Die. Respawn. Repeat.
Chapter 261: Book 4: Realignment

According to Novi, we have exactly an hour to do this. How she knows all this is apparently a matter of her Path of Sight. She can see into the underlying truths of reality, she claims, in a way that's not dissimilar from how my Thread of Insight works. One of those truths, apparently, is the truth of the Empty City. She knows that her life and the lives of her children are merely recreations of the Interface, set in the playground of her own soul.

She's long dead, but at the time of her death, she was a powerful enough practitioner that her core burnt a reflection of itself into the world around her. Soulrot, she calls it, mirroring the word I've used to describe it.

But soulrot can be reversed, especially for being like Gheraa that are more Firmament than not. Any core that's developed far enough to rot is a core developed enough to be rebuilt, provided a blueprint exists. Without a blueprint, the result is more of a reincarnation than a resurrection—a recreation of a person from all their base parts, but in a different form.

Fortunately, I have a blueprint. Two of them, in fact. One is the paradox-form of Gheraa, brought back from the future into the present. It's deteriorating, given the state he's in, but it's still enough to do the job. The second is the vestige of Gheraa I was able to save when he created a splinter of himself to warn me about what the Integrators were planning.

Novi teaches me the process. It's surprisingly simple, but it's not something I would have figured out on my own; there's a specific fold that needs to be made, a twist of the mind that inverts the blueprint to prepare it to be flooded with Firmament. That, in turn, forces the dungeon-space to fold in on itself along the axes provided by the blueprint. Eventually, that rebuilds the entire person, step-by-step.

With two blueprints, the process is only slightly more complicated. I'll have to merge them before performing the inversion step. The benefit is that the process should be significantly faster, and right now, that's a good thing. Kauku's going to be looking for us, and all of Hestia is falling apart. We can't afford to spend more time in Hestia than we have to. Not until we're ready.

And to be ready, we're going to need Gheraa.

—

I'm a little worried about how we're going to make our way back to the Intermediary, but that proves itself to be surprisingly easy: evidently, once Kauku got what he wanted, he wasn't particularly interested in sticking around. Palus is more or less empty without Teluwat's influence, and more than that, it's quiet. All the agents that were here are gone, and if there were citizens living here, it looks like they've all reverted to wherever they used to be, too

Either that, or they're all hiding. I wouldn't blame them. There are some small traces of Firmament that might indicate some people living in the region, but it's nothing I would expect from a Great City.

"I'm going to help the others try to keep the Tears under control," Versa mutters as she steps out of the dungeon portal. "Whatever you're going to do, do it quick, yes? I don't know how long we can hold this off."

"I'll do my best," I say. Versa studies me for a moment, then nods, satisfied; she fires a sticky string of Firmament into the trees and very quickly vanishes into the distance.

I exchange glances with Ahkelios. It's just going to be the three of us for now—Ahkelios, Gheraa and I, that is. Guard is staying in the Empty City to look after Harmony. Ghost and Lilia plan to remanifest elsewhere to help the Trialgoers suppress the Tears.

Gheraa isn't talking much. He's barely conscious, in fact, and weighs surprisingly light in my arms. It's startling how quickly he deteriorated as soon as the fight was over.

"Hold on tight," I tell him.

We start running, using a combination of Acceleration and Warpstep to keep up on speed and momentum; thankfully, I'm naturally fast enough now that Acceleration alone is enough to boost me to ridiculous speeds.

What we see isn't exactly reassuring, even without Kauku on our heels. The reality of things is worse than what Versa was able to tell us—I can see Tears littering the landscape, along with time gradients so severe crossing them in the wrong direction would risk tearing any non-Trialgoer apart. There are places that seem entirely fractured in time, giving us glimpses of moments long past.

Cities fully intact, vibrant with life. People and cultures that have been erased through the loops.

Hestia's lost even more than I imagined.

Gheraa's body continues to fade and flicker through it all, but it fortunately doesn't take us much time to get to the Intermediary. We don't bother with portals this time—Ahkelios manifests a massive blade of Firmament and cuts through the sealed door in a matter of seconds.

I shove it open, and just like that, we're back in the Intermediary.

"Hard to believe we used to be scared of this place," I mutter as I slowly set Gheraa down. The Firmament here once seemed so threatening—I remember the feeling of it pressing down around me, crushing me. It's still there, perhaps even stronger than before, but it no longer feels oppressive.

"It's different now," Ahkelios agrees, looking around. "Not just 'cause of the Firmament, either."

"Probably because Gheraa's soul has been rotting here for so long," I say, nudging his shoulder. He lets out a low groan of protest.

"Don't... call it... rot," he mutters.

"Glad you're still with us," I say, smiling at him, and he groans again when he realizes I was just tricking him into speaking.

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The Intermediary is infested with soulrot. The first time I was here, it was still in the early stages of turning into a dungeon; it was a maze of half-built walls, a sort of labyrinthine construct that ended up being nearly destroyed by the monsters Kauku sent after us.

Now, though? There's no hint of that maze. Instead, we're surrounded by towering, impossible structures I can only assume belong to the Integrators and their home dimension. Some of them look outright like optical illusions come to life.

"It looks... like home," Gheraa says weakly.

"Fond memories?" I ask, only mostly joking. Gheraa manages to snort, shaking his head.

"Not in the slightest," he says. "I would... be happy to never see it again."

I reach out to give his hand a squeeze. "Then let's make that happen."

The good news is that I don't need to go anywhere to do this. I'd been a little worried that bringing him back would involve activating and completing a Ritual here, too, in which case we would almost certainly run out of time; even going around to look for the center of the dungeon feels like it's too much, at the moment.

But as Novi has explained, all that's really needed is for me to be inside the dungeon. I can work with that.

I lay Gheraa gently on the ground, then reach inside myself for the vestige—for the fragment of him I was able to save. It's more Concept than Firmament, though I didn't have the words for it back then. It's a distillation of Gheraa's entire being into a singular idea.

So is the Integrator lying on the ground in front of me.

Merging the two is a surprisingly simple process. All I have to do is bring the vestige close and it snaps into Gheraa; he gasps and squeezes his eyes shut as a small wealth of memories flow into him from the vestige.

After a moment, he looks up at me with something akin to wonder. "You don't blame me."

"What?" I blink, a little thrown.

"What we talked about," he says. "I told you I was sorry for bringing you into the Trials, and you said—"

"It could've been worse," I say, remembering. "Right. No, I don't blame you. And even if I did, considering everything you've done? You're more than forgiven."

"Thank you," Gheraa says. It's the most sincere I've seen him. The way he looks at me...

I shake my head. "Don't thank me yet," I say. "We still need to actually save you, and considering what Novi said, this is probably going to hurt."

Gheraa takes a deep breath and nods. "As long as you're the one doing it," he says, half-joking.

"Now's not the time," I say, rolling my eyes.

I reach out with Firmament Control and flex my will so that it grasps directly around his core. He has to force himself to relax to allow it to happen—directly manipulating a core isn't usually possible without explicit consent—but even before I apply any pressure, I can see him trembling, his fingers digging into the ground. His breathing is heavy and ragged, and he lets out a groan before he can stop himself.

He isn't saying anything, but it hurts, I can tell. "I'll make this quick," I tell him.

A quick thrust of power forces his core inside-out. Gheraa cries out, his fists clenching around clumps of dirt and stone, but I do my best to ignore it; I can't afford any distractions. His core isn't meant to exist like this for very long.

I channel every drop of Firmament I can into it. My core begins to spin faster and faster, helping it along. Threads snap out of the inverted core, pulling in fragments of the dungeon and making it fold in on itself. I can feel it trying to resist, but the pull is inexorable, especially with the amount of power I have to fuel it.

And beneath me, Gheraa slowly begins to glow bright with Firmament, and once more become something real.

It's only as I complete the process that I realize something is wrong.

Gheraa's rebuilt. It worked, and that much I know for a fact—not only is his Firmament once more a healthy deep blue, but he's more solid than he's been in the past few months of knowing him. I wasn't even aware that something was missing until now, but now that he's complete, the difference is clear as day; there's a presence to him that wasn't there before.

But even as I watch, there are golden cracks slowly spreading through his body. He's writhing in pain, even more than he was when I was rebuilding him. I pull open his coat and watch in alarm as the crack begins to spread across his chest, creating a massive scar from shoulder to hip.

"Gheraa, you need to tell me what's happening," I say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. "What's wrong?"

I don't think it's something I did. Everything so far has happened exactly as Novi said it would, and I can't sense anything wrong with the reconstruction process. I don't think this is a result of Kauku's manipulations, either. I can't sense his presence anywhere around.

No. Whatever's happening is something deeper. Something I don't yet understand.

"Ethan—" Gheraa gasps in pain, the crack in his chest widening until I can see his core's physical presence, manifesting as whorls of golden light; it shudders erratically, pulsing like it's on the verge of falling apart. "Phase collapse," he manages to say, clutching at my arm. "I can't—"

"What's a phase collapse?" I ask, looking sharply up at Ahkelios; he just shakes his head helplessly, looking just as worried as I am.

To my surprise, it's the Knight within me that comes up with an answer. "A phase collapse is when your growth no longer matches the path you have chosen," it says. "When the foundational layers of your core can no longer sustain the growth of your soul. It is nearly impossible to trigger in most cases: your core would conspire against you to prevent your path from changing. It is why those foundational layers are so important."

"But Gheraa's changed," I say quietly, staring at the Integrator in question. He pants, chest heaving as he draws in desperate gulps of air, beads of sweat forming on his skin—I didn't even know he could sweat.

"Yes," the Knight agrees solemnly. "In rare cases, it is possible for an individual to force themselves to change beyond what their core can support."

"Which means he's dying. Again." I don't take my eyes off him. Part of me is worried he'll die the second I look away. "How do I help him?"

"It is not possible without great risk—"

"How do I help him?" I repeat. The Knight pauses.

"You must link your cores," he says. "And he must find a new Truth before you are both destroyed by the feedback. And that, I will tell you now, is impossible."