The wind howled across the broken skeletons of towers as Nova stood on the threshold of a city that should not have existed. It was neither ruins nor future—it was both. Carved from obsidian and memory, the city bent upward like a spiral staircase into the rotting heavens, its spires flickering between states of construction and collapse. He knew the name before he entered.
Velurith.
The city that dreamed itself into existence, then devoured its own dream.
Nova tightened his cloak against the static-charged wind and stepped across the boundary. His boots echoed against a road paved in forgotten names, etched in languages that no longer had timelines.
A girl's laughter echoed.
He turned sharply, but the street behind him was empty. Still, a presence lingered, like breath on his neck. The wind smelled like burnt pages and wet rust.
He walked deeper.
*------------------------*
Velurith's inner district pulsed like a heart. Every few moments, entire buildings rewrote themselves—an inn became a temple, then a barracks, then something unnameable. Citizens of vapor and fragmented memory flickered into visibility—laughing, running, sometimes weeping—and vanished before they touched the ground.
At the center, he found it: the Hall of Lucid Vaults, a structure spiraling in reverse, each level older than the one below it.
Nova descended.
The first door opened to a dream: Nova as a child, running through an orchard on Eden-4. But the colors were wrong, and the trees bled amber light. He tore his gaze away and moved on.
The second vault showed Velmaar exploding again and again—its collapse looping endlessly in silence.
He pressed on.
The third vault stopped him.
*---------------------*
Inside stood a man chained to twelve mirrors, each one showing a different version of him. One mirror burned, one wept, one knelt before the Dominion throne. One was Nova. The man bound in the center looked up, and his face flickered between Patro's and his own.
"You came early this time," said the bound figure.
"Is this a trap?" Nova asked warily.
"A test," said the voice. "Of resolve. Of memory. Of self."
The mirrors began to vibrate. The bound man screamed—and the reflections screamed back in unison. Then the mirrors cracked and poured shadows into the chamber.
Nova leapt into the storm of silhouettes, swinging the twin anchors in a circle, banishing half-formed futures and broken selves.
When the echoes faded, only one mirror remained intact.
Nova approached it.
He stared into the glass.
He did not see himself.
He saw a throne of smoke, and a crown with no head to wear it.
The image pulsed—and he understood.
The throne was waiting.
*----------------------*
He fled the chamber.
As he climbed back toward the surface, the city shifted again. Velurith no longer whispered. It screamed. Skies turned red. The laughter returned, warped and multilayered. Buildings began to melt. From above, a shrieking clock tower rang twelve times.
At the twelfth chime, something began to wake beneath the city.
Nova broke into a run.
As he reached the surface, Velurith convulsed behind him. The streets cracked open, and a monolith rose—ten stories tall, engraved with writhing faces.
The Ash God, whispered the wind.
He is waking.
Nova turned, anchors glowing.
A second figure appeared—hooded, staff in hand, half-made of starlight.
"You shouldn't be here yet," the stranger said.
"Then help me leave," Nova growled.
The figure shook his head. "Only truth gets out of Velurith. Lies stay behind."
"I carry no lies."
The stranger raised a hand. "Then prove it."
Suddenly, Nova's mind shattered into visions of what could have been:
– Nova accepting the Dominion crown.
– Nova killing Patro in Eden-4's sunken halls.
– Nova erasing Eden-4 entirely.
– Nova becoming the Path Engine itself.
Each false self fought to take control.
But Nova remembered the pain. The choices. The silence of sacrifice.
He exhaled.
"I am not your puppet. I am not your god. I am not your echo."
With that, the visions shattered.
The hooded figure nodded and stepped aside.
The path beyond him opened—not to escape, but to the true core of Velurith.
*-------------------*
It was not a city.
It was a living archive.
Books flew like birds. Thoughts became roads. Timelines were trees, roots sunk deep in soil made of regret. Every step Nova took rewrote the terrain. In the center stood a monument carved with only one word:
REMAINS.
Nova touched it.
Suddenly, he was no longer in Velurith.
He was back in the Plateau. The Throne was gone. The storm above had calmed. But Velurith... Velurith was not a memory.
It was in him now.
Behind his eyes burned a map of ruins and mirrors. And from the far edge of that map, something ancient stirred. Something that had no name…but watched him.
And waited
*-------------*