Among them was a tall, scarred man with a mechanical arm—Jiro, Kairyn's second-in-command. He was firing a jury-rigged pulse rifle at a Guardian, but the shots just bounced off the creature's translucent skin.
"Kairyn! You're back!" Jiro roared, though he didn't look away from the monsters. "The Myth sent a sweep! He's trying to wipe the Slums before the festival tonight! We're getting cooked out here!"
"Not on my watch," Kairyn growled. He turned to Joshua. "You said that box works, right? Tell me it works, because we're about ten seconds away from being 'Peaceful' forever."
Joshua stepped forward. The air was thick with the humming sound of the Guardians—a sound that felt like it was trying to scrub his brain clean. "Sharla. The Anchor. Can you broadcast it?"
Sharla scrambled to a nearby power junction box. "I... I can try! If I plug the Anchor into the Slum's main speaker grid, the reality wave will travel through the wires. It'll hit everyone at once!"
"Do it," Joshua said. "Roselia, Jiro—protect the kid. I'll buy you the time."
"You got it, King," Roselia said, her eyes glowing with a dangerous red light. She didn't use her daggers this time; she let the shadows crawl up her arms until her hands looked like monstrous claws. "I've been itching for a rematch with these floaty light-bulbs."
Joshua drew his black sword. He didn't rush. He walked. Each step he took seemed to push back the fog of the Slums.
A Guardian noticed him. It drifted over, its many eyes blinking in a rhythmic, hypnotic pattern. It let out a soothing, melodic chime, a sound designed to make a man drop his sword and weep with joy.
Joshua didn't even flinch. "Your music is out of tune."
He swung the black blade in a vertical arc. He didn't aim for the tentacles; he aimed for the 'brain'—the glowing core inside the jellyfish's bell. The sword cut through the light like it was nothing more than water. The Guardian shrieked, a sound like glass breaking, before it dissolved into grey ash.
"No cap, he's actually cracked!" one of the younger rebels shouted, watching Joshua move.
But there were too many of them. For every Guardian Joshua cut down, three more drifted out of the shadows. The air began to vibrate with a high-pitched frequency that made Joshua's ears bleed.
"Sharla! Progress report!" Roselia yelled, swiping her shadow-claws through a cluster of Tavern Mimics that had joined the fray.
"Almost... there!" Sharla's fingers were flying across the Anchor's interface. "The fluid is reacting! It's picking up the 'Memory' frequency from the roots! I just need to... okay, everyone! CLOSE YOUR EYES!"
"Why?" Kairyn asked.
"JUST DO IT!"
Joshua felt a sudden surge of energy behind him. It wasn't the hot, searing energy of the Herald. It was cold. It was sharp. It felt like a bucket of ice water being dumped over his soul.
BWAAAA-THUMP.
The Reality Stabilizer didn't just beep. It released a massive, visible ripple of blue light that tore through the Slums. It moved like a tidal wave, passing through walls, floors, and people.
When the wave hit the Dreamy Guardians, the effect was instant. Their glowing colors didn't just fade; they died. They turned a sickly, muddy brown before falling to the ground like rotten fruit. The Tavern Mimics shattered instantly, unable to maintain their "glass" form in a field of pure reality.
But the real change was in the people.
In the shacks, in the alleys, and behind the barricades, the citizens of the Sleepless Slums gasped. For years, they had lived in a grey haze—not fully asleep, but not fully awake. They had accepted their misery because the Myth's "sweet" frequency made them too tired to care.
Now, that frequency was gone.
Joshua watched through Kage's eyes as a woman nearby looked at her hands. She looked at the rusted, crumbling walls of her home. She looked at the Guardians dragging her neighbors into cocoons. For the first time in a decade, she didn't feel "peace."
She felt rage.
"My... my daughter," the woman whispered, her voice trembling. "They took my daughter three years ago... and I just smiled and let them."
"They're lying to us," another man shouted, standing up from behind a pile of trash. He grabbed a rusted pipe. "The sky isn't gold! It's empty! THE MYTH IS A LIAR!"
It started as a murmur, but it grew into a roar. The "Sleepless" were finally awake.
"Kairyn! Look!" Sharla pointed.
The citizens weren't running away anymore. They were swarming the remaining Guardians. Even without magic or swords, they used their numbers, their weight, and their pure, unadulterated anger to pull the creatures out of the sky and tear them apart.
"This is it," Kairyn said, his voice thick with emotion. He raised his blade high. "The dream is over! Today, Narakka wakes up!"
"We need to move now," Joshua said, stepping back toward the group. His face was pale—the Anchor's pulse had been effective, but it had also drained a lot of the ambient energy he used to 'see.' "The Myth will feel this. He'll send the Herald back, or worse."
"He's already coming," Roselia said, pointing upward.
Far above them, the "Gilded Sun" of Narakka was flickering. The pink clouds were swirling into a dark, angry vortex. The entire floating island began to shake, a low-frequency rumble that felt like a heartbeat.
"The Anchor didn't just wake up the Slums," Sharla said, checking her screens. "The resonance is traveling up the roots! The Middle Ring... the people in the District of False Joy... they're starting to wake up too!"
"A full-scale revolution," Jiro laughed, wiping blood from his forehead. "I never thought I'd see the day. What's the play, boss?"
Joshua looked at the Old Book. It was glowing a bright, incandescent white now. The pages were turning faster and faster.
"The King of Dreams sits on a throne of glass. When the truth speaks, the glass must shatter. The path to the Sky-Key is open, but only for those who are willing to fall to rise."
"The palace," Joshua said. "We don't wait for the Myth to come to us. We take the fight to the Inner Core. If we take the Key, the whole kingdom falls—literally."
"We're with you," Kairyn said. "Jiro, take the able-bodied men and secure the Slums. Make sure the 'cocoons' are opened and the people are fed. The rest of us... we're going to go kill a god."
"Wait!" Sharla shouted. "The Anchor... it's doing something weird. It's picking up a signature from the Middle Ring. Someone is trying to contact us through the frequency."
She flipped a switch, and a holographic screen flickered into existence. It wasn't the Myth. It was a woman with sharp, crystalline eyes and a crown made of silver gears.
"Aethelgard?" Joshua whispered.
"This is Nexuria," the woman on the screen said, her voice cold and devoid of emotion. "To the 'Awakened' in the lower plane: Your disruption is causing a 14% drop in my station's energy efficiency. If you do not cease your 'revolution' immediately, I will be forced to assist the Myth in your termination. You have one hour."
The screen cut to black.
"Two nations at once?" Roselia asked, cracking her neck. "Okay, now it's getting spicy. I was worried this was going to be too easy."
"One hour," Joshua said, looking at his team. "Let's make it count."