Lord of Mysteries: The Dream That Waits

The air around them felt thick.

Not just in the way that heavy fog clung to one's skin, but in the way reality itself seemed to pulse, resisting their next move. Klein had felt something like this before—the unnatural heaviness of a secret being buried by something stronger than time.

Yeaia felt it too.

Their usually relaxed posture was gone, replaced by sharp, tense energy.

"The moment you tried to remember," they said slowly, "something attacked your mind."

Klein nodded.

"Yes." He flexed his fingers, the residual ache from the backlash still lingering in his nerves. "And that means whatever we're trying to recall is something the world itself has been forced to forget."

Yeaia let out a slow breath, their red-highlighted hair catching in the dim, shifting light of the space they occupied.

"And yet," they murmured, "it wasn't strong enough to stop the message in that book from reaching me."

That was the key difference.

Something had been left behind.

A final thread, hidden within the cracks of reality.

And they just had to pull.

---

Pushing Against the Veil of Forgetting

Klein took a step forward, brushing his fingers against the fabric of the Gray Fog. He wasn't looking for knowledge in the same way he usually did—he wasn't trying to perceive an answer that existed.

Instead, he was looking for a gap.

A wound in history where something should have been.

He reached for the edges of it—

And the backlash struck immediately.

An overwhelming pressure crushed down on him, not just physically but conceptually, as if something beyond even the gods refused to allow this knowledge to exist.

Pain ripped through his mind.

A roaring, ancient force pushed back.

For a brief second, he felt the sensation of unmaking.

As if the very nature of Klein Moretti was being erased.

But then—

A hand grabbed his wrist.

And everything snapped back.

---

A Name on the Edge of Reality

Klein gasped, his vision realigning as he stumbled backward, nearly collapsing if not for the steady grip anchoring him.

Yeaia's mismatched eyes bored into him.

"Don't do that alone again." Their voice was sharp, a rare flash of true concern beneath the usual lazy amusement. "Next time, I'll pull too."

Klein let out a shaky breath, nodding.

"I saw—" His throat was dry. "I almost saw it."

"What?"

"A name," Klein murmured, "half-buried in the void."

Yeaia's breath hitched.

"What was it?"

Klein closed his eyes.

The memory was fractured—almost gone—but something had slipped through the cracks of the backlash.

Not the full name.

Not even the meaning.

Just a fragment.

A syllable.

"…Za—"

The moment he spoke it, something shifted.

The air rippled.

Something watched.

Then, just as quickly, the feeling vanished.

---

Something is Still There

Silence stretched between them.

Klein and Yeaia exchanged a glance.

"We can't speak it aloud," Yeaia said, voice lower now. "Not yet."

Klein agreed.

They had tugged on something too deeply hidden, and even saying a fraction of its name had been enough to stir… something.

Something that hadn't been erased completely.

Something that had left a mark even the gods had failed to wipe away.

They weren't supposed to know it.

But now, it knew them.

Yeaia sighed and stretched, the casual gesture betraying none of the tension in their shoulders.

"Well," they said, forcing a grin, "at least we know where to keep looking."

Klein exhaled.

Yes.

They had one clue.

And in a world where even fate could be rewritten, that was more than enough.

---

End of Chapter 19

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