The world spat them out.
One moment, Lyric and Bell stood within the collapsing chamber, the Celestial Shard's power still thrumming inside Lyric's chest—the next, they were violently expelled from the crumbling realm, hurtling through space before crashing onto the rocky outskirts.
Lyric hit the ground hard, his limbs scraping against jagged metal and fractured stone. His breath knocked out of him, he rolled, dazed, trying to push himself up. His vision spun, his heartbeat erratic, the shard's energy still pulsing through his body.
A groan came from nearby. "Ow... that was unpleasant," Bell muttered.
Lyric blinked, forcing himself upright. The sky above them was breaking apart—the once-stable realm of the Invention God was folding in on itself, sucked into a void of twisting gears and collapsing walls. The landscape they had just escaped trembled violently, as if reality itself was being pulled away, sucked into a vortex of nothingness.
He could still feel the shard inside him, humming softly beneath his skin. It was... overwhelming. His mind felt sharper, his thoughts quicker, his body stronger—but also heavier. Like he had just been reforged, remade into something new.
Bell hovered near him, her glow flickering. "Okay, so bad news—we're definitely not alone out here. And people are going to realize real fast that the shard's been taken."
Lyric barely had time to process her words before—
"THERE! OVER THERE! THEY HAVE IT!"
His stomach dropped.
A squad of soldiers sprinted toward them, clad in Imperial armor, their weapons glinting under the fractured light of the collapsing dimension.
Lyric's pulse quickened. They weren't ready.
The ground trembled again, a warning from the dying realm. A deep, ear-splitting crack split through the land as portions of the metallic sand rose and shattered, floating for a moment before being swallowed by unstable rifts. The world was breaking apart.
Bell grabbed his sleeve. "We need to GO!"
Lyric's mind raced. They couldn't fight them—not head-on. There were too many, and even with his training, he wasn't invincible. He had just awakened this power, and he didn't even know how to use it.
Think. Find a way. Survive.
Then—his vision shifted.
The world tilted, the pulse of the shard in his chest quickening.
His eyes glowed a faint blue.
And suddenly—everything made sense.
Scraps of metal, rusted cogs, broken machinery—they all lit up in his mind, like puzzle pieces waiting to be put together.
It wasn't just sight. It was instinct.
His fingers twitched. His mind mapped out possibilities. Blueprints formed in his head—a shape, a function, a weapon.
His hands moved before he could think.
Lyric dove forward, grabbing a rusted pipe and snapping it in half. He reached for a piece of tubing, a shattered mechanical core, a bent barrel—his fingers working with unnatural speed.
Bell stared. "What are you—"
Metal twisted together, gears locking, fragments of broken machinery snapping into place like a natural extension of his will.
And then—he was holding a gun.
It was crude, assembled from scraps, but it was functional. He knew exactly how it worked, how it fired, how it could kill.
His heart pounded.
The soldiers were closing in.
Lyric gritted his teeth, shoving a handful of shrapnel into the chamber.
He raised the weapon—aimed.
And froze.
The soldiers weren't monsters.
They weren't mindless creatures. They were men.
Men who had probably trained since childhood, had families waiting for them, had fought battles just like him—and here he was, ready to pull the trigger.
His hands shook.
His breath hitched. Every instinct in his body screamed at him—don't do it.
These weren't faceless monsters. They had voices, expressions, memories.
Killing was easy when it was a beast lunging for your throat. But this? This was different.
He could hear their boots pounding against the ground, the weight of their weapons shifting. He saw one soldier hesitate, as if realizing for the first time that they were hunting a boy.
He had killed before—but only creatures. Beasts, monsters, abominations.
Not people.
His breath came fast. He thought of his village, of the way his parents fought and died, of Chime screaming as she was pulled into the rift.
His chest ached.
His fingers wouldn't move.
Bell's voice cut through his panic. "Lyric. If you can't fight—if you hesitate—you'll die here."
He swallowed.
"How are you going to save your sister," Bell whispered, "if you don't even have the resolve to fight for her?"
Lyric's grip tightened.
His heart pounded.
He squeezed his pendant—the only thing left of Chime.
He pulled the trigger.
The gun roared, spitting out jagged shrapnel.
The soldiers screamed as the metal tore through them.
Armor cracked. Flesh split. Some collapsed instantly, others staggered back, clutching gaping wounds.
Lyric lowered the gun, his hands trembling.
He had just killed real people.
His stomach churned, his breath uneven, but there was no time. No time for regret.
Bell grabbed his arm. "Move!"
They ran.
Commander Note watched from a distance, his expression unreadable.
A messenger rider galloped up. "Commander! Our men—"
"I know," Note interrupted. His gaze stayed locked on Lyric.
The realm's energy had changed.
It wasn't just the shard being taken—it was something else.
Note's grip on his reins tightened. That boy—he was different.
No ordinary scavenger could build a functional weapon out of rusted scraps in seconds. No ordinary fighter could survive a collapsing shard domain.
This was no random shard hunter.
This was someone dangerous.
"Form up," Note ordered coldly. "Kill him. Retrieve the shard. No excuses."
His entire army surged forward.
The world was falling apart.
The sky split like shattered glass, revealing glimpses of otherworldly voids beyond. Colors bled together, shapes flickered in and out of existence.
The air itself felt wrong—pressing in on them, warping their movements. One second, gravity was too heavy; the next, it felt like they might float away.
A pillar of rusted metal toppled nearby, crushing the remains of an ancient machine beneath its weight. The entire dimension was devouring itself.
Lyric and Bell leapt over collapsing ledges, dodging falling debris. The land was twisting, folding, crumbling into nothing.
A massive rupture opened ahead of them—a chasm swallowing everything in its path.
There was no way across.
Lyric's chest burned with energy. His mind searched for solutions.
His eyes glowed.
He saw something.
Something he could build.
Bell glanced at him, panicked. "Lyric—what are you—"
Before he could move—
A shadow loomed over them.
The air grew still, despite the chaos around them. A moment of perfect silence.
Lyric didn't need to turn around to know who it was. He felt it. The sheer pressure of the man's presence.
A slow, deliberate clink of boots against metal. No rush. No hesitation. Just inevitability.
Then, Note spoke.
A presence.
Cold. Unshaken. Unstoppable.
Commander Note stood at the edge of the battlefield, sword drawn, his emerald eyes locked onto Lyric with quiet menace.
"You've run far enough."
Lyric's blood froze.
The last thing he saw—
Was Note stepping forward, blade raised.