The Purification Tree’s leaves rustled softly above Ethan’s head.
It should have felt peaceful.
But the silence only made the weight in his chest louder.
He drew a slow breath, raised his hands… and summoned the thing he trusted more than prayers.
His Talent.
The line of fate that let him pull miracles out of the sea.
SSS-Rank Infinite Fishing.
Ethan extended an empty hand toward Storm Island itself.
The sensation that answered was impossible to describe—like hooking a continent with a thread and feeling it twitch.
The air tightened.
His Spirit surged outward, then snapped back like a taut line.
Blue light flashed across his vision.
[SYSTEM]
SSS-Rank Infinite Fishing successful: Storm Island.
Reward acquired: Creator Fragment.
Contribution +5.
A shard of light appeared in his palm.
It looked like a sliver of crystal at first glance—small, sharp, harmless.
But when Ethan focused, the fragment didn’t reflect the world around it.
It reflected something older.
Stars. Gears. A blueprint made of physics and prayer.
The Creator Fragment was a piece of an authority that had no business sitting in a mortal hand.
Ethan closed his fingers around it anyway.
Somewhere in the city, bells began to ring. People were still shouting “Mother Goddess” like the words could stitch their lives back together.
Ethan stayed under the tree a little longer, letting the purification wash over him, letting the adrenaline drain.
Footsteps crunched over broken stone.
Red Falcon arrived first, cloak snapping in the breeze, eyes scanning the plaza like he expected another abyss-lord to crawl out of the ground.
Candice and Leon followed close behind.
Candice’s gaze locked onto Ethan’s face. “Rhine. Tell me the truth.”
Leon’s voice was rough. “That dragon… that wasn’t the Weave Mother.”
Ethan slipped the fragment into his System inventory without looking. “What makes you so sure?”
“Because I’ve read the records,” Candice shot back. “Because I’ve seen what a godhead does. Because—” She swallowed. “Because I felt it. That thing up there wasn’t a god. It was hungry.”
Red Falcon’s expression didn’t change, but his hand drifted closer to his weapon. “Watch your words.”
Candice looked like she wanted to argue, then forced herself to breathe.
“Morningstar warned us something big would happen today,” she said. “We rushed here the second the sky changed.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “Morningstar?”
Leon gave a small, grim nod. “Our handler. Don’t ask.”
Red Falcon cut in, voice calm but carrying. “Whatever you think you felt, the outcome is the same. Windrest City still stands.”
Candice’s jaw tightened. “And Panglos Fell?”
Red Falcon’s gaze flicked toward the distant silhouette of Windrest Keep. “Missing. But my people saw movement under the Keep earlier. Something… wrong.”
Leon swore under his breath. “Earth Ring’s upper brass are still in the city too. So are the Institute’s Director and Dean. Everyone’s circling the same piece of meat.”
Ethan didn’t miss the way Candice watched him while she said it.
They were all circling him, too.
Ethan let his shoulders sag, playing exhaustion because it wasn’t entirely a lie.
“If you’re here to interrogate me,” he said, “you’re wasting your time.”
Candice frowned. “You don’t remember?”
“Not clearly.” Ethan looked down at the Angelic Sigil and the Purification Tree as if the sight itself pained him. “It felt like… a dream. Like something grabbed me by the throat and pulled me into a place where the sky was all thread.”
That part was true enough to taste like it.
“When I came back,” he continued, “the Lava Lord was already being forced into a seal. I finished what I could.”
Red Falcon seized the opening without hesitation. “See? The Seven favor him. Rhine has always been a beacon.”
Candice didn’t look convinced.
But she didn’t press further, either.
Not here. Not in front of hundreds of kneeling survivors, a fresh-grown holy tree, and a man the rumors already called chosen.
Leon let out a slow breath. “Fine. But if you remember anything—anything at all—about that ‘Weave Mother,’ you tell us.”
Ethan nodded. “If I do.”
As the crowd dispersed and the Weavecasters began sweeping the plaza clean, Ethan slipped away.
Red Falcon tried to follow. Ethan shook his head.
“I need quiet,” he said. “And I need answers that aren’t coming from a committee.”
Red Falcon studied him for a long moment, then nodded once. “Be careful. Storm Island’s sharks are all awake now.”
Ethan didn’t bother correcting the metaphor. He just left.
Night fell over Windrest City like a bruised blanket.
The streets were still lit by emergency braziers and the sickly glow of half-finished wards. Weavecasters moved in groups, burning out pockets of larvae, tending the feverish, trying to make the city feel like a city again.
Ethan returned to the church dormitory he’d been using as cover.
He thought he was alone.
He saw the shadow in his window.
Not a reflection.
A presence.
Ethan’s hand went to his revolver out of habit.
The shadow lifted both hands, palms open, and stepped into the lamplight.
It was a man—if you could call something that tall and broad a man. Skin like weathered stone. Eyes like river gravel. He wore the simple clothes of a laborer, but his posture carried an old, wary dignity.
“You’re Rhine,” the stranger said.
His voice was low, careful, like he didn’t want to wake something sleeping under the floorboards.
“Haizan,” Ethan guessed, tasting the name.
The stranger’s eyes sharpened. “So you’ve heard of me.”
Ethan didn’t answer that. He asked the question that mattered.
“You said you wanted a future for your people.” He held Haizan’s gaze. “Tell me about resurrection.”