Cain stared in silence.

A massive concentration of red threads knotted together near the center. Tangled, strained, nearly bursting. Lines snapped and reattached in real time, jittering like static.

"Is that the damage?" Cain asked.

"That's the consequence," she corrected. "Damage is the wrong word. You didn't injure the design. You rejected it. And the design doesn't know how to rewrite you."

Cain pointed at the red mass. "So that's following me?"

"It's anchored to your choices. Every time the Will tries to correct your path, it generates friction. Friction breeds collapse."

Cain absorbed that. "And the anchors… they get crushed because I exist."

"Yes."

"Then fix that."

She stared at him. "That's what I'm trying to do."

The red section trembled violently, sending shockwaves through the surrounding threads. Three smaller strands snapped and disintegrated.

Cain winced. "What happened there?"

"A consequence catching up," the Exile said. "Something you were meant to face, but avoided."

"I avoid nothing."

"That's your belief. Reality may argue otherwise."

Cain glared at her. "Enough riddles. Speak clearly."

She stepped closer to the lattice, examining the red mass. "Some threats aren't enemies. Some are responsibilities. Abandoned ones have a habit of returning."

Cain felt something foreign twist in his stomach. Not fear. Recognition.

"You're talking about the Watcher."

"Not only him." She pointed to a branching cluster of black threads spreading from the red mass. They looked wrong—darker than void, absorbing light instead of reflecting it.

Cain's voice dropped. "What are those?"

"Unwritten outcomes. Futures that never received shape because you disrupted the sequence leading to them. When too many pile up, the world begins to cannibalize its own structure to compensate."

"Meaning?"

She looked him dead in the eyes.

"You are creating predators. Things that should not exist, but must exist to fill the space you removed."

Cain's jaw tightened. "Show me."

She lifted her hand, and the black threads magnified.

The shape forming from them wasn't humanoid. Wasn't angelic. Wasn't anything that belonged to a world governed by rules.

A shifting silhouette. A negative space creature shaped like the outline of a beast that had never been born.

Cain felt his pulse spike. "How long before that thing manifests?"

"Manifested," she corrected. "Past tense."

Cain's hand curled into a fist. "Where?"

The Exile didn't speak.

She didn't need to.

The lattice moved, zooming in on another region—far from the canyon. A cityscape flickered into focus, nearly unrecognizable under the distortion. Buildings bent inward. Streets spiraled. The sky warped into a funnel of shadows.

Something crawled along the rooftops.

Long-limbed. Hollow. Wrong.

Cain inhaled sharply.

"That's my fault."

The Exile nodded once. "Yes."

He looked at her. "Then let's go kill it."

She held his gaze for a long moment. "You can kill it. But that won't stop the others."

"How many?"

"Hard to say." She glanced at the black strands in the lattice. "At least a dozen. Maybe more."

Cain stepped off the platform.

"Then we start with the closest."

The Exile didn't argue.

She simply followed.

The chamber doors opened on their own as they approached, the canyon's cold air rushing inward.

Cain didn't slow.

He didn't look back.

If the world wanted to throw nightmares at him, he'd answer.

He'd tear them apart.

The exit of the canyon spit them onto a stretch of dead flatland. The sky overhead warped in slow pulses, as if light itself had a heartbeat. Cain didn't slow his pace. The Exile shadowed him a few steps behind, silent and focused.

"How far?" Cain asked.

She glanced upward, eyes narrowing at the warping horizon. "Far enough that walking won't do."

Cain stopped. "Then what?"

"Anchor."

Cain raised a brow. "You want me to call one of those things? The same ones collapsing everything?"

"I want you to use what's broken until we can correct it," she said. "Summon an anchor. Bind it instead of letting it run wild."

Cain grimaced. "I've never bound one. They show up and die."

"Because they collapse under narrative stress," she said. "I'll stabilize it. You direct it."

Cain exhaled sharply. "Fine."

He reached inward, not toward mana or skill, but that thread — the unstable line stitched through his core. It pulsed in response, wanting out. Wanting shape.

The ground trembled.

Cracks split outward from his feet, glowing with a faint silver light. The air thickened, the pressure climbing like a storm building inside a sealed room.

Cain felt the thread tighten.

Then—

A massive metallic shape slammed into existence in front of him. Humanoid only in the loosest sense, all jagged plates, spikes, and grinding joints. Its knees buckled instantly, body collapsing into the dirt as tremors ran through its frame.

The instability hit like a wave.

It was dying already.

"Now," the Exile said sharply.

Before Cain could ask how, she slammed her palm onto the anchor's chest. A shimmer spread through her arm, into the creature, into the air. The tremors slowed. The distortion around it stopped multiplying.

The anchor lifted its head. Its eyes were hollow pits of white flame.

It wasn't stable. But it wasn't disintegrating.

"Give it direction," she commanded.

Cain stepped forward and placed a hand on the anchor's head.

The thread inside him surged.

The hollow eyes flickered — not in pain, but in recognition. Cain didn't speak. He didn't channel mana. He simply pushed intent into the creature: Move. Carry us. Follow the trail of the impossible thing hunting the world.

The anchor rose. Slowly at first, then with a grinding shudder that sent dust flying.

Cain climbed onto its back.

The Exile followed without hesitation.

"Try not to fall off," he muttered.

"I haven't fallen in a thousand years," she replied.

"That supposed to impress me?"

"No. But it should reassure you."

Before Cain could roll his eyes, the anchor launched forward.

The world blurred. The creature moved in massive strides, each impact shaking the earth like distant artillery. The landscape warped around them—flatlands melting into rolling hills, hills dissolving into cracked plains, the sky shifting colors as if confused about what time it should be.

Cain scanned the horizon.

"Where is it?"

"You'll feel it before you see it," the Exile said.

He didn't like that answer.