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Chapter 60 – The First Blueprint
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The world was still breaking.
Not in fire or screams—but in the quiet, subtle ways only survivors could hear. A missing sound here. A dream that wouldn't finish there. The system was gone, but its ghost lingered.
Erevan stood in what used to be the Central Spire's Root, now a floating grave of code and melted stone. Truthseeker hovered beside him in its key-form, pulsing faintly with every heartbeat he didn't know he was still allowed to feel.
Serah joined him, a map etched with light unfurling between her hands.
"We've confirmed eight stable shards," she said. "Seven are open to negotiations. One's... hostile."
Erevan didn't flinch. "Chainborn?"
"Maybe. Or something worse. They call themselves the Hollow Choir."
He sighed.
New names. Same mistakes.
He turned toward the map, scanning the fractal edges of broken realities. Somewhere in that chaos was the beginning of a different kind of world—if they had the courage to build it.
"You still believe in this?" Serah asked softly.
"In what?"
"This dream. That people can choose better."
Erevan was quiet for a moment.
Then: "I believe they have to. Because if we don't choose... someone else always will."
Malrik arrived with the others—survivors, visionaries, even a few reformed enemies who had tasted both sides and come away wanting more than control.
Among them was Yuren, a former adjudicator who once enforced the Tower's rules without mercy. He approached Erevan with a cautious respect.
"I don't expect forgiveness," Yuren said. "But I've seen what blind law does to souls. I'd rather help shape something honest."
Erevan nodded. "Then help us build."
They sat together for hours—no longer strategizing for war, but planning for what came after. Not a new system. Not another Tower.
Something else.
A network.
A living framework of communication between shards, powered not by control, but by intent. Each node would govern itself, share truths, protect the vulnerable. No single ruler. No single code.
A web of light across the dark.
They called it the Blueprint.
But the moment it was named, the moment hope found structure...
...the corruption came.
The shard beneath them shuddered.
Not from within—but below.
A pulse. Then a sound like a broken hymn.
Malrik growled. "They've found us."
Erevan stepped toward the edge of the platform, eyes narrowing as a storm of black threads spiraled in from the void—Chainborn, dozens of them, their mirrored faces flashing with corrupted fragments of Erevan's past.
One of them spoke—his own voice, twisted.
"You failed before. You'll fail again. Freedom is noise. We bring harmony."
But Erevan didn't raise Truthseeker.
He didn't step back.
He stepped forward.
And spoke—not to fight, but to the people behind him.
"You all have a choice," he said, voice clear. "To run, to hide, to fight. But I won't decide for you. I won't command. I'll build with anyone willing to try."
Serah stepped to his side. "We're not here to replace the old."
"We're here to bury it," Yuren said, joining her.
And behind them, one by one, others rose.
The Chainborn hesitated.
For the first time, Erevan saw it—not fear of power.
But fear of irrelevance.
They needed the old structures to matter.
Without them, they were just... echoes.
And the future didn't belong to echoes.
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End of Chapter 60
Author's Note:
If you felt this chapter, drop a comment. Let me know what you're loving—or fearing—about this next arc. And if you're rooting for Erevan's dream, throw a Power Stone or two to keep the fire burning. Reviews help more than you know. We're building something together now.
Coming Next:
Chapter 61 – The Hollow Choir
One of the new shards falls. A message is intercepted. And Erevan comes face-to-face with a former ally who never stopped believing in the Tower.