It began with a crack in the sky.
Not thunder.
Not lightning.
Something deeper.
A shudder in the bones of the world.
The moment my fingers brushed Rae's—the final syllable of her name still trembling in the air like a vow whispered between gods—the sky fractured.
Reality didn't break like glass.
It folded.
Collapsed.
Like it remembered it wasn't ours to hold.
Astra's voice rang sharp inside my skull, strained and glitching.
[Warning: Dimensional instability increasing. Emotional resonance at 43% and rising.]
[Thread Integrity: COLLAPSING.]
I didn't need to ask why.
The air shimmered—not with my power, but something else. Something waking.
We stood at the edge of a world I didn't remember creating.
Yet everything in it pulsed with familiarity.
Spires of crystal stabbed through clouds like the fingers of sleeping titans.
Black-stone castles hovered in midair, tethered by veins of silver lightning.
Rivers of light flowed through the sky, not the earth.
This world wasn't made for humans.
It was made for me.
"It's beautiful," Rae whispered beside me.
Her voice was steady, but her presence had shifted.
Since the collapse of the last world, she had… changed.
Six wings stretched behind her—sleek, dark, radiant. A tapestry of ink and flame.
Her eyes shimmered with galaxies.
Reality bent gently around her, like it knew her name and bowed in respect.
A six-winged demon.
Perfect.
Terrifying.
And mine.
Yet even she walked carefully now.
Not because of the beauty.
Because of what waited at this world's heart.
I felt it too.
A pull.
A promise.
A memory that hadn't yet returned.
"Why?" I asked, though I knew she wouldn't have the answer.
The truth wasn't in her voice.
It was in the tremble of the ground.
The thinning of the sky.
And the way Rae looked at me—as if she saw constellations buried beneath my skin.
Because we were waking up.
Because this world—this hollow echo of something older—wasn't strong enough to hold us anymore.
In the distance, a black flame burst across the horizon.
Not fire.
Not void.
Something older.
A flame that didn't burn—it erased.
The color of forgetting.
Rae's eyes went wide. She didn't flinch. She remembered.
"It's coming back. All of it."
No fear in her voice.
Only resolve.
But the world around us?
It screamed.
Buildings crumbled without sound.
The ground fractured in spirals.
Above us, the heavens pulsed like a dying heart.
Then—
The ground beneath us exploded with light. Sigils bloomed in a circle.
Runes I couldn't name, but my blood remembered.
A teleportation seal.
I hadn't triggered it.
Astra's voice returned—flickering, fragmented, almost… small.
[Unknown Protocol Triggered. Origin: Uncatalogued.]
[Destination: Null.]
[Authorization: …Unknown.]
I looked at Rae.
She looked at me.
No answers.
Just understanding.
The seal ignited—white-hot.
And the world shattered.
We fell.
Through reality. Through memory.
Through something older than time.
—
Silence.
No glitch.
No chaos.
Just—
Beauty.
A lavender sky stretched overhead, stardust swirling in its veins.
Twin moons hovered above, pale and still.
In the distance, towers rose like obsidian roses blooming under crystal clouds.
The world shimmered—not like illusion.
Like memory.
"I know this place," I whispered. "But I don't remember it."
Astra tried to speak.
[System Access: Denied.]
[This world predates system creation.]
Then nothing.
Astra—silent.
The all-knowing voice in my mind had nothing to say.
That scared me more than the sky breaking.
Rae reached out, brushing the air like it was sacred.
"This place is alive," she said. "It remembers you."
We walked.
Time bent strangely here. Minutes? Hours? It didn't matter.
The stars didn't move. The silence was too perfect to be real.
Then—
We reached it.
A hall.
No doors.
No guards.
Just a throne room carved into the world itself.
Obsidian and stardust laced the walls.
Murals coiled across the stone—of dragons, of war, of a being with my face and a crown of void.
He wasn't me.
Not yet.
But he felt familiar.
At the end of the hall stood four figures.
Dragons.
Not alive.
Not dead.
Towering, cloaked in cosmic armor.
Wings folded.
Eyes closed.
Still.
Their presence bent the air.
Even silence trembled.
They weren't guards.
They were waiting.
Not for danger.
Not for war.
For me.
Rae inhaled sharply. Her body tensed—then—
She screamed.
Not in pain.
In revelation.
Black and violet flame erupted from her back. Horns spiraled from her temples.
Runes glowed beneath her skin like living veins. Her wings—six of them—unfurled.
Obsidian. Void. Divine.
She collapsed to her knees, breath ragged.
Astra's voice returned—soft, awed.
[Awakening Detected – Secondary Entity: RAE]
[Compiling: STATUE DATA…]
—
[STATUE DATA: RAE]
Designation: Demon of Oaths
System Sync: Partial (Non-system dependent)
[BASE PROFILE]
• Name: Rae (True Name: ???)
• Race: Abyssal Oath Demon
• Tier: 6 (Awakened)
• Status: Sealed Memories, Broken Binding
• Echo Shards Integrated: Unknown
• Emotional Capacity: Unsealed
• Memory Recall: Active (Fragmented)
[ABILITIES]
• Wingset: Hexa-Obsidian Halo – Six wings of condensed voidflame
• Contract Glyphs – Reactivate ancient pacts beyond time
• Heartfire – Converts emotion into raw power
• Aura: Sovereign Flame – Weakens lesser beings within range
[SYSTEM FLAGS]
• [Warning]: Presence near dormant dragon guards may trigger ancestral reaction
• [Note]: Subject Rae exhibits fear response despite Tier 6 classification
—
"I…" Rae's voice broke. "I don't know what they are. But I fear them."
She didn't cry. But she trembled.
She was powerful enough to shatter cities.
And she was afraid.
Not of me.
Not of herself.
Of them.
The statues.
Still. Silent. Dreaming.
I?
I felt…
Peace.
No fear.
No awe.
Just a strange calm.
Like I'd stepped through the door of a home I forgot I built.
I walked forward.
Rae flinched—not from me, but from the presence of the statues.
As if stepping too close might wake something ancient.
"James…" Her voice was nearly a whisper. "They're not just waiting. They've been waiting. For you."
I looked at them.
And something—just a breath, a flicker—shifted.
Not movement.
But anticipation.
"They know me," I said.
Rae nodded slowly, eyes wide.
"More than that," she whispered. "They serve you."
Her wings curled in, trembling.
Her voice cracked—not with fear. With love.
"You once told me… if we ever found this place again, it would mean we were strong enough to keep it."
She looked up at me, eyes burning with starlight.
"I never stopped believing you."
She was radiant.
Raw. Divine.
Shaking with devotion.
And in that sacred moment, standing before the throne that remembered me, and the statues who waited, I finally understood—
This world didn't belong to me.
It missed me.
And Rae—
She had waited too.
Through lifetimes.
Through ruins.
Through silence.
For me to come home.
And now—
I had.
And the statues?
They were waking.