She walked again.
Not forward. Not away. Simply through.
Her feet did not disturb the soil. Her breath did not fog the air. The Gu at her spine pulsed, and the ruin around her forgot its name.
A path unfolded — not on the ground, but behind her.
And in the mortal sky, where starlight no longer obeyed the watchers, a new script wrote itself across fate-scrolls.
Vane Dream watched no longer. He was inside it now.
Elsewhere, the Vault listened. The echo had not moved. But its silence grew layered.
"I dreamed her."
"But she is not mine."
Fang Yuan turned a page in the aperture's inner scripture. Nothing written changed.
But for a breath, he hesitated.
And in that pause, the myth stepped further into the world.