Fragments of Yugen

The Spiral System had been quiet. Too quiet.

Since the collapse of Veridon Ash and the disappearance of the anomaly known as Directive Zero, Ren and the others had returned to Spiral Delta. The sky shimmered with a calmer hue, and memory-threads hummed gently along the trees. But everyone could feel it — the kind of silence that meant something was watching.

Aki had stopped sketching. Kael hadn't slept in three cycles. Even Yumi, connected to the deepest memory flows, said the voices had gone distant. It was as if the Spiral Realm had… paused.

And then it happened.

A flare on the Spiral Map. Not one. Twenty.

Twenty red zones, blinking at once, in twenty different dimensions of the Realm.

Ren froze as the alerts pulsed. Each mark bore a unique Spiral glyph—none of them native to Spiral Delta. Each carried a title.

Crown of Glass

Garden of Time

The Forgotten Altar

Zone Null-X

...and more.

Aki leaned over his shoulder. "Those are locked sectors. Pre-Delta. Pre-Spiral, even. They were sealed, Ren. Nothing should be able to pulse from them."

Kael frowned. "Unless someone opened them."

---

At the Spiral Council Tower, Elder Mira, once thought erased, returned from the Null.

She looked thinner. Wilder. And her first words were:

> "They're waking. The ones we never spoke of. The ones Cheng left behind."

The name hit the air like a thunderclap. Cheng — a name not spoken since the Spiral System's birth. A name buried in anti-memory.

Ren stepped forward. "Who is Cheng?"

But Mira only looked at him, her eyes like shattered stars.

> "He built the Spiral System to reflect what he lacked—identity. He created this entire world to make others feel like him… unanchored."

> "And before he vanished, he left behind his guards. Twenty of them. Ministers."

---

Who Are the Ministers?

Not spirits. Not seekers. Something between a Spiral and a god.

Each one rules a sealed dimension. Each one guards a fragment of the Spiral Core, which no one has seen since Spiral Zero fell.

The Spiral Ministers are the most powerful beings ever recorded, and none of them have ever stepped into Spiral Delta — until now.

---

Suddenly, Spiral Delta trembled.

A rift opened mid-air.

From it stepped a tall woman draped in black feathers, her eyes silver like melted steel. Her voice rang across the sky:

> "I am Mael'ith, Minister of Silence. Cheng's law has fractured. The Spiral Realm is free. And that means… it must be rewritten."

Yumi's hands lit with Spiral fire.

Kael reached for his sidearm.

Rei's blade was already out.

Ren just stepped forward. "We don't serve Cheng. We serve what's left. The people, the echoes. We protect."

Mael'ith smiled faintly.

> "Then protect them."

She raised a hand—and the sky screamed. Her mere presence rewrote the laws of Spiral Delta. Buildings glitched, memories stuttered, entire sub-realities folded in and out.

Then she vanished.

---

Only her voice remained.

> "This is your summons. Survive the Ministers. Or return to source."

---

Ren looked at the others.

"We're not dealing with fragments anymore. These aren't echoes. They're rulers."

Aki added, "And we're in their game now"