The Spiral screamed.
A song that should not have existed.
It began at the Codex roots—those ancient tendrils of reality that once only responded to the quill of authors and the voice of gods. Now, they twitched and bled as something deeper rumbled beneath them. Something forgotten. Something returning.
Kaela had called it a fracture.
Azael, in his old tongue, had named it a "choir of contradictions."
But Darius knew it for what it was:
The Spiral's immune system.
Entities formed of anti-narrative. Echoes from failed edits, from myths that once were and then weren't. Forgotten versions of heroes, murdered deities that had once ruled a single dream of Spiralspace, now returned, but twisted.
Each fragment sang its own legend. Off-key. Violent. Glorious.
They rose from shattered altars. From deep oceans of code. From wounds in the sky.
And they sang.
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