The first fracture in the cage was thin as a hairline crack in glass, but the sound it made echoed through the antechamber like a bone snapping. Lira flinched; Yuri didn't. He just stared at the widening fissure, jaw tight, blade angled downward but ready to rise with a single twitch of muscle.

A second crack spider-webbed from the first.

Lira backed up a step. "It shouldn't be breaking through this fast. This is a full containment weave—nothing unclassified should be able to dent it."

"It isn't unclassified anymore," Yuri said. "It's learning."

The creature didn't thrash or struggle. It simply stood in the center of the golden cage, one hand still pressed against the barrier, almost curious as the cracks multiplied beneath its palm. Its eyes didn't leave Yuri.

The violet glow pulsed once. Twice. Like it was syncing to something.

Or someone.

Lira grabbed his arm. "Why is it pointing at you? What did you do?"

"Nothing," Yuri said. "Nothing deliberate."

She didn't buy that. "Then what does it want with you?"

The cage groaned. The sigils on the floor flickered.

"Lira," Yuri said, "step back."

She didn't move. "Not until you tell me what's happening."

He pulled his arm free, eyes locked on the creature. "If I had an answer, I'd use it."

The barrier finally gave way.

Not in a violent explosion—nothing dramatic. It simply collapsed inward, golden light dimming like a candle flame deprived of air. When it faded, the creature stood unrestrained, unhurried, unbothered. The cracks vanished with the barrier, leaving only silence behind.

Lira raised her blade. Yuri didn't. He just watched.

The creature lifted its hand again.

This time, it didn't point.

It traced a shape in the air.

A circle. Then a downward stroke. Then a cross through the center.

Lira's breath caught. "Yuri… that symbol—"

"I know," he said.

It was the sigil burned into the rift downstairs. The mark left behind when he fell through.

Lira's voice softened, barely audible. "It's marking you."

The creature tilted its head again, like a dog observing an unfamiliar command. Then it stepped forward.

Yuri moved instantly, blade raised high, angling for the throat—if it even had one. Lira mirrored him, slipping to the side to flank it. But the creature didn't attack. It stopped three paces from them and lowered its hand, the symbol still hovering faintly in the air behind it.

Then it spoke.

Not with a voice. Not with sound.

The word pressed directly into their minds, cold and sharp as a needle:

"Returned."

Lira staggered as though shoved. Yuri didn't flinch, but a muscle in his jaw twitched.

He stepped forward. "Who returned?"

The creature didn't answer with words this time. The air around it rippled, distorting like heat haze. Images flickered—fast, disjointed flashes that slammed into Lira and Yuri's minds.

A cavern of shifting stone.

A figure kneeling in a pool of black water.

Arms reaching out of a crack in reality, pulling the kneeling man down.

A second figure stepping through the crack moments after.

The same violet eyes.

Yuri inhaled sharply. "It followed him."

Lira froze. "Why? Why follow him? And why come here first?"

The creature's head rotated unnaturally far to the left, then to the right, as if testing the limits of its body. Its form wavered like smoke caught in a crosswind. When the distortion settled, it lifted a hand—not in a threat, but in a strange, almost ritual gesture.

It pressed its palm to its own face.

Then dragged its fingers down, peeling away the shadow.

Lira gasped.

A familiar face stared back at them.

Not identical. But close enough.

Close enough to make Yuri step back.

The creature spoke again—this time out loud, its voice strained and fractured, the sound of stone grinding against stone.

"Yuri. Return."

Lira's face went pale. "It's copying him. It's taking his shape."

"No," Yuri said quietly. "It's taking his memory."

The creature's form flickered again—now its shoulders too broad, now too narrow, now shifting through silhouettes as though flipping through identities like pages. It settled back on the familiar face. His face.

"Return," it repeated.

Yuri kept the blade between them. "Return where?"

The creature touched the cracked sigil hovering behind it. The air trembled.

Lira hissed, "It wants to reopen the tear."

The creature responded instantly—its eyes burned brighter, the sigil pulsed, and the faint outline of a rift shimmered across the chamber floor.

Not open.

Not yet.

But forming.

Yuri lunged. The blade slashed through the creature's arm, severing it at the elbow.

The severed limb dissolved into mist before hitting the floor.

The creature didn't scream. It didn't react at all. It simply looked at the stump, then at Yuri, as though analyzing input.

The stump regrew.

Not flesh. Not bone. Just shadow knitting itself back into shape.

Lira backed up, breathing hard. "We aren't stopping that. Not like this."

"We don't have to stop it," Yuri said. "We need to interrupt it."

"How?"

Yuri didn't answer.

He moved.

Not toward the creature—but toward the sigil it had drawn, still flickering in the air. He drove his blade straight through the center of it. The symbol shattered like glass struck by a hammer, fragments of golden light cascading outward.

The rift outline winked out.

The creature convulsed. Not in pain—more like a glitch, a malfunction. Its form flickered violently, and for the first time, it let out a sound that resembled emotion.

A low, warping moan.

Lira pulled Yuri back. "You pissed it off."

"It'll recover fast," Yuri said. "We need to move."

The creature stabilized. Its eyes refocused, brighter than before. Its shadow-skin rippled, swelling with energy.

Lira grabbed Yuri's wrist. "If it opens another tear, we're done."

"It won't," Yuri said. "Not here."

"Why not here?"

"Because I won't let it."

The creature lunged.

The chamber shook.

Yuri stood his ground, blade raised, body braced.

Lira moved to flank again.

The creature's voice tore through the chamber—louder, stronger, almost furious:

"RETURN."

Yuri met its charge head-on.

The golden sigils in the walls ignited.

The rift downstairs screamed.

And the Temple groaned as though something enormous had just shifted beneath its foundation.