“Sometimes, even the most unexpected elements of the universe’s balance become key players; however, one should not take their words for truth even then.”

  [ 40th Lumiran 1749 | Yuvel | 00:17 | Dormitory Room 231 ]

  Time stopped. It did not slow, did not distort—it simply ceased to exist, as if excised from the fabric of reality. The sound of Catherine’s ragged, broken breathing froze in a half-gasp, transforming into an invisible sculpture of despair. A tear on her eyelash solidified into a perfect crystal droplet, trapped in the snare of eternity—a flawless form deprived of motion. The light of the three moons outside the window congealed, turning into a motionless, deathly stained-glass window. This was not a distortion, not magic, not an error. It was an intervention.

  Before me, in the center of the room, light wove itself together—not bright, but dense, like curdled milk. A woman stepped from it. Black hair cascaded over her shoulders like liquid darkness. Silver eyes held neither good nor evil—only absolute, all-seeing knowledge, cold as the vacuum between galaxies. A perfectly white dress—almost bridal, but without a hint of sentimentality. Rather, a symbol. A symbol of completion. She smiled, and that smile carried no warmth. I could not move, but her voice resonated directly in my consciousness, penetrating to the very core.

  “Order-Darkness, we have not seen each other for a long time. Too long.”

  It was Light-Darkness—Concordia Discors, yet something in her had shifted; she was different. Altered… and more stable.

  “Light-Darkness…” My mental stream paused for a moment, fixing the anomaly. “Your structure has changed, acquired a stability previously unattainable. What is the purpose of your presence here, at this point of distortion? Which variable do you serve?”

  She approached the frozen figure of Catherine. Peered at her—long, silently, with the detached sorrow one directs at a beautiful but doomed creation.

  “You think we are speaking for the first time, Architect? You are mistaken. You simply do not remember. Every time, you listened… and drew the wrong conclusions. And yes, call me the Arbiter of the Universe; I have changed greatly thanks to you and her.” She nodded toward Catherine.

  “Arbiter?” I objected mentally, constructing a logical chain. “The title implies equilibrium, but your essence is the eternal conflict of Light and Darkness. Is your new ‘stability’ not merely a more complex form of illusion, a temporary suppression of entropy rather than its true resolution?”

  “I told you, Architect, I changed by observing the structural failure of the entire universe caused by your actions in this world. And now, look at me closely.”

  She stepped closer to me, and her fingers touched my temple. And reality—extinguished.

  A white flash erupted in my consciousness.

  It was not an image. Not a memory. It was a record from the archive of eternity. I saw everything from the outside.

  Catherine and I were in this same dormitory; I stood beside her in the familiar body of my avatar. By my sensations, I looked a couple of years older than my current age.

  It was not our room; it was Catherine’s room, which she had likely received upon transferring to the senior courses. The room was warm, silent, but different. It did not feel like our shared space, and the roommate was obviously someone else.

  Catherine sat on the bed, dressed in the academy uniform; her back was straight, she was missing a leg, and crutches stood nearby.

  In the hands of my avatar was a prosthesis—a simple device, with a minimum of magic, but sufficient to solve the problem of locomotion.

  I hand the prosthesis to Catherine without a smile, and a cold phrase falls from my avatar’s lips:

  “Thank you, Catherine. You helped me greatly, and I… am grateful to you…”

  She merely nodded in response and smiled slightly—a polite smile. It was the very same smile from the time I first arrived at the academy.

  “I hope the prosthesis helps you start a new life. As for me, it is time to leave; we have finished the Academy, and now I must return to my homeland in Tarvar.” My avatar walked to the door, opened it, and froze for a second. “If you need anything, write letters; I will certainly answer, I have already given you the address.” A cold smile froze on the avatar’s face.

  The door to the room closed, yet the vision did not cease.

  I remained an observer, locked outside of time, forced to watch. She sat on the bed for a long time, motionless, as if turned into a statue of frozen regret. Her hand slowly, almost unconsciously, ran over her hair, gathered in a severe, alien bun. Then, with the same mechanical precision, she lifted the prosthesis. Fitted it. Stood up.

  The first step was flawless. The second—too. She walked across the room, and in this measured gait there was neither life nor joy—only a function brought to automatism. But on her face froze a mask of such deep, all-consuming loss that the very air in the room seemed to grow thin. She inhaled—a short, ragged sound—and the perfect line of her movement faltered. Her steps became uncertain, stumbling. She returned to the bed, but did not sit—she collapsed onto its edge, as if all the threads holding her upright had snapped within her.

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  Her pupils dilated; in them was reflected all the cold and emptiness of the room. Her hand slowly rose to her chest, fingers clutching the fabric of her uniform, as if trying to hold back what had already crumbled inside. Her breathing stopped. She sat like that for another moment—an eternity—before her body, devoid of will, bent and slowly, almost reluctantly, slid to the floor. With a final movement, her hand reached forward, toward the closed door behind which there was no longer anyone. Her fingers froze a centimeter from the cold wood. And that was all. Silence…

  The world spiraled into a tight, merciless vortex, dragging me into its center. The vision, saturated with the smell of dust and despair, passed, dissolving like fog. I returned to the room with the Arbiter.

  My vision was still blurred, but I still could not move, for time remained stopped. The Arbiter stood and watched me silently. Catherine—a frozen statue of unspoken love. And within me—a glitch pulsed. Everything I had seen was not simply a recording. It was a logical anomaly that my mind had no right to remember, but which my essence could now not forget.

  “What was that?” I transmitted the thought as my mind attempted to integrate what I had seen. “This data fragment… it contradicts all previous records. It is impossible. Why did you show me this falsification?”

  “The end of your 1001st ‘conscious’ cycle,” her voice answered, filled with infinite weariness. “You left. She died. Of a broken heart. And everything repeated. Again and again. Do not interrupt me; today you must listen.”

  Now everything fell into place. The spiral. That bloody shard of memory ended the same way—with the twisting of space. So, it was not a glitch in my memory, but her work. Light-Darkness had implanted that memory and manipulated my actions from the very beginning.

  “Are… are you mocking me?” I feigned a wounded, almost human reaction. “Answer directly, why are you here,” I replied with an icy thought.

  “I am not mocking; I only want to help. I do not want the universe to be destroyed because of your ‘Logical Anomalies.’ You did not just repeat mistakes, Architect. You are changing the world. And not for the better. Every ‘logical’ step of yours tightened the knot tighter. And the price of your learning is this crippled world.”

  “You think you can come and simply reproach me? Or do you think you have become omnipotent and perfect?”

  My coldness became manifest; I began calculating her position in the universe. She underestimates me, and that is her main error.

  “Calm down. Your labor is important to the universe; I am not trying to wound you.” She paused. “Why is it always so difficult with you? I am not an enemy, Architect, I am a necessary constant, and I am the only one who can help you untangle this karmic knot. Just trust me, I will show you everything.”

  Her fingers touched my temple again. And new flashes erupted in my memory, almost painful, like the strikes of a whip on exposed nerves.

  “First, you tried to solve the anomaly like an equation.” I saw hundreds of images: Catherine receiving ever more perfect prostheses, money, titles. But her eyes remain empty. “You tried to repair a heart with tools meant for mechanisms. But your intervention disrupted the social balance, breeding envy and conflict.”

  “Then you began to observe.” New flashes: I spend more time with her, study her, and with each cycle, our connection unconsciously strengthens, amplifying the cause of the failure.

  “And then you began to train her.” The images became brighter: I teach her magic, invest more and more power in her. “However, along with this, you became more and more woven into the fabric of this reality. You think it is only about Catherine? You interacted thousands of times with others, with Nova, Evelina, and even Reina and Chaotic Light. And all your decisions, wrapped in the ball of these repeated interactions, spawned what you see now. Gods of Dreams, anomalies, cosmic parasites—all of this hangs as a threat over this wretched world.”

  The visions grew darker.

  “And in the last cycles, Architect, you no longer left. You were killed.” I saw myself pierced by shadow blades. Myself, torn apart by nightmare creatures. “Your presence became an anomaly that the world tried to cut out like a tumor. These cults, these monsters—they are scars on the body of the world, left by your failures.”

  “And so, in this cycle, the 3217th,” she corrected calmly. “Your essence exhausted all options. Your ‘deep intuition’ forced you to do the unthinkable—to embed a part of your primordial essence into her prosthesis. Do you think that was a rational investment?”

  “Yes, it was a rational investment,” I replied dispassionately in my mind.

  “Based on an intuitive attachment to Catherine,” the Arbiter answered calmly and shook her head. “Do you really think that such shifts could occur in your ossified consciousness just like that?”

  “A virus… It is just a virus…” I began to deny.

  “I understand, it is difficult to comprehend, but simply accept it as truth, Architect.”

  I paused and ran several thousand variations through my mind. There was a high probability she was right.

  “Fine, let us assume I believe you,” I replied coldly. “But how did I get into the cycle? How could a simple human soul trap me in this snare?”

  “I am not omniscient, Architect. That is a mystery even to me, but it is important to understand that it was Catherine’s soul that caught your essence, and you dragged the entire universe with you, and now everyone, except me and, perhaps, only the Origin Absolute, exists in a repeating cycle.”

  “Why did it not touch you, Arbiter?” I asked the final logical question.

  “Because there is neither Order nor Chaos in me. The Echoes of the Past is a karmic mechanism connected exclusively to Chaos and Order.”

  “In that case, I have no more questions, thank you. Is that all you wanted to say?” I clarified, maintaining protocol.

  She shook her head.

  “Not all. Everything has become too grim, Architect. Your intuition is no longer enough. You need eyes—my eyes—and I will weave them into your mortal shell forever.”

  The Arbiter stepped toward me. Her movement was fluid, inevitable. She placed her cold palm on my right shoulder. The fabric of my shirt disintegrated, and a pattern appeared on the skin—two intertwined spirals, one black, the other white, symbolizing the new manifestation of Light-Darkness. The tattoo glowed with a soft, steady light, then faded, remaining as a thin mark.

  “This is not a weapon,” she said, removing her hand. “This is a compass. It will help you see threads that are inaccessible to you because of the anomaly of Chaotic Light. Too many forces are woven into this knot now; the price at stake is too high. Without my hints, you can no longer solve this task.”

  She smiled sadly and looked at me again.

  “And yes, Catherine is just one of the anomalies you have to solve. She needs you to be with her. Remember that.”

  The Arbiter vanished.

  The flow of time was restored.

  Catherine’s chest heaved, completing the breath that had been stolen an eternity ago.

  I did not look at her; I only looked at my hands. The 3217th cycle had not begun; it continued with me trapped inside. And now… now I knew part of the truth, and on my shoulder burned the cold fire of new knowledge.