Chapter 155: BEYOND THE BREATHLESS SKY
The sky tore like tissue under a blade.
At first, a thin crack appeared in the pale dome above them, so small it was barely noticeable. Then it spread, splitting wider with a grinding noise, like stone scraping against bone. From that fracture, light poured out—blinding, too sharp and too pure to feel real.
The courtyard beneath their feet vanished, swallowed by the same burning brilliance. Walls, shadows, even the sense of shape and space unraveled until there was nothing left but the radiance itself.
They drifted within it, weightless, as if the world had been stripped away. There was no ground to stand on, no sky to look up at, no edge to cling to—only an endless wash of shifting light, like a sky without beginning or end, slowly churning all around them.
Mika recoiled, palms held up to the glare. "Where... where on earth is this?"
Nyra’s wings unfolded, but they didn’t expand with air—they expanded with nothing. She held herself in place by sheer willpower, her silver eyes compressing against the deluge. "Not the Fork. Not the city. This is higher. Something above what was supposed to be touched."
Farid’s voice was hoarse. "The lungs. The world’s lungs."
Kaito’s own breath wedged in his chest on the word. Lungs. Already he could feel something vast breathing and exhaling around them, though there was no wind. It pressed at his ribs, the breath pulling at his body like a tide.
"Then where’s the dragon?" Mika asked, her voice on the brink of shattering.
Farid did not answer.
Kaito lifted his scythe and forced forward, though forward was nothing here. Every step he took left no mark, yet space distorted around him. "If this is its lungs, then it’s here with us. Waiting."
The glow shifted. It was nonsensical at first, clouds reconfiguring, but then Kaito recognized the pattern. Great folds wove across the white sky, curving and folding. Each fold was too uniform, too deliberate.
Then the reality struck him.
They weren’t ridges. They were ribs.
They were in a chest.
Mika gasped, hand flying to her mouth. "Gods... it’s alive."
The ribs stretched beyond eyes could see, a cathedral of bone and light, each one taller than towers. Between them pulsed tissue like veils of smoke, stretching with every sluggish breath. The entire room was a body, and they were insects trapped within its breath.
The sound came then—quiet at first, such as the sweep of distant wind. But it built, piling upon itself until it was a storm of whispers. Thousands of voices, all talking at once, in rhythms too close to heartbeats.
"Breathe. Breathe. Breathe."
The sound shook through Kaito’s bones, vibrating in his teeth. He ground them together, forcing words past. "Show yourself!"
The whispers laughed. They did not echo—instead, they tightened, curling around his neck until the laughter was bottled up within him.
And then the dragon emerged.
It did not crawl or fly. It unfolded, great wings unrolling from the white pulp of the lungs, each feather a shard of broken glass. Its head low, eyes blazing with reflected light, so many eyes that you could not look anywhere and not see yourself staring back.
"You asked," it said, its voice air blown through a torn flute. "And so I give."
The tone of its words sent Kaito and the others to their knees. Ribs hummed, vibrating like plucked strings.
Nyra onto her feet, sword in hand, black fire burning along its length. "You won’t take us. Not here. Not ever."
The dragon tilted its head. "You already belong to me. You breathe me. You exist because I breathe you out."
Mika gagged, hands thrashing at her throat. Her lips trembled, but nothing came out. Her eyes expanded, begging.
Kaito staggered to her, embracing her, his forehead crashing against hers. "Don’t listen. Don’t let it overwhelm you."
She shook her head, her silent words tugging at her lips.
Farid discarded his crystal to the ground. Light splintered outward, a ring that glowed faintly around them. "Breathe in this!" he screamed.
Air rushed back to Mika’s lungs. She collapsed into a sobbing gasp, tears running down her cheeks.
The dragon lowered its head, watching them. "You cage what sustains you. How long until the cage breaks?"
Kaito rose, scythe heavy in his grip. His body screamed under the pressure, but he forced his voice steady.
"I’m done being your echo."
The dragon’s many mouths curled into shapes like smiles. "Then be my roar."
It struck.
The ribs that boxed them in quaked, slamming shut like collapsing towers.
Kaito swung his scythe, pale violet curves cutting through the air, shattering bone shards that rained down like meteors.
Nyra’s sword burned, slicing through strings of smoke tendons that lashed at them. Mika raised shaking hands, light spitting but keeping, forming a thread-thin barrier to showers of bone shards.
Farid didn’t move at the center, his crystal fixed, saying things in no language they could understand. His body trembled, sweat pouring off his robes, but the ring of air remained.
The dragon’s breath came next. A wave of air so hot that it burned, so heavy that it crushed. It wasn’t fire, but pressure itself—like the sky inhaling only to refuse to exhale.
Kaito stiffened, contorting his body into the hurricane. His lungs hurt, vision dissolving. The sigil on his chest seared with pain.
[SUBMIT]
The Root’s whisper surfed with the dragon’s roar, an age-old hunger clawing its way through him. His knees buckled.
Nyra’s grip closed around his arm. "Stay with me!" she shouted over the din. "This isn’t its world—it’s ours too!"
Her grip grounded him, pulling him back from the edge of defeat. He snarled, swinging the scythe wide, and with a brutal stroke, he sliced through the storm.
The air broke, shattering like shattered glass. The lungs surrounding them held still for a moment.
But the dragon kept laughing.
"Good. Shatter yourself. Every bellow makes you mine."
They pushed onward, fighting for every breath as if their own lungs were enemies. Each rib felt like a battlefield, each gasp of air a storm threatening to tear them apart.
The dragon struck again and again—its wings cutting through the air like rows of blades, its breath crashing down on them so fiercely it crushed even their thoughts. And when they faltered, it sent out mirrors, cruel reflections showing their weakest, most broken selves, forcing them to face the parts they wanted to deny.
Mika stumbled under the weight of it all, her knees almost giving way, but she did not fall. Her light bent and curved, wrapping itself around Nyra’s darkness, the two forces holding each other steady.
Farid’s crystal shattered in his hand, scattering into bright fragments that cut into his skin, but he refused to let go. With his jaw clenched tight, he kept speaking, forcing his voice to carry through the storm.
And Kaito...
Kaito was fire. His body, his will, everything he was—burned.
Every time the scythe struck, the price grew heavier. His arms ached, his chest burned, and the effort cut deeper than the blade itself. With each roar of defiance, the sound grew until it thundered in his skull, blurring the line between his own cry and the dragon’s voice. Soon, he could no longer tell if he was shouting against the beast—or with it.
At last, he raised the weapon one final time and drove the scythe straight into the dragon’s chest.
The creature’s response was not a scream of pain, but of wild delight. Its countless mouths opened wide, releasing a storm of wind that roared outward.
The force of it caught them all, pulling their bodies from the ground and dragging them upward into the cage of the endless ribs.
Around them, the lungs began to fold in on themselves, shrinking and tearing. The very sky bent and buckled as though the world itself were collapsing under the weight of the dragon’s breath.
Nyra’s hand clung to Kaito’s as they were drawn toward the whirl. "Don’t let go!"
He gripped tighter, violet-burning eyes locked on hers. "Never."
The dragon’s voice boomed, resonating in the fold, vast and triumphant.
"Breathe me. Become me."
And the white horizon shattered.
They plummeted into darkness.
Not darkness from the Abyss, nor void between worlds. This was another—darker, suffocating, like ink poured over the eyes. No light. No noise. Only the reverberation of air rushing from their lungs.
Then—one blinding flash.
A soft light farther on.
Nyra’s hand stayed tightly in Kaito’s, her grip steady even as the air around them grew heavy. Beside them, Mika’s soft sobs broke through the silence—quiet, muffled, but filled with real emotion.
Ahead, Farid’s crystal gave off a faint glow, its light fragile yet constant, pulling them forward through the dark like a star no one else could see.
Their breaths fell into rhythm, as if they were one body moving together. Step by step, they pressed on, each breath feeling borrowed, each step a small victory against the weight of the shadows pressing down on them.
Then, without warning, the darkness split apart. The shadows tore open, and something vast waited on the other side. It was larger than breath, greater than the sky itself—something that felt alive in a way they could not yet understand.