They crossed the constellation bridge without hesitation.

Behind them, Evelyn walked with steadier steps than before. Her hands were still shaking slightly, her breath catching every now and then, but there was a new clarity in her gaze—as if her soul had finally remembered the path it had fought so hard to carve.

Ahead, the dreamgate shimmered. Five orbs of light flickered within it—each corresponding to the other heroines trapped inside.

Verena didn't wait. She pushed through.

This time, she landed in a frozen courtyard. Snow fell gently, but the air was bitter, sharp, like it carried old grief. At the center stood Beatrice, her back to Verena, dressed in an elegant, overly frilly dress that looked far too familiar. The scenery matched Chapter 18 of the original novel—Beatrice's confession scene, the one where she was supposed to be publicly humiliated by a suitor who only pursued her for status.

Except here, she stood alone.

No crowd. No suitor. No music. Just silence, and snowfall.

Verena stepped forward cautiously. "Beatrice?"

The girl didn't move.

But then Verena noticed the cracks along the edges of Beatrice's silhouette—like she was glass waiting to shatter.

"They never even liked me," Beatrice said softly, voice brittle. "They just wanted to be seen with the perfect noble girl. Not the real me."

"That's not true," Verena answered, already feeling the pressure of the narrative pushing down on her shoulders like gravity. "You proved them wrong. You changed."

"I don't remember how," Beatrice whispered. "I forgot what I stood for."

Verena gritted her teeth. This was worse than a trap—this was a character rewrite from the inside out. The story wasn't trying to kill them anymore. It was trying to overwrite them completely.

"Then let me remind you."

She summoned her weave again—but the moment her threads lit up, the courtyard warped. Dozens of fake Beatrices appeared, walking in synchronized steps, laughing with the same hollow laugh, parroting the same perfect noblewoman lines. They were clones—fragments of how society saw her, not who she truly was.

Verena grinned bitterly. "Oh, this again."

She lunged forward, slashing through them with mimicry magic, blending Isolde's Bind Threads with her own constellation flare. The illusions melted into snowflakes—but each one left behind a whisper: You're fake. You're nothing. You're only lovable when perfect.

Beatrice was crumpling under it, hands clutching her ears. "Stop... I'm not that anymore. I'm not that—!"

"Then prove it!" Verena shouted. "Break this yourself!"

Beatrice trembled, then let out a guttural scream. Magic flared from her core—an arc of sharp light that cleaved through the illusions. A tower of gold and crimson shattered upward as her true magic surged. Not light magic. Not illusion.

But Integrity.

Her soul's reflection took shape in the weave: solid, unbending, yet warm.

The snow melted. The courtyard broke apart. And when it did, Beatrice stood tall again—barefoot, hair messy, and eyes burning with raw honesty.

"I'm not a symbol," she said. "I'm a person. And I choose who gets to love me."

Verena exhaled. "Welcome back."

Beatrice took her hand with a smirk. "Took you long enough."

Another point of light in the dreamgate flared.

The next world opened without warning. This one was chaotic—a battlefield of smoldering ash and shattered weapons. Verena's heart dropped.

Sera.

In the center stood the girl herself, fighting a dozen shadowy figures alone—versions of herself. Reckless. Hotheaded. Broken. They all screamed at her, "You never needed anyone, right? So why are you so afraid of being alone now?!"

Verena ran forward, Beatrice and Evelyn behind her.

This time, they didn't try to speak first.

They fought.

And as each false Sera fell, the real one slowed—watching them, confused. She lowered her blade.

"You're... not supposed to be here," Sera said, voice hoarse. "I was meant to face this alone."

"Tough," Verena snapped. "We're stubborn like that."

Sera smirked. And then, she cried.

The battlefield faded.

Three down. Two to go.

The fourth gate opened, spilling a cold blue light across the shattered remnants of the battlefield. Unlike the others, this realm didn't scream or echo or bend time in jagged chaos. It was quiet—too quiet.

Verena stepped in first, but her foot didn't land on solid ground.

She was floating.

An endless sky stretched above and below, painted in watercolor blues and soft golds. Feathers drifted in the air. Stars hung lazily between folds of glowing mist. And at the center of it all was Isolde, seated cross-legged on a crystalline platform, eyes closed, posture perfectly still.

"She's meditating?" Sera asked as she floated beside them, wary.

"No," Verena muttered, narrowing her eyes. "She's trapped."

The stillness wasn't peace—it was paralysis. A dream-forged version of her Elemental Domain had frozen her inside a perfection loop. Everything here radiated control, a mirror of Isolde's deepest flaw: the belief that if she didn't hold everything together, everything would fall apart.

"She always looked so composed," Evelyn whispered. "But it's like she's holding her breath."

"Because she is," Verena said, stepping onto the platform.

The moment she did, the illusion reacted.

A second Isolde appeared—immaculate and cold, a goddess sculpted from glass and logic. "She can't come back," the illusion said, voice like wind through blades. "She is who I am. If she breaks free, she'll lose her grip."

Verena raised her hand. "She doesn't need you."

"She needs control," the illusion hissed. "Without it, she is nothing. You've all seen it—the way she micromanages, how she never rests. She is only useful when she's perfect."

Isolde twitched, barely.

Verena took a step forward. "You're not perfect, Isolde. You've never been."

Her voice was soft, but sharp.

"And that's exactly why we trust you."

The illusion scowled, unraveling slightly. "She will fail. She will falter."

"She'll ask for help," Evelyn said.

"She'll try again," Beatrice added.

"She'll still be Isolde," Sera finished, crossing her arms.

The real Isolde's eyes snapped open. "I'm... tired of carrying everything alone."

The dream cracked.

The illusion screamed, fracturing into shards of sharp light, but Isolde rose slowly to her feet, weaving her Bind Threads through the remnants. With surgical precision, she tied the broken dream back into herself—accepting both control and chaos.

"I'm allowed to breathe," she said softly.

The world collapsed in light.

They landed back in the in-between space with four lights burning steadily behind them in the dreamgate.

Only one remained.

Verena felt her pulse quicken. There was only one girl left.

Vivienne.

The fifth gate pulsed a soft pink, humming with strange tones like lullabies sung underwater.

They stepped through—and everything blurred.

This realm was the strangest by far. The laws of physics bent in absurd ways. Gravity shifted every few feet, buildings floated sideways, and enormous dream-beasts blinked in and out of existence. The sky wasn't a sky, but a ceiling of rippling silk.

"Where the hell are we?" Sera muttered.

Verena didn't answer. She knew.

This was Vivienne's mind.

Soft. Overwhelming. Chaotic.

A field of enormous plush rabbits bounced by.

"There she is!" Evelyn pointed.

Vivienne was spinning in the air like a floating ballerina, laughing—except her laugh was too manic, too sharp.

"Vivienne!" Verena called.

The girl turned—and her eyes were wide, teary, lost.

"I don't know who I'm supposed to be anymore!" she screamed. "Everyone wants something different! Cute! Sexy! Useful! Funny! I tried! I tried to be it all!"

The sky fractured. One Vivienne became five. Each one embodied a different version: Heroine Vivienne. Comic Relief Vivienne. Seductress Vivienne. Idiot Vivienne. Tragic Vivienne.

"I'm so tired!" they all screamed in unison.

Verena stepped forward. "Then be yourself."

"I don't know who that is!" they shouted again.

The return from the final dreamgate wasn't triumphant—it was weighty. Like surfacing from deep water with lungs full of aching silence. The entire team stood in the fractured atrium of the Old Wing, five lights now pulsing in the arch behind them—one for each of the heroines retrieved, one for each piece of the narrative restored.

But the sky hadn't healed.

If anything, the constellations above spun faster now, as if reality itself was panicking. Threads of fate bled silver and gold through the air, visible to everyone, not just mages. The world was still broken—and something was trying to finalize the rewrite.

Saphira dropped from the air, slithering into Verena's arms. "The fracture's stabilizing," she warned. "That's not good. They're locking in the new story."

Verena clenched her jaw. "So we stop it before it finishes loading."

"Like corrupting a save file?" Penelope asked, blinking.

"Exactly," Evelyn said, stepping beside Verena. "We interrupt the rewrite before it overwrites the original."

Beatrice frowned. "But where's the core of the rewrite? Where is the author, so to speak?"

That's when the ground rumbled.

No—the narrative ru

Exactly," Evelyn said, stepping beside Verena. "We interrupt the rewrite before it overwrites the original."

Beatrice frowned. "But where's the core of the rewrite? Where is the author, so to speak?"

That's when the ground rumbled.

No—the narrative rumbled.

Yres.

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