Chapter Thirty-One – Threads of Ruin

The ground trembled beneath our feet, dust falling like ash from the chamber ceiling. The luminous threads above twisted violently now, forming chaotic spirals of fire and shadow. The First Thread's magic hadn't just awakened something within me—it had disturbed something else.

Something waiting.

Kael's expression hardened. "That's not a quake. That's… summoning energy. Someone knows the Threadforge was activated."

Riven stepped in front of me, blades drawn. "Then we fight."

"No," I said, placing a hand on his arm. "We escape. We're not ready for what's coming."

He gave me a sideways glance. "You absorbed a divine scroll and became a walking myth. If you're not ready, what hope do the rest of us have?"

I looked at my hands. Faint markings now ran across my skin—glowing glyphs in the old tongue. They pulsed in sync with my heartbeat. "This power doesn't make me a god, Riven. It makes me a target."

The chamber shook again—this time, a jagged crack opened across the floor. From the depths of it, a shadow began to rise. Not a creature. Not a man. A formless presence made of shifting threads, all black and burning red at the edges, like a wound stitched with hatred.

Kael paled. "A Threadwraith. A guardian of the old realm. It shouldn't even exist anymore."

"It does now," I said, backing away as the thing pulled free from the earth, rising like a tower of writhing thread and shrieking silence.

It didn't speak words.

It spoke fate.

"You are not the Weaver," it hissed. "You are a mistake. A child dreamt by dying gods. You will unmake the tapestry."

Riven slashed at it, but his blades passed through.

"It's incorporeal!" he shouted.

Kael raised his staff, firing a bolt of gold light at the creature. It shrieked and recoiled.

"Light woven from truth can hurt it!" Kael yelled. "Sera, focus—use the First Thread!"

I reached inward, summoning the burning map of my soul. The magic was raw, wild. But I was no longer afraid of it.

I threw my hands forward—and with a cry born of desperation and defiance—I rewrote the air itself.

The blast struck the Threadwraith, tearing it apart in a spiral of light and memory.

When the dust cleared, we were alone again.

But the runes on the walls were gone.

Burned away.

And a single word remained, scratched freshly into the stone.

Run.

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