The Chamber Beneath Detracta
The chamber Ari now stood in was different from any space he'd ever encountered—even within Sanctum or the hidden archives of the Aetherrose libraries. It wasn't carved from stone but from memory itself. The walls shimmered faintly, formed from the crystallized echoes of time.
The Seven Detractors stood in a circle. In the center, a vast map projected into the air—woven from raw syntax, ancient glyphs, and forbidden truth.
"You deserve the truth now," said Aven, his voice echoing like iron against silence."The real purpose of the Fragmentwalkers... and the sin of immortality that binds them to the oldest betrayal."
Ari clenched his fists. He had always suspected—but never this.
The Sin of the First Ones
Aven raised his hand, and the map shifted.
It displayed the First Generation of the world: the original seven—patriarchs and matriarchs—who survived the great cosmic rewrite. Names lost to time, except to those like the Detractors and now... to Ari.
"Long ago, before Signum was born, before Threads governed souls—there existed a raw, boundless system. Originis was not a family. It was a law of creation."
A second Detractor, cloaked in blue mist, added:
"The First Ones, those you now know as the founding Pillars, were once kin to Originis. But when they learned the truth—that death was not an end, but a reset—they grew afraid."
They feared the collapse of power.
They feared a world they couldn't control.
So the seven Fragmentwalkers were born—not people, but living constructs built from severed truth. Sentient fragments of the One True System, corrupted and rewritten to serve a single goal:
Perpetual dominion. Eternal reign. And the annihilation of Originis.
The Fragmentwalkers' Real Goal
Aven's voice darkened.
"The Fragmentwalkers seek not merely to rule this world... but to rewrite its final rule: death. They wish to override the One True System's final protocol: 'All systems must end.'"
They intend to stall the death of the universe itself.
To chain reality into a permanent loop—with them as unkillable gods. No rebirth. No evolution. Just endless existence in a frozen, decaying cycle.
The immortals—the original founders of the Pillar Families and the ancient king—aligned themselves with the Fragmentwalkers to escape the fate of mortals.
They are still alive, hidden behind layers of illusion and sealed codes, puppeteering history for thirty million years.
"They used your ancestors' blood to fuel the rewrite," said the elder Detractor, her voice trembling. "They butchered the Originis not for war... but for fuel. Your lineage was the keystone of the One True System. They needed its death to delay theirs."
Ari's Fury, and the Spark of Resolve
Ari's hand trembled.
He saw visions in his mind—of shattered names, of forgotten kin screaming without voices, erased from time. He felt the legacy of his bloodline—not as nobility, but as guardians of the truth.
Cerys. Eluin. Lysira. Even the tsundere Princess. They didn't know.
None of them knew what kind of war they were truly in.
"Then why not kill me now?" Ari asked. "Why delay?"
Aven stepped closer, eyes solemn.
"Because you are the failsafe. The only variable they couldn't corrupt. You were born too late. Outside the timeline they looped. If they kill you without absorbing your Prime Code, the world resets."
And that is why they fear him.
Ari Solen wasn't just a boy with a lost lineage.
He was the final contradiction.
A Choice in the Cradle of Truth
The Detractors presented Ari with an Obsidian Codex—one of seven backup scripts encrypted from the original world-shaping language. It could unlock a Prime Syntax... at a cost.
"Each time you use a Prime Syntax rewrite," Aven said, "you are pulling at the foundation of this reality. We will teach you. But the more you awaken it, the more the Fragmentwalkers will unravel."
Ari took the codex.
"Then let them unravel."
He turned toward the exit.The world was no longer simply political or magical.It was philosophical. Existential.
The war was no longer about kingdoms.
It was about who had the right to shape what is real.
And Ari now held the only pen.