CHAPTER 112: THE WITCH’S WARNING

Sage POV

The crystal ball burst in my hands.

Glass cut my hands as I stumbled backward, but the pain was nothing compared to what I’d just seen. The future stretched before me like a nightmare - entire worlds eaten by darkness, billions of people screaming as reality itself dissolved around them.

"No, no, no," I whispered, looking at the blood dripping from my fingers. The vision had been so real I could still smell the burning towns, still hear the silence that came after everything died.

My grandmother’s spell book lay open on the table, its pages fluttering like they were living. I’d been trying to understand the reality tears for weeks, staying up all night while everyone else argued about vampires and old enemies. Someone had to figure out how to stop this mess before it was too late.

But now I knew the truth, and it was worse than anyone thought.

I grabbed the book and ran through the cave tunnels, my bare feet smacking against cold stone. The others were still gathered around the dimensional rifts, watching Marcus’s armies prepare for war. They had no idea what was really coming.

"Lily!" I called out, skidding into the main room. "Everyone! You need to hear this!"

Elder Iris looked up from where she stood facing the Shadowkin. "Child, this isn’t the time—"

"The tears aren’t random!" I interrupted, gasping for breath. "They’re growing! I’ve been tracking them for three weeks, measuring how fast they spread. At this rate, they’ll swallow our entire dimension in two months!"

Aiden frowned. "That’s impossible. They’re just small openings—"

"No!" I flipped through my grandmother’s book furiously. "Look, I found the method she used to calculate dimensional stability. Every hour, the tears increase by exactly three percent. Every single hour!"

I showed them pages covered in my handwriting - measurements, figures, charts tracking the growth pattern. My math had never been perfect in school, but fear made everything clear now.

"Three percent doesn’t sound like much," Dmitri said doubtfully.

"It adds up fast," I responded, my voice shaking. "In twenty-four hours, they’ll be twice as big. In a week, they’ll be big. In two months..." I swallowed hard. "There won’t be anything left to save."

The cave fell silent except for baby Emma’s crying. Through the largest rift, we could see Marcus’s three versions arguing with each other while their forces waited. Behind them, the old enemies gathered - Shadowkin, Bone Weavers, and worse things that had no names.

But none of that mattered if the tears themselves ruined everything first.

"There has to be a way to stop them," Lily said, her hand protective over her pregnant belly.

I shook my head sadly. "My grandmother’s notes say only the person who opened the tears can stop them. But Emma’s just a baby. She doesn’t know how to handle her power yet."

Baby Emma’s cries got louder, and as they did, I watched the nearest rift stretch wider. The connection was clear now - her emotions were making everything worse.

"What if we taught her?" Caleb suggested. "Found a way to help her understand—"

"We don’t have time!" I snapped, then instantly felt bad for yelling. "I’m sorry, I just... I’ve been working on this for weeks. I’ve tried everything. Every spell my grandmother knew, every protection charm, every sealing rite. Nothing works because the source is a scared baby who can’t stop crying."

That’s when I noticed something strange. The Lost Peoples - the elf, dwarf, and dragon-woman who had appeared through the rifts - were talking among themselves and pointing at my grandmother’s book.

"You carry the Sight," the elf said suddenly, her star-bright eyes focused on me. "The gift runs in your bloodline."

"My grandmother was a witch," I said carefully. "But I’m not very good at magic. I mostly just see things."

"Show us what you’ve seen," the dragon-woman ordered.

I closed my eyes and let the image replay in my mind. When I opened them again, everyone in the cave was looking in horror. Somehow, my Sight had shared the pictures with all of them.

"The Void King," the dwarf rumbled. "It feeds on the chaos, growing stronger as reality breaks down."

"That’s why it’s been hiding inside Lily’s baby," I realized suddenly. "It needed the tears to weaken the walls between worlds. Emma opening them wasn’t a mistake - the Void King has been planning this for months!"

Lily gasped, both hands holding her stomach. "Something’s wrong. The baby... it’s moving weirdly."

I grabbed her wrist, using my Sight to look deeper. What I saw made my blood freeze. The thing growing inside Lily wasn’t just her baby anymore. Dark tentacles of void energy had wrapped around the tiny life, feeding off its growing power.

"It’s accelerating," I whispered in horror. "The Void King isn’t waiting for the baby to be born. It’s going to use the birth itself to tear reality apart totally."

"When?" Aiden demanded.

I looked at Lily’s pale face, then back at my figures. The answer came to me in a flash of terrible understanding.

"Tonight," I said. "When the moon hits its peak, the Void King will force the birth. And when that baby cries for the first time..." I couldn’t finish the sentence.

"What?" Brock growled. "What happens?"

Through the biggest rift, something massive stirred in the darkness. The Void King’s huge eye opened wider, focusing on our little group with hungry interest.

I felt tears running down my cheeks as I spoke the words that would change everything: "When the baby cries, every dimensional barrier in existence will break at once. The Void King won’t just destroy our world - it’ll destroy every possible world that could ever exist."

The eye in the darkness began to laugh, a sound that made the cave walls crack and bleed.

And somewhere deep in my Sight, I saw one more terrible truth that I couldn’t bring myself to say out loud:

The only way to stop the Void King was to make sure Lily’s baby never drew its first breath.