CHAPTER 487: LIGHT HEART

The world rebuilt itself around him, not with sound or substance, but memory.

Lindarion stood in a place that wasn’t a place, beneath a sky of fractured glass. Each shard reflected a different world: one of golden forests, one of burning seas, one of endless night. Between them flowed a river of light, running both upward and downward, defying all direction.

He felt weightless, though he knew his feet stood on something that felt like ground. The air carried no wind, yet it hummed with the sound of breathing, his breathing, echoing back at him from everywhere and nowhere.

[System Reinitializing...]

[Environment: Soul-Constructed Plane.]

[Stability: Variable.]

[Warning: Host Consciousness Partially Dissociated.]

A familiar voice echoed faintly in the void, Ashwing’s, but it was distant, distorted, as though coming from beneath deep water. He tried to respond, but no sound came out.

Then, a ripple.

The light before him folded in on itself, forming a circle, then a figure.

It was him.

Or something that wore his face.

But this version of Lindarion wasn’t bound by flesh. His form was woven from silver fire and shadow. His hair moved as though in water, his eyes twin suns burning through mist. And when he spoke, his voice carried both warmth and command.

"You’ve touched what should have never been touched."

Lindarion stared, unflinching. "What are you?"

The reflection tilted its head. "A question born from the living half of a divided whole." It stepped forward, its movements too smooth, too deliberate. "I am what the Heart remembers. The part of you that it carried long before you were born."

[System Diagnostic: Unknown Entity Sharing Host Signature.]

[Designation: ??? — ’Eldras Bound Fragment.’]

[Warning: Soul Symmetry Detected.]

Lindarion’s expression hardened. "A fragment of Eldras... the god who forged the first Tree."

The being smiled faintly. "Names are conveniences. But yes. What remains of him lingers within your line, woven through blood, through will. Through me."

He raised a hand, tracing a circle in the air. The world shifted. The river of light turned dark, its reflection revealing something beneath it: chains, massive, luminous, stretching endlessly downward into the depths of the realm.

And at the farthest end, a faint pulse. The same pulse as the Heart Below.

"The Tree and the Heart are one organism," said the being. "Two halves of the same intention—creation and correction. When the world strays too far, one awakens to cleanse, the other to renew."

Lindarion’s voice was steady. "And now both are stirring."

The being’s eyes narrowed. "Because you woke them. When you bound yourself to both divine and dragonkind, you tore open what was meant to stay sealed. You carry both flame and root, light and hunger. That balance cannot hold forever."

Lindarion looked up toward the fractured sky, the shards of other worlds flickering faintly above. "Then tell me how to stop it."

For the first time, the being looked almost human, almost weary. "To stop it, you must separate what you are. Choose one half to burn away."

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Lindarion’s eyes glinted gold. "No."

The echo smiled faintly, though its expression carried no warmth. "You deny inevitability."

"I refuse limitation."

A faint crack appeared beneath Lindarion’s feet, light bleeding through it like veins in marble. The world reacted to his defiance. The system flared.

[Host Willpower Overload Detected.]

[Soul Pressure Threshold Surpassed.]

[Warning: Reality Instability—Containment Recommended.]

The reflection circled him, studying him like a scholar might study a dangerous artifact. "Your kind always believed you could stand apart from the laws that bound the gods. That arrogance destroyed them."

Lindarion’s hand rested on his sword’s hilt. "I’m not them."

"No. You’re something worse."

The being’s tone shifted, no longer calm but laced with reverence and something close to fear. "You are the first born of both trees, root and flame. Do you even understand what that means? When you die, either the Heart or the Tree will consume this world entirely. There will be no rebirth, only absorption."

Lindarion said nothing. The truth hung heavy, unbearable, yet his face didn’t change.

Ashwing’s voice reached him again, clearer this time. "Lindarion! Wake up!"

The world trembled. The reflection frowned, looking upward. "The bond drags you back."

Lindarion looked directly into his other self’s eyes. "You said I carry both. Then you should know I won’t let either win."

The being tilted its head. "Balance cannot be maintained forever."

"Then I’ll make a new balance."

A heartbeat. Then another. The cracks beneath his feet widened, and the realm began to fracture entirely. Shards of the mirror-sky fell, each one reflecting a different memory of Lindarion’s life, his mother’s laughter, Luneth’s frostlit gaze, the silver canopy of Sylvarion, the burning eyes of Dythrael’s shadow.

The reflection began to fade, its edges fraying into mist. "When the Tree bleeds, remember this: the Heart does not destroy by hate. It destroys by design."

The last of its voice echoed through the collapsing realm:

"You cannot fight purpose. Only redefine it."

Then the light shattered—

—and Lindarion gasped awake.

He was back in the real world, lying amid the ruins of the Heart’s chamber. The crystal core had gone dark, its pulsing ceased. Nysha was crouched beside him, pale but alive. Ashwing fluttered overhead, eyes wide with relief.

"About time," the dragon muttered. "You were out cold for, uh... how long has it been, Nysha?"

Nysha shook her head. "Days, maybe. The vault’s cycle is strange here." Her eyes softened as she looked at him. "But you’re breathing again."

Lindarion sat up slowly. His body ached, but not from battle, from something deeper, as though every fiber of him had been unspooled and rewoven.

Ashwing landed beside him. "You did something, didn’t you? The whole place stopped when you passed out. The Heart went quiet."

Lindarion looked toward the dormant crystal. Faint cracks ran through its surface, cracks that glowed faintly with gold light, not red.

"I made a choice," he said quietly. "Not to destroy. Not to preserve. To change."

Nysha frowned. "Change what?"

Lindarion’s gaze lingered on the crystal, then beyond it, to the horizon, to the world waiting above.

"The way the gods remember," he said softly. "And the way mortals are remembered."

The light of the Heart flickered once, like an echo answering him.