CHAPTER 141: THE STRING BELOW II

The Fork was breaking apart.

It wasn’t coming down in one sudden explosion, but in a slow and painful way, like the whole place was shuddering awake after being asleep for hundreds of years.

Streets bent at strange, crooked angles that didn’t make sense. Towers leaned against one another like jagged, broken teeth, and wide stretches of road gave way completely, crumbling into endless pits that seemed to have no bottom.

Through all this ruin, the Dominion kept advancing. They didn’t move like ordinary soldiers. Their ranks broke apart, scattered, and then pulled back together again like waves on a shore.

Whenever one of them fell, their body was swallowed up by hungry flames of code and rebuilt in the very next surge. No matter how many times they were struck down, more of them came back, endless and tireless, pushing forward without pause or weakness.

Kaito cut through them in silence, his Reaver-blades tracing paths of shadow that tore light from the air.

Nyra fought at his back, her eyes darting, not at the Dominion, but at the trembling ground, the widening crevices, the wisps of pale light knitting between fissures.

"The Root," she whispered, her voice nearly lost amidst the Dominion battle cries.

Kaito whirled. He felt it too, then. No shape yet—only the tremors, the rifts, the slow unraveling of something beneath the Fork that was never meant to move.

Mika stumbled into stride beside them, her breath irregular, her arm injured.

"It’s not them we should be afraid of," she said, nodding her chin towards the Dominion. "It’s what’s beneath. That’s where the Dominion’s driving us—to the Core of the Fork itself."

She had barely finished speaking when the ground trembled once more. This time the force was so strong that no one managed to stay on their feet—neither Dominion nor rebel.

The earth split apart in wide cracks that glowed white-hot, as if fire burned beneath the surface. Buildings twisted unnaturally, their walls and arches bending in ways that defied reason.

Staircases turned in on themselves, folding like paper being pulled toward some unseen mouth in the heart of the city.

And then came the sound.

It wasn’t the sound of an explosion or a beast’s roar. Instead, it was a long, dragging groan that seemed to crawl through the stones, the streets, and even the air itself.

The noise didn’t stop—it kept going, heavy and steady, like the whole Fork was alive and trying to breathe again for the very first time after endless ages of silence.

In the middle of this, the commander of the Dominion lifted his hand. He was clad head to toe in mirrored glass armor, his body reflecting the broken city around him. At his signal, the marching soldiers froze instantly.

The sudden stillness was more unnerving than the chaos of battle had been. No one moved, no one spoke. Rows of faceless helmets all turned as one, their reflective visors tilting toward him in perfect obedience, waiting for whatever order would come next.

Kaito’s heart was pounding in his chest. "They’re not here to conquer," he realized aloud. "They’re here to wake it.".

Nyra’s fingers burrowed deeper into his arm. "If the Root stirs, the Fork doesn’t just fall. Everything falls. The game. The world. Us."

The cracks in the ground kept stretching wider, splitting stone apart with sharp groans. From the largest opening, something began to stir. Its movement was slow but purposeful, each shift of its massive form heavy enough to make the earth shiver.

The tremor spread outward, rolling through the streets, through the broken towers, and into the bodies of everyone standing there.

Kaito felt it most of all. The vibration wasn’t just beneath his feet—it pressed into his bones, thudded in his ribs, and echoed deep inside his chest. It was like another heartbeat had awakened beneath him, powerful and steady, beating in rhythm with his own and threatening to drown it out.

The Dominion bowed their heads. In unison, they spoke a single word.

"Root."

Kaito staggered, his balance slipping, and would have fallen if Nyra hadn’t reached out and steadied him. What struck him wasn’t sound in the normal sense—no echo, no noise in the air. It was heavier than that.

The word pressed against him like a crushing weight, not on his body but inside his mind. It was raw code, pressure shaped into meaning, forcing itself into his thoughts.

It pushed against the inside of his skull with relentless force, demanding to be noticed, demanding to be understood. It wasn’t something he could ignore. The word wasn’t spoken—it was carved into him, leaving no choice but to recognize it.

Mika cursed under her breath, clapping her hands over her ears. "We need to move. Now."

But the Dominion did not move forward. Their soldiers stood perfectly still, not raising their blades, not pressing the attack. The battle that had raged before now seemed like only the beginning, nothing more than a prelude to what was truly coming.

They had fought, bled, and died for this moment—not to win the fight, but to reach it. Their lowered swords showed no fear, only patience.

Every mirrored visor faced the same point, as if they were waiting for a signal that had nothing to do with the clash of steel. This was the reason for all the bloodshed, the purpose behind their endless waves.

The ground split open before Kaito, and in place of rock, in place of soil, a network of pulsing veins hummed with data older than the Architects themselves. Something far inside stirred—a vast helix of roots that were not wood, but simple white code, each line writhing like a muscle stirring.

The Root of the Fork.

Kaito’s breath caught. This wasn’t code. This was alive, and it was waking.

And it knew him.

The lattice flared brighter, filaments of code swirling into the shape of an eye—bottomless, staring directly at him. His shadow quivered, ripping from his shape as if the Root was drawing it in.

Nyra shrieked his name, but her voice was far away. The Dominion’s chant surged, relentless and unvarying.

The Root was no longer stirring.

It was waking.