CHAPTER 1223: DREAMS OF BIGGER ENDS.

A crack split down the cavern ceiling.

Another.

The world around them buckled.

Cain strained, muscles shaking, trying to force one arm upward. His fingertips brushed the thread—and pain shot through him like molten iron.

The Watcher tilted his head.

"Mortals don’t touch their own fate. Their minds can’t withstand it."

Cain didn’t care.

He pushed again.

The Watcher raised a brow. "Stop. You’ll tear yourself apart."

Cain pressed harder.

His hand closed around the thread.

The cavern detonated with sound and light.

The Watcher staggered back, shock flashing across his face.

"You—Cain, release it—"

Cain didn’t.

He forced himself upright, gripping the burning silver strand with both hands. The heat scalded. His bones shook. His vision blurred into static.

But he didn’t let go.

Not this time.

Not ever again.

His voice cut through the roar of collapsing stone.

"This is my story. If the world wants to break, let it. I’m not bending anymore."

The thread pulsed.

Once.

Twice.

Then it rewrote itself.

Not into a neat, perfect line.

Into something new—sharper, stronger, jagged like a blade forged out of defiance instead of destiny.

The Watcher stared with wide, stunned eyes.

"Impossible..."

Cain released the thread.

It hovered for a moment, glowing white-hot, then sank into his chest like a returning heartbeat.

The cavern steadied.

The floating stones drifted back into place.

The tear in reality sealed with a hiss of silver light.

Cain exhaled, slow and steady.

"Test’s over."

The Watcher looked at him as though seeing him for the first time.

"It isn’t over," he whispered. "It’s only begun."

Cain turned toward the exit, flexing his fingers as sensation crept back into them.

"Good."

He cracked his neck, rolled his shoulders, and walked forward.

"About damn time."

Cain climbed out of the faultline cavern and emerged into a landscape that felt wrong even before he fully registered what he was seeing. The sky above him churned in slow spirals, streaked with violet fractures that snaked across the horizon like cracks spreading through glass. The ground was a mosaic of shifting textures—peat, stone, metal—none of it settling, all of it flickering. Like the world couldn’t decide what it was supposed to be.

The air carried a low hum, almost like a voice trying to speak but failing to form words.

Cain stepped forward.

Every footfall echoed twice.

Not normal. Not safe. Not subtle.

He muttered under his breath, "Alright. What now?"

A whisper brushed his ear.

Cain.

His muscles tensed. The voice wasn’t external. It came from inside the thread now sitting in his chest like an ember. He ignored it and kept walking.

The Watcher had vanished—no trace, no rustle of displaced air, nothing. Cain didn’t waste time looking for him. If the Watcher wanted to be seen again, he would appear. If not, hunting him would be pointless.

The terrain finally stabilized into a field of slate-colored grass. Each blade was sharp as a needle, chiming faintly when the wind pushed through. Cain scanned the distance and spotted a figure on the horizon—small, unmoving.

"Great," he muttered. "Because mysterious silhouettes never go wrong."

He walked anyway.

The closer he got, the more he realized the figure wasn’t a person standing—it was someone kneeling. Their posture stiff, head bowed, hands clasped as if praying. The grass around them lay flat in a wide ring, pressed down by a force Cain couldn’t yet identify.

He approached with caution.

"Hey."

The figure didn’t look up.

Cain circled around to see their face.

It wasn’t a human.

It wasn’t an angel.

It was something stuck between forms, like a sculpture half-melted by heat. A humanoid shell with no mouth, no eyes, no real features—just smooth, pale skin and a faint imprint of where a face should have been. The being’s chest rose and fell slowly, as though breathing out of instinct rather than need.

Cain frowned. "What are you?"

The faceless head tilted slightly at the sound of his voice.

The entire world shivered.

Cain’s heartbeat hitched, and he stepped back on instinct. The ground under the kneeling figure dissolved briefly into black sand before returning to grass.

The thing wasn’t praying.

It was stabilizing.

Like a nail hammered into a board full of splintering cracks.

Cain crouched in front of it. "Did the Watcher put you here?"

Another tremor rolled through the landscape.

This time, the faceless being jerked sideways—as if the world itself had tried to swallow it. It clung to its kneeling posture with shaking arms. A soft hum escaped its body, not a sound exactly, but more like vibrations thrumming in Cain’s bones.

The voice in his chest whispered again.

This one holds a line you destroyed.

Cain scowled. "Explain."

The whisper remained foggy, half-formed.

You tore the thread. This one anchors the gap. Without it... instability spreads.

Cain looked around. The flickering sky. The shifting ground. The double echoes.

He clenched his jaw. "So the world is basically glitching because of me."

Correct.

Cain wasn’t proud of it, but he wasn’t apologizing either. He made his choice. He just needed to manage the fallout.

The kneeling being shuddered again. Cracks formed along its arms, spreading like fractures through porcelain.

Cain stood. "If you’re anchoring the damage, why are you breaking?"

The whisper answered immediately.

Because you keep moving.

Cain narrowed his eyes. "Meaning what?"

Your path forces the world to adapt. It sends anchors like this to keep the design intact. But they weren’t made for the pressure your existence causes.

Cain ran a hand through his hair, frustration simmering. "So every time I push forward, something else has to hold the universe together?"

Yes.

"And those things die doing it?"

Eventually.

Cain stared at the faceless being. It trembled harder, limbs bending at wrong angles as another wave of instability rippled across the terrain. A jagged crack split through its chest.

It wasn’t alive in the human sense. It didn’t scream. It didn’t plead. It had no face to show pain.

But it was suffering.

Cain stepped forward and placed a hand on its shoulder.

Its shaking eased for a moment.

The thread in Cain’s chest pulsed.

A new voice—stronger, clearer—erupted through his mind.

RELEASE YOUR CLAIM ON THE THREAD.

Cain flinched, teeth clenched. "You again."