The strike landed.

Ren's scream and the girl's flame threaded together, and Thorn—jagged, furious, alive—cut into the dome of spirals. It wasn't a clean slice. It was chaos: cracks spiderwebbing outward, bleeding light that wasn't light but raw memory, history, fragments of everything the Warden had ever swallowed.

For the first time, the spirals shuddered not in command, but in pain.

A ripple tore across the infinite glass-ocean, shaking Ren's body down to his bones. The girl clutched him tighter, her flickering form stabilizing as if his will tethered her.

Then the sound came.

Not a roar, not a scream—something worse. A distortion like the world's foundation being twisted into a knot. A shriek that wasn't heard through ears but through marrow.

The Warden's voice.

"—CORRUPTION—

—FRAMEWORK WOUND—

—SOURCE: STRIKER—

—PROTOCOL OVERRIDE—

—INITIATING SPIRAL BLEED—"

The dome split open.

From the fissures poured rivers of black, searing liquid, like ink but alive. It cascaded in every direction, twisting through the glass-ocean like blood through veins. But where it touched, reality warped—reflections screamed into existence, distorted shards of people Ren once knew: classmates' faces, Airi's smile melted into a grimace, his mother's hands reaching only to crumble into dust.

The girl gasped, her flame flickering wildly against the tide. "It's bleeding… its essence is leaking into the Pane! This isn't supposed to be possible!"

The shadow laughed, bitter and cracked, shards falling from him faster. "You've done it, Ren. You've wounded the warden of worlds. But tell me—what happens when a prison bleeds? When the blood is poison?"

The ink surged toward them.

Ren lifted Thorn, but the blade hissed, the resonance clashing against the oncoming tide like flint against storm. His arms shook, veins burning. The girl's flame wove around him, pushing back the corruption, but even her fire bent, sputtering against the bleed.

From the ink, voices emerged—mocking whispers, pleading cries.

"Ren…"

"You failed us."

"You shouldn't exist."

"Give me back what you stole…"

The girl pressed her forehead to his, desperate, anchoring him. "Don't listen. It's trying to rewrite you. Stay in yourself."

Ren's teeth clenched. The ink was cold and hot at once, trying to climb into his chest, dragging pieces of his will away. His rebellion—the one thing he was—was being rewritten line by line.

But Thorn vibrated violently, rejecting it.

The resonance was louder than the whispers now, like a jagged heartbeat tearing free.

Ren snarled, shoving the blade into the oncoming flood. "You can bleed all you want—" His eyes burned, crimson light crackling in the reflection of the spirals above. "—but I won't drown in your blood. You'll choke on mine."

The resonance exploded outward.

For a heartbeat, the black rivers parted.

The girl's flames surged, riding the gap he'd forced open, creating a burning corridor through the corruption. "Ren—this way!" she shouted, her eyes blazing, though her body flickered like she might vanish at any moment.

He didn't hesitate.

Hand gripping hers, Thorn pulsing in his other, Ren dragged them forward, deeper into the wound they had carved.

Behind them, the ink rivers stitched themselves back together, closing fast. The spirals convulsed, the abyssal dome twitching like a beast wounded but not dead.

And then—something else began to emerge from the bleeding cracks.

Shapes. No longer whispers or warped reflections. But entities—figures forming from the prison's blood, dragging themselves into shape. Some carried chains, some mirrors, some wore masks with no eyes at all. They moved with the precision of jailers, but their bodies twitched like things half-born.

The Warden was making new hunters.

And they were coming straight for Ren.

The corridor of flame and resonance stretched ahead, fragile as a heartbeat. Each step Ren took echoed like a crack against the Pane itself, the girl's flickering light pushing back just enough of the black tide to keep them from being swallowed.

But then the hunters stepped through.

They weren't human. Not reflections. Not even shards.

They were functions made flesh.

Chains clattered as one crawled forward, its mask smooth and eyeless, body warped like ink forced into the shape of a man. Another dragged a mirror the size of a door, its surface smeared with black liquid that dripped endlessly onto the floor. A third simply bent backward, mouth opening wide enough to stretch to its chest, voice gurgling with raw static:

"—CORRECT THE ERROR—

—REWRITE THE STRIKER—"

Ren froze. His chest clenched—not from fear, but because Thorn vibrated so hard in his grip it nearly split his hand open. The resonance wasn't warning him.

It was calling out to them.

The girl's flame flickered, her eyes widening. "They're born of the bleed… which means they're closer to you than the Warden. They carry fragments of what you struck loose!"

Ren's jaw tightened. "Fragments of me… or fragments of what it wants me to be."

The shadow laughed, shards of himself sloughing away into the ink as he leaned against nothing. "Either way, Ren—you fight them, or you become them."

The first hunter lunged.

Its chains lashed forward, too fast to be natural. Thorn screamed in Ren's grip, dragging his arms into motion on instinct. The blade intercepted, sparks of resonance scattering as chain met edge. But where the metal touched, his arm burned with a searing cold—like the chain wasn't binding flesh, but the story of his existence.

He roared and shoved back, resonance pulsing down the blade, splitting the chain into threads of shattering glass.

The hunter didn't scream. It simply reformed, mask twitching, stepping closer.

The mirror-bearer moved next, shoving its dripping slab between them. The surface rippled, and Ren froze as he looked back—an image of himself, wide-eyed, soaked in ink, Thorn shattered at his feet.

The girl's hand gripped his tighter, her flame lashing out, scorching the reflection away. "Don't let it bind your sight! That's how it rewrites you!"

The third hunter bent its body in an impossible arc, mouth stretching until the sound of static filled the corridor. It was more than noise—it was correction code.

Ren's thoughts stuttered. For a heartbeat, his will faltered, the resonance dimming.

He almost dropped Thorn.

Almost.

The girl didn't hesitate. She pressed her lips to his ear and whispered—not code, not command. A name.

"Ren."

Just his name.

It snapped him back.

His roar ripped through the static, Thorn igniting with a jagged flare. The resonance shredded the correction code, forcing the hunter's body to collapse into a puddle of black sludge that writhed on the ground like a living wound.

But the others weren't stopping. The chains reformed, the mirror dripped thicker, and more shapes began crawling through the bleed behind them. Hunters upon hunters. A tide of jailers born from the Warden's wound.

The girl's flame bent under the pressure, nearly snuffed out, but her eyes burned brighter than ever. "Ren—we can't outrun them all! You have to strike again!"

Ren's grip tightened. Thorn pulsed violently, craving to tear, to resonate, to carve deeper into the dome.

But the shadow's voice echoed low and sharp, cutting into the chaos. "Be careful, Ren. Strike again, and you don't just wound the prison. You wound yourself. And maybe… you won't come back."

Ren's breath burned in his throat. His heartbeat was resonance now, every pulse rattling his bones. He stood between flame, shadow, and bleed, hunted by things not meant to exist.

He had one choice:

Unleash Thorn again—and risk unraveling with the spirals.

Or hold back—and let the hunters consume him.

Ren raised the blade, eyes burning like mirrors set on fire.

The corridor of resonance collapsed around them. Hunters dragged their chains, mirrors wept with ink, and static gnawed at Ren's thoughts like invisible teeth.

Every step forward felt like walking through a world already dying.

The girl's flame sputtered, barely keeping the tide at bay. Her eyes—bright, desperate, alive—snapped to Ren.

"Decide!" she shouted. Her voice wasn't fear—it was plea. "Strike, or we're erased!"

Thorn pulsed harder in his grip, jagged arcs of resonance biting into his palm until blood mixed with the blade's hum.

Ren's shadow leaned lazily against the wall, arms folded. His grin was wrong, but his voice was sharp as a shard. "Come on, Ren. You know what Thorn wants. What you want. To cut deeper. To break it all."

The hunters advanced in perfect rhythm, chains rattling, static boiling, mirrors swallowing light.

Ren's mind split with the choice.

Strike again—tear another wound into the Pane, unleash power no human should carry.

Or hold back—protect his humanity, but let the hunters devour him and the girl.

He grit his teeth. His voice broke through the chaos, ragged but unshakable.

"…I won't be erased."

Thorn screamed in agreement.

The resonance detonated.

The blade swung—not just through the corridor, not through the hunters, but through the story of the prison itself. The air split like glass in a hurricane, shards spiraling outward. Chains snapped mid-air, mirrors shattered into rivers of ink, static dissolved into silence.

The hunters didn't die. They didn't even scream.

They simply unwrote.

Pieces of them scattered like discarded words, erased from existence.

But the cost came instantly.

Ren's chest tore open—not flesh, but reflection. His ribs cracked like glass under pressure, spilling out fragments of himself: smiles, screams, memories he didn't remember living. The bleed didn't just run through the prison anymore.

It ran through him.

The girl's flame flared desperately, wrapping him in light to keep him from unraveling completely. Tears streamed down her cheeks, her voice breaking. "Ren—don't disappear! Please—don't leave me here!"

Her hands pressed to his chest, holding the fragments in place, as if her will alone could stitch him back together.

The shadow laughed, low and jagged, as more of Ren's reflections spilled out. "You've done it now. You've carved yourself into the wound. You're not just a prisoner anymore… You're becoming the bleed."

Ren gasped, eyes glowing with fractured light. His voice came out rough, doubled, like two versions of him speaking at once.

"…Then I'll become what I have to."

The hunters were gone. The corridor was torn open. The prison itself screamed with cracks spreading wider, spirals twisting into shapes that should never exist.

And through it all, Ren stood—half whole, half shattered, Thorn blazing in his hand.

Not erased. Not rewritten.

Something else.

The girl's flame steadied, though her tears didn't stop. She whispered one word, trembling but full of faith.

"Savior…"

The shadow's grin widened, sharp as broken glass. "Or destroyer."

Ren didn't answer. He simply stepped forward, into the bleed, with Thorn raised.