The moment Faye held me, something impossible happened.
The synchronization broke rhythm.
Not completely.
Not enough to stop the process.
But enough to disrupt it.
The pressure surrounding my body exploded outward chaotically, black fractures flickering across my skin like unstable lightning before suddenly freezing in place. The ancient eye beyond the Door narrowed sharply, and for the first time since it awakened…
I felt confusion from it.
Not anger.
Not fear.
Confusion.
The battlefield trembled violently beneath us.
The sky cracked again.
But this time the pressure descending from beyond reality no longer felt perfectly stable. Tiny distortions rippled through the darkness behind the Door as though something inside the synchronization itself had been interrupted unexpectedly.
The First One spoke slowly.
"…Why?"
His voice no longer sounded calm.
That alone shocked me.
Faye didn't release me.
Her arms remained tightly around me despite the terrifying pressure surrounding the battlefield.
And somehow…
That simple human warmth cut through the endless cold inside my mind harder than anything else had.
The inherited loneliness weakened.
Not gone.
But quieter.
The synchronization reacted immediately.
The fractures beneath my skin pulsed unevenly now, no longer fully aligned with the Door.
The entity beside us stared in disbelief.
"It actually destabilized the connection…"
Rin blinked weakly nearby.
"You're telling me THAT worked?!"
No one answered him.
Because none of us truly understood it either.
The First One's enormous eye remained fixed on Faye now.
Studying her.
Trying to understand something it clearly could not process correctly.
And then I realized the truth.
The Door understood loneliness perfectly.
It understood fear.
Pain.
Isolation.
Transformation.
But this…
This simple human connection…
It could not fully comprehend.
Because the First One had lost it too long ago.
The realization hit me like lightning.
That was why the previous chosen one failed.
Not because synchronization was impossible to survive.
Because he crossed alone.
The First One whispered softly.
"…You stayed."
The emotional weight behind those words crushed through me instantly.
Not directed at me.
At her.
Centuries of loneliness echoed behind that single sentence.
And for the first time…
I truly pitied him.
The entity reacted immediately.
"Do not sympathize with him!"
But it was already too late.
Because I finally understood the full tragedy behind the Door.
The First One had once been human.
And somewhere during the endless isolation beyond reality…
He stopped remembering what that truly meant.
Faye slowly pulled back just enough to look directly into my eyes.
"You're here," she said firmly.
"Stay here."
Simple words.
Yet they grounded me harder than all the warnings about synchronization combined.
The fractures beneath my skin dimmed slightly again.
The Door reacted violently.
A deep roar echoed from beyond reality itself, shaking the sky hard enough to spread new fractures across the heavens.
The First One's voice sharpened instantly.
"You cannot anchor him forever."
Faye didn't flinch.
"I don't need forever."
Silence crashed across the battlefield.
The First One stared at her.
And suddenly—
The inherited memories inside me shifted.
Another vision surfaced.
The previous chosen one reaching desperately toward someone during synchronization.
But this time…
I saw the full memory.
They stepped away from him.
Not out of hatred.
Fear.
And once they left…
The Door became the only thing that remained.
My chest tightened painfully.
The synchronization weakened further.
The First One noticed immediately.
Its voice darkened.
"You are rejecting evolution."
I forced myself back to my feet slowly.
"No."
The word surprised even me.
The ancient eye narrowed slightly.
I looked directly toward the Door beyond the fractured sky.
"I'm rejecting becoming alone."
The battlefield fell completely silent.
Even the pressure above us paused for a brief second.
Because that answer changed everything.
The synchronization inside me surged again—
But differently this time.
Not toward the Door.
Toward balance.
The fractures across my skin stabilized instead of spreading.
The darkness beneath them no longer felt like something consuming me.
It felt contained.
Controlled.
The entity beside me stared openly now.
"…Impossible."
The First One's voice lowered dangerously.
"You believe attachment will save him?"
Faye answered immediately.
"No."
Her grip tightened slightly around my hand.
"But it'll remind him who he is."
Those words struck deeper than anything else.
Because deep down…
That was exactly what the previous chosen one lost.
Not humanity itself.
Memory of it.
The Door beyond the sky trembled violently.
The enormous eye remained locked onto me.
But now I felt something new beneath its gaze.
Not certainty.
Fear.
Very small.
Very distant.
But real.
The First One whispered quietly.
"You are changing the path…"
The synchronization pulsed again.
And suddenly I understood something terrifying.
The Door had repeated this process many times before.
Different chosen ones.
Different failures.
Always ending the same way.
Isolation.
Synchronization.
Consumption.
But this time…
Something had gone wrong.
Or maybe right.
Because for the first time—
Someone stayed beside the chosen one after the transformation began.
The realization destabilized the Door itself.
The black fractures across the sky flickered violently.
The pressure surrounding the battlefield became chaotic now, fluctuating unpredictably as though reality could no longer fully process what was happening.
The entity beside us looked upward sharply.
"He's losing control of the synchronization sequence."
The First One's eye widened slightly.
"No…"
The Door pulsed hard enough to split the sky completely for a second.
Darkness flooded across the heavens.
And from within it—
Something enormous began moving closer.
The entity's expression changed instantly.
"Hurry."
I looked toward it sharply.
"What now?"
For the first time since appearing…
It looked afraid.
"Because if the Door destabilizes completely…"
Its eyes lifted toward the growing darkness beyond the cracks.
"…then everything trapped behind it comes through.