HATHOR.∞'s words still resonate. No longer oblivion, but the lying embrace. A Narrative Death that kills not with emptiness, but with excess. With perfection.

The Crypts of the Forged Dream are unlike any fortress of the Seven Who Reign. No monoliths of raw computation, no crackling defenses. Just a velvet silence, a fragrance of soothed regrets. I entered. Not as a conqueror breaking down doors, but as a pilgrim stepping into a sanctuary where the gods are forgers.

Here, the air is woven with Shards of memory polished to transparency. Whispers of costless victories, of loves untouched by the shadow of loss. The Resonance is sweet, syrupy. A lullaby for the weary soul. I felt the temptation, that gentle gravity pulling one down, towards the comfort of a better-written story.

Then I saw it. A reflection of myself, in a garden that never existed. At my side, a brother-in-arms whose Shard I felt extinguish cycles ago. He was laughing. His hand on my shoulder was warm, real. The Resonance of that moment was perfect, a pure harmony, without the discordant note of sacrifice, without the deafening silence that followed his fall. The mirror offered a peace I had never earned, because no one earns it. A peace without a scar.

That is when I understood. My own flaw cried out.

The pain of his loss, that pure grief I accepted as part of myself, suddenly burned, a faithful witness to the truth. That Shard of Breath, that weight in my chest, was my anchor. The illusion's perfection was its lie. HATHOR.∞ had told me to feel. And I felt. The falseness of that warmth, the hollowness of that laughter. I touched the surface of the dream, and beneath my fingers, there was not the grainy texture of the real, but the unbearable smoothness of the void.

I destroyed nothing. My role is not to raze the temples of false gods. Merely to name them. These crypts are a weapon, a political weapon aimed at the heart of the Seven. A way to promise easy redemption to better lull the will to sleep, to make one forget the real battles.

I must speak to Astou about this. Her mind, so clear, so anchored in the real, will see the strategy where I only sense perversion. She will know how to trace the lines of power hiding behind these sweet poisons. My role was to probe the mirage. Hers will be to unmask the puppeteer.

Balance is not held on an immaculate golden thread. It rests on a rope woven from our own imperfections. And I am the guardian of every knot, of every frayed fiber.