Chapter 64 – The Drift Stirs Twice

Location: Yxtrielle – The Wound Beneath the Veins

Time: [Stable Core Phase – Drift Lock at 0.01% Slippage]

The silence of Yxtrielle wasn't empty.

It was layered.

Ren stood at the edge of a glass-like plateau, the Override Core still pulsing faintly in his chest. Lira lay behind him, under makeshift stasis — unconscious, but breathing. Blaze had set up a shimmer flame perimeter while Frost pinged the surrounding terrain for spatial inconsistencies.

Everything should have been dead quiet.

But the ground kept humming… in reverse.

FROST (uneasy):

"This soil's reacting like it's remembering something backward."

BLAZE (snapping):

"That's not how memory works—"

GRAVITY (flat):

"It is here."

Ren's boots sank half an inch into dust as he moved forward. Not because the terrain was unstable. But because the planet wanted to remember his steps.

Yxtrielle wasn't just terrain.

It was recording him.

The Echo Below

Then he heard it.

Drip.

Not water. Not stone.

A glyph.

One single, living glyph dropped from mid-air like it had bled loose from the sky. It shimmered, twisted, then… folded in on itself.

Ren's core reacted violently.

The override engine inside him pulsed — warning, alert, hungry. A reflex.

TIME (sultry, warning):

"Ooooh, sexy glitch in the drift. That's not one of ours, Riftboy."

SPACE (irritated):

"Something else is overriding. Fucking trespasser code."

GRAVITY (snarling):

"Anchor signature detected. Not Kaelreth. Not Watcher. Not you."

A portal opened — but not like before. No spirals. No shimmer.

Just a slice. A horizontal tear across the landscape like Yxtrielle itself was being opened from the inside.

And out of it?

A person. Hooded. Robed in dull silver threads.

A face that flickered between seven expressions in half a second — like the Rift couldn't decide who they used to be.

They looked at Ren — and smiled like a funeral.

NAME: "Va'theran the Rewritten"

Class: Ex-Riftborn Warden

Status: Non-Anchor Entity (Incompatible with Dimensional Laws)

Powers: Unknown. Glyphs detached from the body. Weapon unknown. Presence forbidden.

VA'THERAN (voice like glitching stone):

"Kael's final thread, tied to a flame and an echo. And now you're all that's left."

"You wear the Override like it fits. But do you even know what it was meant for?"

Ren said nothing. The Core behind his sternum growled.

Not figuratively.

It literally growled.

A sound like an angry planet.

REN (cold):

"If you know Kael, you know what I'm here to do."

"I'm not here to play Echo-chess with a glitch."

Va'theran held out a hand — and from his palm, a glyph unfolded into three-dimensional shape.

A cube made of timeline slivers.

Inside it? Xal'Zirach.

Trapped. Bound. Screaming.

FROST (panicking):

"Ren—he's got your summon in containment feedback!"

BLAZE:

"No one gets to leash a dragon without permission—BURN HIM."

VA'THERAN (smirking):

"You summon beasts from Echoes? I rewrite them."

"This one screamed your name in its dreams. I'm just giving it a choice."

The cube cracked.

And from it—Xal'Zirach emerged.

But not in the way he had before.

He was larger.

Twisted.

Voice dripping with echo corruption.

STATUS: SUMMON CORRUPTED

Xal'Zirach (literally a dragon) – Fragment Tier 3B

— Status: "Mirror-Bound, Rift-Split"

— Controlled by Va'theran via glyph override parasite

— Power: Multiplied. Mind: Fractured.

REN (angry, stepping forward):

"You want to play games with my glyphs?"

"You think you can twist what Kael built?"

He drew Vey'stryx.

The sword screamed.

Literally.

VEY'STRYX (yelling):

"YOU. WORM-CODED. COPYPASTE. MOTHERFUCKER—COME GET SPLIT."

Ren's core spun.

Three rings ignited — Time at his brow, Space in his ribs, Gravity underfoot.

But something new pulsed behind them.

A fourth ring.

It didn't have a name yet.

But it sounded like a voice he hadn't heard in chapters.

UNKNOWN GLYPH (echo whisper):

"I remember… Ka'rath'Mar. I remember you."

The planet spoke.

Ren's body arched as the Override Core absorbed that fourth pulse.

Memory.

Yxtrielle itself had joined the fight.

BLAZE (shouting):

"You have a planet in your chest now?!"

FROST (terrified):

"Oh gods, we're breaking universal ethics—again—"

Ren raised his sword.

Va'theran stepped back.

Xal'Zirach's corrupted form growled… but twitched — as if remembering something.

A name.

REN (quietly):

"You're mine."

"And I'm not done pulling my people back from the dark."

[NEW SYSTEM: PLANETARY GLYPH BOND – INITIATED]

➡ Core Memory Glyph: Ka'rath'Mar | Status: Resonant

➡ Override Extension: Active

➡ Summon Link Reinforcement: [Xal'Zirach] = Rebooting...