"Are you sure you want to go in there?"

  Ellyn asked without looking at Arthian. She stared at the entrance to the Information Nexus.

  The door wasn't a door, but a tear in the air.

  Information flowed out in threads, like blood from a wound.

  "Not sure," Arthian answered directly. "But I need answers."

  "Answers to what?"

  "Who killed me in my previous life."

  Ellyn turned to look at him for the first time.

  "You think this place will tell you?"

  "This place won't tell," Arthian answered. "But this place leaks."

  Arthian stepped in without lowering his guard.

  The moment his foot touched the ground—

  Whispers rushed in.

  Not sounds from outside, but sounds shoved into his head.

  "...The Exception that slipped through screening..."

  "...Failed Erasure..."

  "...Events before the territory..."

  Arthian stopped walking. Hands clenched.

  "Do you hear it?" he asked Ellyn.

  "No," she answered. "I only hear the wind."

  Arthian nodded slowly.

  This was the nature of this place—everyone heard different things.

  Depending on who the "information chose."

  The Information Nexus.

  A place that beings in the Indigo Rift called "the place where rumors don't die."

  The surrounding walls weren't stone, weren't dimensions, but layers of information stacked until they became form.

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  Broken symbols, erased names, events rewritten in multiple versions.

  This was where rumors didn't die, and truth was never complete.

  "Don't ask anyone," Ellyn warned. "Questions reveal position."

  Arthian nodded. He'd learned this from his previous death.

  He didn't walk toward anyone, didn't try to search for information directly.

  He let information flow to him.

  Arthian stopped in the center of the room.

  Motionless, saying nothing.

  Just...listening.

  Whispers flowed through. No one intentionally sent them, but no one tried to block them.

  Like echoes from a room with no walls.

  "...The third territory is expanding too fast..."

  "...All three power nodes are connected..."

  "...The Elder disappeared for three days..."

  "...His signature appeared at the tower..."

  Arthian filtered the information.

  Some he kept. Some he dismissed.

  He didn't believe everything he heard, but he recorded everything that repeated.

  "What did you get?" Ellyn whispered.

  "Fragments," Arthian answered. "But if there are enough fragments, they become a picture."

  Arthian walked to one of the stone pillars.

  Its surface changed according to who stood nearby.

  For others, it was legend fragments.

  For him—it began to respond.

  Some information flowed out. Not as images, not as sounds, but as patterns.

  He saw a map.

  Not a map of land, not of territories.

  It was a map of movements.

  Some points bright, some dark, some...crossed out.

  And one of those crossed-out points had a familiar tremor.

  His death in his previous life.

  "What is this?" Ellyn asked softly.

  "A plan," Arthian answered. "A plan bigger than I thought."

  His death wasn't isolated.

  It was placed in the same pattern as other events.

  Multiple points, multiple times, multiple lands.

  Not an accident, not a mistake.

  But not a direct order either.

  It was balance adjustment. Erasure of things that shouldn't grow.

  Arthian began to withdraw his hand from the stone pillar.

  But in the final moment before his hand came away—

  One piece of information slammed in. Not a gentle flow, but forced.

  One image flashed by.

  The tower. The Elder. His signature.

  Arthian pulled his hand away immediately. Faster than he'd thought.

  But too late.

  Pain stabbed into his chest. Not physical pain, but soul core response.

  Like being pierced by a needle from within.

  Arthian dropped to one knee. Didn't faint, didn't cry out, but his breath broke.

  "Arthian!" Ellyn rushed to support him.

  "Don't touch," he spoke quickly. "If you touch, it will spread to you."

  Ellyn pulled her hand back immediately.

  Arthian didn't try to fight the pain. He compressed it.

  The emptiness in his chest was pulled inward, wrapping around the invading information.

  Not erasure, but burial deep.

  The pain gradually faded, but didn't disappear.

  It was compressed into a small mass. A mass he wouldn't forget and couldn't easily dig out.

  Arthian stood up slowly. His hands still trembled slightly.

  "What did you get?" Ellyn asked.

  Arthian didn't answer immediately. He organized his thoughts.

  "The Elder...is still alive."

  Ellyn startled. "Are you sure?"

  "Sure," Arthian answered. "And he was the one who shut down the defense system on the day I was erased."

  Silence fell.

  Ellyn didn't ask "why" because she knew that question didn't matter.

  What mattered was "what now?"

  Arthian walked to another stone pillar. This time he was more careful.

  Didn't touch long, didn't go deep. Just enough to gather information.

  He got one more fragment—the Elder's location.

  Not in the Indigo Rift. He was closer. Closer than Arthian thought.

  "Where is he?" Ellyn asked.

  Arthian looked north.

  "In the Domain Holder's territory."

  "Which means..."

  He paused briefly.

  "...they're working together."

  Arthian turned his back on the stone pillar. Didn't look back.

  "I came here for answers."

  "And now I have them."

  Ellyn followed. "So what will you do?"

  Arthian didn't answer. He walked out of the Information Nexus.

  Before stepping out, he spoke to the emptiness.

  "If you wrote a plan, thinking I'd stay in the same box..."

  He didn't continue, because that answer didn't need saying.

  He would prove it by walking.

  In the deep chamber of the Domain Holder,

  the Elder sat across from him.

  The two men didn't speak, just stared at the energy map floating in mid-air.

  One point on the map blinked.

  The point representing Arthian.

  "It entered the Information Nexus," the Elder spoke flatly.

  The Domain Holder nodded. "And it came out."

  "Faster than expected."

  The Elder smiled thinly. "Means it knows now."

  "Who killed it."

  "And it's still moving forward."

  The Domain Holder looked at the blinking point.

  "Do you think it will come for you first or me first?"

  The Elder didn't answer immediately. He raised his hand. A golden symbol appeared.

  "Doesn't matter."

  "Because no matter who it comes for first."

  He turned to look at the Domain Holder. Eyes cold.

  "It will die again."

  "And this time..."

  He smiled wider.

  "...there will be no resurrection."

  [End of Chapter 32]