CHAPTER 3: The Third Fracture

The portal hums softly behind us, swirling with fractured geometry and light. For a moment, I just stare into it — the exit I thought would never come.

I turn to Saaya and exhale.

“At long last… we finally have a way out.”

I glance down at my clothes — bloodstained, torn, barely clinging to me.

“Man, I’m starving. I just hope this leads somewhere with food. And gravity that pulls in just one direction.”

Saaya smirks, resting a hand on her hip.

“Do you have any idea where this portal might take us?” I ask, watching the light shift and spiral.

“Unlike you, I’m not from this world — or multiverse, I guess. Back home, we had science. Espers. People with abilities, yeah… but reversing cause and effect?” I shake my head. “That’s beyond science.”

She nods slowly.

“You’re right. I’m from this multiverse. Or… I was. But even for me, your arrival didn’t make sense. Your scalar powers don’t just bend the rules — they overwrite them. I don’t think this fracture could ever contain you.”

She turns to the portal, her expression softening.

“If I had to guess, this won’t take us deeper into the fracture. It’ll take us out. Back to the stacked realms. Maybe even to a stable multiverse.”

I lift my gaze to the sky one last time — fractured, pulsing, tired. I close my eyes and breathe deep. No static. No distortion. Just breath.

“I’m fine with that,” I murmur.

“Honestly? I just want real food. And maybe a shirt that isn’t stitched together by blood and cosmic trauma.”

She laughs — a real, genuine laugh.

Light. Freeing.

“Well,” she says, lowering her hand, “I know someone who can help. My master. The one who taught me how to use my ability. He’s… different. He understands the Scalar Grid better than anyone I’ve ever met. If there’s anyone who can explain you — it’s him.”

My eyes meet hers.

“That works for me, Saaya.”

I take one last look at the realm we’re leaving behind. The fractured sky. The silence. The body of the Black Knight — or what’s left of it. A stillness that doesn’t feel like peace.

“This is just the first step,” I say, jaw tightening.

“Step one in taking revenge on the gods who tried to erase us. Who banished us like we were nothing.”

Saaya places a hand on my shoulder — not to stop me.

Just to say: I’m with you.

Together, we walk through the portal.

Light swallows us.

The hum fades.

And the realm between realms stills… finally calm.

For a while.

Until something shifts.

Back where the Black Knight’s body lies — in the place we just left — a voice cracks through the quiet.

Dry. Shaken. But alive.

“Thank god you’re alive… Sukara”

The body twitches.

Then, without warning — it dissolves.

Not like something dying.

Like something waking up.

The Black Knight’s form scatters into black mist… and vanishes.

Light.

Blinding. Endless.

Then—

Weight.

Like gravity returning after a long absence.

Like reality stitching itself back together.

I hit the ground—hard, but not painfully.

The surface beneath me is warm. Smooth.

Not stone. Not metal.

Glass?

I open my eyes.

Above me: a sky not broken, but infinite—

not blue or black, but a swirling spectrum of color, like oil across water.

Floating islands drift in the distance, ancient ruins suspended in thought.

I sit up slowly.

Saaya lands beside me with perfect balance, her violet eyes scanning the horizon.

“What… is this place?” I ask, breath catching.

She steps forward, boots tapping softly on the glasslike surface.

Then, in quiet awe:

“This is Earth.”

I blink.

“…Excuse me?”

She turns, smiling like it’s obvious.

And that’s when I explode.

“NO WAY IN HELL THIS IS EARTH! There are floating islands! That is not normal!”

Saaya actually jumps. I throw up my arms.

“The Earth I’m from had advanced tech, sure, but floating islands? That’s not technology — that’s something else.”

She frowns. “Science? You’ve said that before. Is that like… another name for magic?”

I stare at her, dead serious.

“No. I don’t use magic. My power comes from manipulating scalars—measurable quantities. Velocity. Gravity. Energy. That kind of thing.

Back home, magic doesn’t exist. I ran dozens of experiments on myself. Nothing ever happened.

Maybe the effect was delayed.

Maybe this realm triggered it.”

She tilts her head. “So… you built your powers? With math?”

“…Basically, yeah.”

Before she can respond, a shadow falls over us.

We both look up.

A dragon.

Crimson scales. Wings the size of buildings. A tail that could level a city block.

It glides overhead like a living blade, the air hissing in its wake.

My jaw drops.

“What the—Saaya. Saaya. SAAYA. Was that a DRAGON?”

She follows it with her eyes, unfazed. “Yeah. You don’t have dragons in your world?”

“HELL NO WE DON’T.”

She bursts into laughter. “Hahaha—your face!”

I wipe the shock off mine. “I’m going to need so much therapy after this.”

She grins. “Well, lucky for you… this is the Earth I know. Which means…”

Her eyes light up, hands clasped behind her back.

“We can find my master.”

I raise a brow. “You know where he is?”

“Of course!” she says, beaming. “I’d never forget something that important.”

I nod, brushing dust from my coat. “Alright, Saaya. Lead the way.”

But she hesitates, glancing back at the sky.

“There’s something I didn’t tell you,” she says. “Before he disappeared, my master said he’d leave behind a trace. A signal in the Scalar Grid. Not something you can see—unless you think like the Grid.”

“A scalar signature,” I say, eyes narrowing. “A mathematical footprint.”

She nods. “Exactly. He said only someone whose mind could bend to its shape would ever find him. That used to feel… impossible.”

I crouch, placing my palm on the strange, glasslike ground.

The moment I make contact, I close my eyes.

The world goes quiet—not in sound, but in structure.

I don’t reach outward. I dive inward—into the field beneath all things.

Into the Grid.

There.

Faint at first.

A thread stretched across dimensions.

A hum not heard, but calculated.

Ratios vibrating just off prime constants—subtle, deliberate.

Too precise to be natural.

I open my eyes.

“I found it,” I whisper. “Faint, but stable. Whoever he is… he didn’t want to be forgotten.”

Saaya exhales. “Then he’s still out there.”

“Scalar signature points north-northeast. Thirty-two degrees off the standard flow. Space is… bent around that axis.”

I press my hand deeper.

That’s when it happens.

The air around me bends—not from heat, but from calculation.

Numbers shimmer faintly, flickering like transparent code: angles, constants, glyphs.

A pulse spreads from beneath my palm in concentric ripples.

Each ring distorts gravity. The wind shifts. Dust floats upward.

The sky warps—like we’re standing in the center of an equation being solved.

“Whoa…” Saaya breathes, wide-eyed.

I rise.

A blue circle with 3 glyphs forms around me—mathematical glyphs floating like fireflies.

The world is responding.

“I’ve never seen you do this,” she says.

“Neither have I,” I reply, eyes fixed ahead. “His signature is waking something up in me.

This realm listens… differently.”

A crystalline hum builds in the air. My field synchronizes with the signature—

and suddenly, a red-blue trail curves into the horizon, spiraling like a river of numbers waiting to be followed.

“There,” I say.

Saaya steps beside me, her voice soft. “That path… it’s beautiful.”

“It’s precision. It’s will. He didn’t just want to be found—

He wanted me to find him.”

I adjust the scalar values beneath us, shifting our mass vectors along the trail.

The world tilts.

“You ready?” I ask.

She nods. “Always.”

The glyphs spin—then burst outward in a glowing cascade.

We vanish into the current—falling sideways across the landscape, chasing the echo of a god’s mind.

“So,” she says, eyes sparkling, “you can follow it?”

I grin. “With my eyes closed.”

I tweak the scalar field, adjusting gravity—not enough to float, just enough to fall forward.

“You ready?”

She steps closer. “Always.”

With a ripple of bent vectors, we slip into motion—

riding the signature left by a god who refused to abandon the broken.

She walks a few paces, then stops, eyeing the sky.

“Well, we could walk,” she says, “but that’d take days. Maybe weeks. This world’s fractured differently… distances don’t behave normally.”

I raise a brow. “So what do you suggest?”

She smirks. “You’re the scalar expert. Cheat physics again.”

I sigh, rolling my neck. “You’re lucky I’m built different.”

I press my palm to the surface again.

The scalar field responds—pressure, curvature, weight, all rippling through my mind like data.

“All right. Direction: northeast. Target elevation: thirty meters. Surface pressure: zero.”

Gravity flips—gently, like a thread pulling taut.

We lift.

Saaya gasps as we glide forward, gaining speed.

“I’ll never get used to this…”

I grin. “Good. Means I’m doing it right.”

Crystalline forests and floating islands pass beneath us.

Silence settles—not awkward, just… thoughtful.

Eventually, I glance over. “So… your master. What kind of person is he?”

Her expression shifts. The playfulness fades.

“He’s… complicated. He taught me everything I know. Helped me control my power. But more than that—he helped me understand why it scared the gods.”

I frown. “Wait. He helped you? But I thought the gods banished you.”

“They did.” Her voice lowers. “He wasn’t like them. He saw value in people they discarded. That’s why they exiled him too.”

I blink. “Hold on. Are you saying your teacher is—”

“One of the original Six,” she says. “A god. Or… he was. Before they stripped his title and locked him out of the Core.”

I stare at her, blinking.

And then I remember—

That sixth throne.

Empty. Pushed to the side.

I thought I was hallucinating when I saw it during my torture.

I refocus.

“You trained under a god?”

She shrugs, but there’s pain behind it.

“He never acted like one. Never demanded worship. He just… taught.

He believed the Scalar Grid wasn’t meant for control.

It was meant to connect.”

I fall silent.

The air grows colder as we glide over a jagged ridge.

There’s a hum—distant, not threatening, but… watching.

“What happened to him?” I ask.

“They called him a traitor,” she says. “Said his compassion weakened the system.

So they erased his name. Burned it from the code.

But he’s still out there.

Still helping people like us.

Outcasts. Errors.”

She looks ahead, into the endless swirl.

“That’s why we’re going to him.”