Chapter 18: Ashes Beneath the Threadtree

[System Alert]

→ Skill Unlocked: Fusion Art: Bloodline Snare

→ Grade: B+

→ Description: A fused ability combining emotional resonance with anchored thread technique. Threads adapt to the user's state of mind.

Range: Expansive. Precision: Variable. Effects: Constriction, Fracture, Disarm.

→ Warning: Stability threshold breached. Emotional Override Possible. Mortality Risk: High.

Lumen stood amid the scorched stone. Red-silver threads lashed the air around him like angry veins of lightning. His chest burned. His breath tasted of copper and regret.

Across the ruined chamber, Bram raised his sword.

But something was wrong. He moved slower now. Not weaker—hesitant. Like a weight held his limbs. His eyes, shadowed behind the mask, flicked toward Lumen, then wavered.

Lumen didn't wait. The fusion surged through him. Threads erupted in every direction—spiraling, hunting, weaving a net meant not to bind, but break.

His thoughts were wild, tangled: They trusted me. I brought them here. I have to end this.

He struck.

Bram parried one thread. Dodged another. His blade hissed through the air, but his steps faltered again. He almost struck back.

Almost.

But he pulled away. Again.

Rin shouted from the side, bleeding but standing. Gilger winced, leaning on his knees. Neither of them understood what was happening.

Lumen did. Something inside Bram was resisting. Fighting whatever had taken hold of him.

So Lumen poured everything in. He roared—a sound of guilt, of purpose, of pain.

Threads circled outward. An interlocking spiral, like a blooming snare—precise and monstrous. It would end this. All of it.

Bram stepped back—his armor glinting, the sword braced.

Then his head turned. Just slightly. His arms shifted. Not to counter. Not to evade. But to shield something small crouched in the rubble.

Lumen didn't see it in time. His final attack surged forward. No cry. No scream. Only the sound of thread slicing through mist and stone.

Then—silence.

Bram slumped to one knee. Sword lowered. A deep gash across his shoulder. Blood hissed against the heat of steel. Behind his bent arm, unharmed, the grey-furred cat blinked slowly.

Lumen's threads recoiled. He stared, breath gone, mind spinning.

"He protected it," he whispered.

Bram lifted his head, the mask cracked, revealing tired eyes rimmed in red.

"You saw it," he rasped. "Good."

Lumen staggered forward. Rin and Gilger held back.

"That attack... would have torn it apart," Bram said. "I couldn't... let that happen."

"You didn't fight back," Lumen murmured. "Not at the end."

A faint smile twitched under the fractured mask.

"I fought long ago. Too long. But I lost. Not to the blade. Not even to the Puppet. I lost when I started forgetting her name."

He coughed again. A thin stream of blood trailed from the corner of his mouth.

"The Puppet... it doesn't bind you like chains. It suggests. Over and over, until your thoughts are not your own. Until your silence becomes obedience."

Lumen knelt beside him.

"But why protect the cat?"

"Because that choice... was mine. My last one."

His breath caught. He clutched the fragment of his cloak.

"She had a scarf. Grey-blue. She always smelled like smoke and mint. I tried to remember. Even when the memories faded. I kept trying."

He looked at Lumen, barely able to lift his chin.

"You're not like me. Not yet. But the System... it isn't always what it says. It led me to the Puppet once. Maybe not by accident."

Lumen's eyes widened. "You had a system too?"

Bram closed his eyes. His breath caught. For a moment, the chamber felt colder.

"That night..." he rasped. "After I named her..."

[System Alert]

→ Directive: Investigate Thread Instability North of Hollow

→ Urgency: Critical

→ Designation: Key Event Detected

Behind him, a woman,stood beneath the lanterns, her scarf trembling in the wind. She didn't follow. He didn't look back. He was staring at the cursed window.

It shimmered in front of him—faint blue and cold.

He hadn't seen it in years. Not since the war. Not since before her.

He remembered tightening his grip on the hilt.

He remembered the strange sense of fate wrapping around his ribs.

And then—he stepped into the dark.

The wind didn't follow.

Back in the present, Bram nodded slowly.

"A long time ago," he said. "Before I met her. Before I fought wars. The system guided me... trained me. Brought me closer to a power I never understood."

His fingers curled weakly.

"And then... it told me to go to the Hollow. Said something waited there. A key. A trial."

Lumen leaned in. "What was it?"

Bram exhaled, barely audible.

"The Puppet. Waiting. For the next one."

Lumen went cold.

"Do you know what it said when it broke me?" Bram asked, voice fraying.

"It said, 'You're not the first. But maybe you'll last longer.'"

He turned his head.

"It wasn't talking to me. It was talking to the System."

Bram's hand reached up, trembling, and touched Lumen's shoulder.

"If it starts whispering too loud... walk away. Or bury your name before it buries you."

He exhaled once more. Slower now.

Then, with effort, his fingers found a crumpled edge of thread still resting near his side—soft, grey-blue, faintly singed.

A whisper escaped him.

"Elira..."

For a moment, the scent wasn't just cloth and ash. He was back on the fencepost. She had her sleeves rolled, laughing at some broken wheel he couldn't fix.

"You'll never beat a wagon," Elira said, brushing hair from her brow. "But you keep trying. That's what I like."

He had grumbled. She had smiled.

It was never the scarf, Bram realized. It was her voice.

That was what he'd tried to protect.

The name wasn't just sound. It was a lifeline.

She had once braided her hair with rivergrass, worn iron rings on both hands, and smelled of firewood, crushed herbs, and the sky before rain.

She had laughed like thunder and cried like smoke.

He pressed the cloth gently to his cheek. Still there—that faint scent. Mint and ash. Her. It clung to the fabric like a memory that refused to fade.

"She wore this the day I named Mary," he murmured.

"The day she said I looked like a tired farmer, not a warrior..."

His voice cracked.

"She was right. She always was."

His eyes fluttered half-shut. Breath shallow.

"It never left," he whispered. "She never left..."

A breeze passed, as if answering.

And then—stillness...