The body was still warm.
Veins of broken threadlight ran across its arms, pulsing faintly like nerves still trying to deliver one last command.
Elian stood above the corpse, blade steady. The scout had died quickly. She wasn't from Scarhold. Her armor was finer. Her mask etched with golden glyphs — not system tags, but faction sigils.
He recognized none of them.
Which meant she came from somewhere else.
Somewhere deeper.
The satchel on her side was sealed with layered locks — standard thread encryption. Elian pressed two fingers to the seal, activated his Lucid trait, and rewrote the locking glyphs one by one.
The satchel opened.
Inside was a single item.
Not a weapon. Not a core.
A map.
But not of Scarhold.
Not of anything he'd ever seen.
The moment his fingers touched it, system prompts flickered in the air — glitching like the world didn't want him to see what came next.
[Zone Artifact Detected: Regional Survey Map – Designation: Shatterfield Layer]
[Warning: This artifact originates beyond your classified zone range.]
[Partial Display Permitted.]
The map unfolded in light, revealing a landscape so vast, so intricate, Elian went still.
It showed regions.
Not zones. Regions.
Scarhold was listed in a small corner, labeled as part of the Fracture Fringe — one of six known border regions.
Beyond it?
The Hollow Realms
The Spire Tract
Oblivion Nest
A place simply labeled Sanctum
And another marked in deep crimson thread:
"Domain of Crowned Writs"
And beneath all of it… a phrase, etched faintly along the map's edge.
The world is older than the Framework. And we remember.
Elian stared, eyes burning.
He wasn't a part of some broken edge.
He was standing on the outside of a world that had been built to forget him.
[Lucid Trait Sync: 33% → 35%]
[Threadbreaker Progress: 4.1% → 4.3%]
[New Concept Logged: Regional Layering]
[Author Seed Response: Steady Pulse]
He folded the map and slid it into his satchel.
The factions weren't just watching him.
They were testing him.
And now?
He knew how far he had to climb.