IBHJ 1388

Understanding flickered in Shirou’s eyes.

The golden light hadn't merely been sealing space.

It was reinforcing it.

Strengthening the very fundamental solidity of this dimensional pocket.

Unlike the Ideal King who masked the Root threads entirely...

Or the boundless darkness, which possessed no threads at all…

This entity left the threads visible—but made them unbreakable.

“Return the door!”

The golden giant’s roar exploded across the void. It wasn’t just sound—it was a command encoded in cosmic law, shaking the fabric of the star system itself.

Tiamat’s starship buckled, pitching like a lone boat in a collapsing sea.

Shirou braced himself on the hull as gravitational vectors twisted and reality rippled.

“This pressure… this scale…”

His gaze locked on the golden face stretching across the sky.

“…Could this be the Golden Emperor?”

The name rang in his mind like a bell tolling over creation.

The Golden Destroyer.

The one even Alaya feared.

Shirou's fists clenched.

He knew that even in his Emperor form, empowered to planetary scale, he was nothing compared to this entity.

This wasn’t just a god.

It was a cosmic principle made manifest.

“Crack—crack—crack—!”

Suddenly, the giant’s hands clenched tighter.

The dimensional barriers around the void shattered like glass, each fracture unleashing a spray of molten golden light.

It poured through the cracks like liquefied law—unstoppable, thick as paint, alive with impossible color.

Inside the ship, alarms screamed.

“Warning!” Tiamat’s voice rang clear through the cabin. “Hazardous substance detected. Caution: direct contact with golden-phase radiation will result in total alteration of biological and soul-form information!”

In short: death wasn’t the worst-case scenario.

Shirou narrowed his eyes.

Even without her warning, he already knew.

The danger was obvious.

The golden light—the molten, paint-like luminance flooding through the cracks—wasn’t light at all.

It was alive.

This was the same golden radiance depicted on the myth-stone tablets of that unnamed planet—the "evolutionary light" brought by the new god who had emerged from the edge of the universe.

And if he was right…

That same light was what had transformed the villagers of Ruka’s home. Turned them from golden-skinned humans into towering golden giants.

But now, seeing it this close…

Shirou's eyes widened.

There were Root threads woven throughout the radiance. Dense. Pulsing. Intertwined with the substance like nerves within flesh.

And that was when he understood.

It wasn’t light.

It only looked like it.

This was a form of living matter.

A light-based lifeform—pure conceptual substance, parasitic in nature, capable of infecting dimensional barriers, physical bodies, and even soul information.

It didn’t destroy.

It rewrote.

And he was certain—if that golden substance touched him or Tiamat, they wouldn’t just die.

They would cease to be themselves.

“Return the First Cause gate!”

The golden giant's voice boomed again, every word a quake in the void. Its titanic hands clawed harder at the barrier, dimensional layers collapsing like paper soaked in water.

It wasn’t simply attacking.

It was trying to descend—to manifest into this reality.

“The First Cause gate…?” Shirou muttered. His gaze locked onto the being above. “I’m looking for that too, you oversized bastard!”

“LIES!”

The golden face screamed, a raw, cosmic bellow that made the Root threads shudder.

The barriers buckled faster now—thinning, unraveling, collapsing.

Enough.

Shirou’s gaze sharpened.

There was no point in talking anymore.

His eyes flashed as he turned toward the collapsing lattice of Root threads.

If swords couldn’t sever them—

—then he’d use the one thing that could.

He raised the Akasha Arrow high.

Its form pulsed in his grip, threads of light spinning around it like the ribs of an unformed god.

And just as he was about to strike—

It ignited.

A blinding, radiant flare burst from the arrow, washing the starship and the void in gold. It shone like the heart of a sun—yet it burned with something deeper, something older.

Something awake.

Shirou froze.

His grip faltered.

“Master! What are you doing?!” Tiamat’s voice broke through the haze. “Strike now! We can still escape!”

She was right. This was their only chance. Only Akasha Arrow, fueled by its Root Connection, could pierce the dimensional snare.

But Shirou couldn’t move.

He stared at the glowing arrow in his hand, eyes wide.

Then he said—

“Don’t disturb me.”

Slowly, he lowered the arrow.

His voice dropped into a hush.

“…It’s calling to me.”

No—that wasn’t quite it.

Something was calling to the Akasha Arrow.

Something deep in the void.

And it wasn’t the golden giant.

It was something else.

“Over there.”

Shirou narrowed his eyes, following the subtle tug of the Akasha Arrow.

A thread—finer than a hair, nearly invisible to the naked eye—drifted in the dimensional void like a solitary strand of silk.

A Root thread.

He didn’t hesitate.

“Open.”

With a shout, he swung the Akasha Arrow downward. The Arrow sliced through the thread without resistance.

There was no sound. No pulse. No feedback.

But somehow…

In the silence of space, it felt like he’d just heard the sound of a door unlocking.

A ripple spread across the dimensional wall—spiraling outward from the severed point like a fingerprint in glass.

Then it appeared.

A spiral-shaped star door, etched with radiant geometry and ancient logic, bloomed into existence.

“…The Altar Door still exists?”

The golden face spoke—not in rage, but surprise. Genuine, disbelieving surprise.

Altar Door?

Shirou’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t slow down. The Arrow in his hand glowed brighter now, vibrating with anticipation.

As if it had been waiting for this door.

He glanced toward it, then barked—

“Tiamat, head for that door. Now!”

“But—!”

“Trust me.”

A beat of silence. Then:

“Understood.”

Tiamat’s starship banked sharply, aligning with the spiral door and accelerating toward it.

The golden void behind them reacted instantly.

The light-born lifeforms—that golden swarm Shirou now recognized as parasitic intelligence—poured from the fractured dimensional crust. They raced after the starship like a storm of luminous insects, their velocity almost visible, closing in.

Shirou dropped to a crouch.

The black mud across his body surged, latching onto the hull and morphing into a hundred propulsion nodes—sleek, horn-shaped units that flared with pressure.

“Boom!”

The starship blasted ahead, speed spiking as it hurtled toward the door—just ahead of the swarm’s reach.

“Ssssss—!”

Shirou glanced back.

The first tendrils of golden life touched the edges of the spiral door—

—and dissolved.

Not repelled.

Erased.

They vanished like steam on magma, their golden glow snuffed out without resistance. More of them slammed into the door in futile pursuit, and one by one, they burned to nothing.

Shirou’s eyes narrowed.

Whatever lay beyond that door… even those things couldn’t follow.