There was no sound. Only light—blinding, formless—swallowed everything.
Ahri felt weightless, as if suspended between one breath and the next. The moment stretched. Then, gravity returned all at once.
She hit the ground hard.
Stone. Cold. Breathing?
She blinked, forcing her eyes open. The chamber was gone.
Instead, she now stood in a vast subterranean expanse, cavernous and dark but alive with a quiet, thrumming energy. A tapestry of golden threads hung overhead, shifting slowly like constellations across the night sky. They weren't anchored to anything visible, suspended in midair, glowing faintly. The whole place pulsed with an otherworldly rhythm, like the breath of something sleeping beneath the earth.
Jin landed beside her, groaning.
"Ahri," she gasped. "Where—what is this place?"
"I don't know."
They both looked up.
At the center of the expanse stood a colossal structure—a shattered loom made of black stone and bone-white wood, half-consumed by shadow. The threads that once ran through it hung loose and frayed, coiling toward the floor like veins.
The Elder limped toward them from the far side of the room, his robes torn, the talismans on his staff smoldering.
"This," he wheezed, "is the Binding Below. The heart of fate's oldest seal."
Ahri turned to him, heart pounding. "Why didn't you tell us this existed?"
"Because I never thought we'd survive seeing it," he said grimly.
A sound echoed through the chamber—a whisper at first, rising into a chorus of broken voices. Threads began to twitch. Some curled toward Ahri, drawn to her golden thread. Others recoiled.
Jin stepped back, watching the strands warp and twist in the air.
"They know you," she whispered.
"No," the Elder said. "They remember her."
He motioned to the shattered loom.
"This place was meant to contain something. Something ancient. When the Severed first formed, it was because someone—Miran—found a way to break the bindings. She wants to finish what she started."
Ahri stared at the darkened remnants of the loom. Her wrist burned. The golden thread pulsed faster now, like it recognized this place too. She stepped forward, drawn toward the heart of the ruin.
"Be careful," the Elder warned. "The loom responds to memory. To intention. If your thoughts waver"—
Too late.
The moment Ahri crossed the threshold, her mind splintered.
Her vision shifted. The present collapsed. She was seeing something else—a memory not her own.
Fire. Screaming. The loom fully intact, its threads glowing with the light of thousands of lives. At the center stood a girl who looked just like her, wrapped in ceremonial robes. Her face was blank, her eyes glowing with golden fire.
Above her, the fox spirit floated—wreathed in celestial smoke, nine tails fanned behind it, its eyes burning through time itself.
The girl raised a hand. Threads twisted around her wrist—threads not just of fate, but of control.
She whispered a name.
And the loom shattered.
Ahri jolted awake.
She was still standing, but barely.
"I saw it," she whispered. "I was here. Before."
Jin caught her as she staggered.
"You're remembering another life," the Elder said, his face pale. "You were one of the Weavers who sealed the spirit realm. That's why the fox follows you. You carry part of its power."
A low sound rumbled from deep within the chamber, shaking the floor.
Then, the shadow came.
From behind the broken loom, it rose—slowly at first, then all at once. A massive figure of shifting smoke and red thread, hollow-eyed and cloaked in tattered robes. The Severed.
Not Miran. Something older. Something even she had awakened.
Its voice was made of many.
"You left us behind."
Ahri's thread sparked violently.
The Elder stepped in front of them, raising his staff.
"Ahri, listen to me. This place is unstable. That thing is bound to memory. It's feeding on forgotten pain. If you let it into your thoughts, it will consume everything."
Jin drew a silver-blue talisman from her sleeve, her hand shaking. "We have to hold it off. Buy her time."
Ahri closed her eyes.
The fox's voice came to her—not a whisper, but a low, ancient growl.
"You broke me once, Threadseer. Do it again—and I'll show you what lies beyond the weave."
Ahri opened her eyes, glowing violet.
The golden thread flared like a blade.
She stepped toward the looming shadow.
"Then let's see what's left to break."