CHAPTER 151: THE CORRIDOR OF LIGHT

The light did not greet them.

It burned.

When Kaito burst through the breach, the world was narrowed to a white corridor stretching out in both directions, endless and wall-less, but contained so much that each breath echoed back to him.

The air tinged with cold that was not cold, heat that was not heat—something beyond human measure.

Mika lay on the ground before him, coughing. Kael went down on one knee, fist pressed to his side where blood spread across the light. Nyra rose, sword still clutched in her hand, silver eyes cautious over the space around them.

Kaito rose, his scythe a hundred times more massive than it ever had been, its drag across the unseen floor slowing each step.

His chest was on fire, the mark searing hot against his flesh, but the pulse of the Fork was no longer chasing his heart. Here, it rested, though not in quiet.

[YOU DID NOT SHUT US OUT]

The whisper of the Root burrowed into his brain, distant but not forgotten.

[YOU DRAGGED US WITH YOU]

He ground his jaw hard, pounding. He wasn’t going to answer. Not yet.

"Is this... safe?" Mika whispered, her voice small. She hugged herself as if the white hallway would devour her.

Kael gave a wry laugh that became a cough. "Safe? No. But it’s not collapsing on us, so that’s a plus."

Nyra remained still. Her wings fluttered, feathers caught in the light, disturbing the air in dry ripples such as water.

"This place resists names," she breathed. "Don’t mistake its stillness for peace."

Kaito encouraged his legs until he was beside her. The corridor extended infinitely, but a pull at his chest started drawing him in a certain direction. The bond wasn’t absent—it had simply rearranged itself.

"We keep going," he said to her. His voice was out of place here, lower, as if the air filled it out. "If we’re not going, it’ll get us."

Mika snapped a look up. "It?"

He said nothing.

They walked.

The floor of the corridor was hard, but with every step, ripples spread across the white beneath, as though they walked on river ice that moved with memory and not water. Sometimes the light failed, showing fleeting shadows—towers, forests, seas—before vanishing again.

"This place..." Kael hissed the words, but he forced himself to say them. "It’s a memory of the Fork. No, older. The veins beneath it. The lattice that held its roots to the upper layers. We shouldn’t even be able to stand here."

"Yet here we are," Nyra replied.

Mika wriggled back and forth between them. "Then where does it go? There has to be an end, right?"

Kaito’s tug was stronger in his chest, drawing him in. He stroked the mark tenderly, winching. "There’s an end. Whether it’s where we want to be. we’ll know."

Time meant nothing in the corridor. They walked until Kael nearly tripped, and Nyra made him sit down when he protested. Mika sat beside him, cupping her hands over the chill. Kaito stood, scythe stuck at his hip, eyes forward.

It was then the first crack occurred.

A rift cut through the white of the corridor, jagged and black, with purple fire threads dripping from it. The floor below churned, and a grinding stone noise radiated out.

Mika leapt away. "It followed us—"

"No," Kael panted, his cheeks pale. "This is worse. The Fork is bleeding into the lattice. The Root is. rewriting this place.".

Kaito’s grip around his scythe tightened. The violet light pulsed to the beat of his heart, responding to the crack.

[YES. THROUGH YOU.]

The Root’s voice pressed down, hungry.

Kaito gritted his teeth. "Not through me."

He charged forward, lifting his scythe. The black crack opened further, hissing, and from it streamed forms—half-created monsters of code and darkness, claws on the face of the corridor.

Their forms shifted between monsters and broken faces, each crying out in twisted voices.

"Shades," Nyra spat, wings spreading. "Fragments of the Fork’s disintegration."

They attacked.

Kaito struck first. Scythe cutting in an arc, purple sparks flying as he cut down the nearest shade. It shattered into fragments, crumbling into white snow.

Mika held out her hand, light flashing between her fingers even without her bow. A rough flame arrow formed and shot forward, piercing another shade through the chest.

Kael stood up, clutching bloody fingers to his temple. Sigils erupted around him, haphazard but potent, building walls that slowed the creatures’ progress. Nyra became a whirlwind of darkness, her sword slashing with lethal accuracy, each strike cutting two shades.

More and more flooded out of the crack, dozens, then hundreds, their shrieks filling the corridor.

Kaito fought without pause, but each strike sent pain ripping through his chest, the Root’s resonance straining against him. He felt it trying to guide his swings, to push more power through his veins. He resisted, teeth bared.

"I’m not yours!" he roared, cleaving another shade apart.

The Root laughed.

[YOU CANNOT FIGHT THEM WITHOUT US]

The battle descended into disarray. Mika’s light was fading, her arrows faltering out. Kael dropped to one knee, blood spitting from his lungs, his sigils dancing perilously close to the precipice.

Nyra stormed like a hurricane, but even she was weakening beneath the unyielding tide.

Kaito’s vision darkened. For every shadow he felled, two more pushed their way out. He could feel his strength draining away, his heartbeat keeping time with the Root’s beat too intimately.

If this continued, they’d be entombed.

And then, on the other side of the gap, he saw it.

Not a shadow. Not a piece. Something more. Something whole.

A figure was stretched across the crack, its shape shifting, impossible—sometimes a man with eyes too many, sometimes a beast with wings of glass, sometimes flame only. Its presence pressed the air, so that the corridor groaned.

Mika screamed, shielding her head. Kael dropped utterly, blood pouring from his face. Nyra froze, eyes narrowing, wings unfolding in challenge.

Kaito’s air was trapped. He knew this presence.

The Root itself.

[WE ARE ALREADY HERE]

Its voice sliced his mind, each sentence a blade.

[YOU BROUGHT US]

The shape stretched across the gap. Shadows flaked like powder at its touch. The corridor warped toward it, rippling.

Kaito’s scythe trembled. His mark flared hot enough to sear through his flesh, purple fire spilling across his chest and arm.

He dropped to one knee, gasping. The strength of the Root boiled in him, screaming for release. If he didn’t, it would flood into the corridor. It would kill them all.

Mika crept closer, weeping. "Don’t—don’t let it in! Kaito, fight!"

Nyra’s voice was cutting. "Or use it. If you don’t, we die here."

Kaito looked up at her, breathing gruffly. "If I use it... it wins."

Nyra did not flinch. "If you don’t, no one will be alive to regret it."

The Root’s laughter shook the corridor.

[YES. CHOOSE. YOU ALWAYS CHOOSE US.]

Kaito’s body convulsed with the return of power. His fists gripped tighter on the scythe. He remembered the Fork breaking, the dead voices, the never-ending cycle of being used. He remembered Nyra’s hand on his spine, Mika’s voice calling his name, Kael’s stubborn determination to hold the world together as it fractured.

He remembered who he was.

Not the Root’s vessel. Not its slave.

Kaito Reaver.

He howled, not in defeat but fury, and smashed the scythe into the earth. The mark flared into flame, purple fire pouring out, but this time he forced it to distort—not to open, not to let out, but to burn.

The crack shrieked as the light shrieked through it, reducing the shades to ash. The shape of the Root drew back, its forms multiple, unsure.

[NO—]

"Not yours!" Kaito bellowed.

The fissure collapsed, slamming shut with a blinding crack. Silence descended on the corridor, leaving nothing but the rasp of ragged breathing behind.

The scythe fell from his hand. Kaito staggered forward, bracing himself on hands alone. His chest still seared, but the Root’s voice had withdrawn, muffled, as if pushed deeper.

Mika crawled to him, laying shaking hands on his shoulders. "You— you did it—"

Kael coughed weakly on the floor, his face pale. "No. He bought us time. That’s all."

Nyra stood over them, sword still held, her eyes staring forward. "The corridor is not safe. The Root will keep attempting. We need to leave, now."

Kaito struggled to his feet, scythe held again. His body shuddered, but his eyes did not falter.

"Then let’s go."

They moved forward, slower, battered but alive. The corridor stretched on forever, but far off in the distance, the light shifted. Not white only—colors filtered through, reds and blues, gold and green.

There lay a door. An honest threshold.

Mika’s breath was caught in awe. "That... that looks like—"

Kael swallowed hard. "The surface. The living world."

Nyra’s eyes contracted. "Or its reflection."

Kaito did not speak. The mark continued to throb against his chest, faint but unending. The Root had not been vanquished. Only denied.

But the doorway thrummed as well, a different beat. An opportunity.

He set his jaw, tightened his hold on the scythe.

"Whatever is out there," he said, "we go together."

They stepped into the light.

And behind them, at a depth in the silence, the Root whispered on.

[YOU CANNOT OUTRUN US]