The dreamscape had grown restless.
Far beyond the golden fields and quiet skies, past the threshold of mortal thought and divine silence, a ripple spread—gentle, but certain. It whispered through the seams of reality like a forgotten melody that suddenly found its voice again.
In a cottage on the edge of Ilan's village, the candlelight flickered despite the windows being shut. The flames tilted not with wind, but with presence—something unseen brushing past the edge of the world.
And in Ilan's room, his hand wouldn't stop.
Page after page of his sketchbook filled with shapes and symbols.
Some familiar—Veyrion, the glyphs, the Throne.Others… entirely new.
A burning feather with no bird.A ring of keys spinning through void.A name written backward that he couldn't read unless he stared through a mirror.
Ilan didn't know where it came from. But he didn't resist.
Something had changed.
The Seer stood alone.
Not in the ruins where she had once summoned fragments of the Lockbreaker. Not in the halls of prophecy. But in a blank canvas of space, lit only by the shimmer of choices that had been made and those yet to be.
She had not faded with the old world.
She had endured.
And now… she was watching again.
"Too soon," she whispered.
Before her, a thin crack hovered in the air. A crack not in stone or wall, but in the weave of the world.
From it came not chaos.
But curiosity.
A slow, rhythmic pulse. Like breathing.
The Lockbreaker's sacrifice had rewritten reality—but not erased it.
There was still a question lingering.
A possibility unchosen.
She placed her hand near the crack. It pulsed warmer in response.
And within it… a voice she had not heard since the Root opened:
"What is a name… if no one remembers it?"
The Seer closed her eyes.
And smiled.
Across the continent, in a city untouched by the old wars, a young girl stood in the library's archive.
Her name was Ryn, and she was not like other children.
She didn't dream.
But today, her eyes were drawn to a book she'd never seen before.
No author. No title. Dustless.
She pulled it from the shelf.
Its pages were blank.
But as soon as her fingers touched them—words began to appear.
Not in ink.
In light.
"He stood between gods and devils, not to rule, but to break the rules they wrote."
She blinked.
Turned the page.
"His name was…"
The sentence stopped.
The light dimmed.
Ryn's heart skipped.
Because even though the book said nothing more, her mind whispered a name.
Erik.
And just like that—her world changed.
Back in Ilan's village, storms began to form on the horizon.
Not clouds.
Not lightning.
But memories.
They poured from the sky like rain—visions that had never happened here, playing in flashes.
A silver-eyed man cutting through a devil's army.
A throne room swallowed by black vines.
A sword forged from a star's collapse.
People gathered in silence, staring at the sky, not understanding what they saw—but feeling something stir deep in their bones.
A remembrance.
Of a man the world had forgotten.
Ilan stood in the center of the village square, sketchbook to his chest.
The glyph on the final page had changed again.
This time… it pulsed.
Alive.
In the quiet golden field where Erik had last smiled, the ground shifted.
Not violently.
But purposefully.
The earth trembled, like it was preparing to breathe again.
From the soil, a small sprout pushed upward. Its leaves shimmered with the silver of stars.
And beneath that spot, under layers of rewritten truth and buried sacrifice—
A pulse echoed.
Once.
Twice.
Then steady.
In the Realm Between:
The Lockbreaker opened his eyes.
Or perhaps… was being remembered into opening them.
He stood in the void.
Not as god.
Not as legend.
But as something both less and more.
The soul that once guided him spoke again—not from within, but from beside.
"You were supposed to fade."
"I know," Erik said quietly.
"Why haven't you?"
"Because someone still remembers."
He looked at his hands.
They no longer glowed.
They didn't command fate.
But they could still hold.Still create.Still choose.
The soul tilted its head. "And what will you do now?"
Erik smiled.
"I'll finish the story."
Back in the village…
Ilan closed the sketchbook.
On its cover, for the first time, the title had changed.
"The Dream of the Lockbreaker."
He walked out of his house, eyes scanning the horizon. The silver clouds had begun to form a shape—a gate.
Not torn.
Not forced.
But invited.
The door to the place that held what remained of Erik's truth had begun to open again.
And Ilan…
He was the one walking toward it.
Not as a warrior.
Not as a chosen one.
Just as a dreamer.
With a name on his lips.
And in the far distance—beyond the edge of sight—a silver-eyed figure turned to greet him.
Erik smiled.
And said the first words of a new story:
"Welcome back."
Because some names…Some dreams…Aren't meant to be forgotten.