The stars were disappearing.Not all at once. Not like a light switch being flipped off but dwindling, softly, one by one, as if something was slowly scrubbing the sky away.Kaiza stood at the ridge's edge, the blood-stained page held hard in his fist. Soryn's breathing next to him was harsh and strained. They had lived through gods, rewrites, and the end of time itself. But this… this was different.This wasn't chaos.It was precision."'This world belongs to the forgotten now,'" Kaiza quoted, her eyes narrowing. "What does it even mean?"Soryn remained silent. She returned her gaze to Velhallow, where sparks of fire danced across the skyline, lanterns being lit by citizens attempting to be normal in a world that no longer knew what normal was.But then she saw it.Perched atop the central tower, the Tower of Testament, an ember of black flame.It did not glow. It consumed.And on all sides, the sky quivered.Soryn clamped Kaiza's wrist. "We need to leave immediately."Velhallow—Tower

The salt stuck to them well after they departed from the sea.Kaiza rested under the decaying arch of a ruined lighthouse, his clothing still wet, hair stuck to his brow in dripping ringlets. His left hand ached — not from the Pen of Recursion any longer, but from something within him, something ancient. Something's stirring.Mina knelt beside the fading fire Soryn had constructed out of driftwood and anger. She didn't say anything. Not since they emerged. Not since the sea whispered something in her ear before releasing her.Soryn finally spoke."The god we bound…" Her voice was rough. "It wasn't the only one, was it?"Kaiza's eyes never left the black sky. "No. That was only the beginning memory. There are others waiting to be recalled.""Or revised," Mina spoke low, her voice barely audible. "Because that's what we do now. Writers of the lost."A gull screamed overhead, cold and isolated.Elsewhere…Away from the sea, across parched deserts where no water had kissed earth in decade

Mina's footsteps rang out in the darkness, the sand grinding beneath her boots as she stepped further into the center of the Ashglass Desert. It seemed as if the desert itself was observing her, the wind carrying whispers she was not yet prepared to hear. The moon, bloated and ghostly, hung like a lantern in the sky, casting long shadows across the desolate landscape.She had no way of knowing how long she'd walked. Time had lost all meaning. The world around her was a twist endless night and horizonless sands that moved forever. But she could not stop.Kaiza was inside somewhere.Somewhere inside the Sanctum Orbis, a secret crypt that had remained hidden for centuries. Myths talked about it as the birth of all tales, the very spot where ink and paper had first crossed paths, where the Author had penned the world into being. It was claimed that within its decaying walls, the Tear in the Story lay a tear in the fabric of reality where one could remake anything. And at present, that was

The heavens above Aeloria were no longer filled with darkness, but neither were they bright. Instead, they seemed to linger in a quiet world held in suspension. Villages rebuilt their homes. Survivors prayed to old gods in hushed tones. But the quiet that followed in the aftermath of the Hollow Quill's downfall was more deafening than war ever was.In the center of the Ashfen Vale, the Core's ruins glowed softly under the ground, embers that refused to perish. Above, a tree had started growing its trunk striped with silver ink, its leaves sharing secrets with the breeze.Mina sat in the shade of that tree.She no longer heard the editor's chorus, nor did the voices rip at her mind. But the ink had not fully departed from her. Her fingertips were permanently stained, as if the Hollow Quill left its mark behind.Kaiza emerged from the treeline, satchel in hand and his tattered coat over his arm. He hadn't changed, but his eyes bore centuries. He sat down beside her in silence."They're

The air had not settled.The conflict with the Echo-Born had burst the heart of the city physically and spiritually. Ash adhered to what was left like snow, and shattered pieces of memory hung in the air: a child's laughter, the last note of a lullaby, and a cry that never dissipated.Kaiza stood on the border of the broken plaza, looking into the charred ink stain where Malrik had been destroyed. All that was left was a lone feather, black, sleek, shining faintly with changing letters along its vanes.Soryn came to stand beside him, her body battered but her eyes intact. "The Inkblade's gone."Kaiza didn't reply. He stooped and picked up the feather from the ground.The names inscribed onto its surface shifted. They recited his name, time and again, each with a different suffix.Kaiza the Redeemer.Kaiza the Betrayer.Kaiza the Flamewrought.Kaiza the Forgotten.Kaiza… the Unwritten.Shivers ran down him. "It wasn't the true threat," he said softly. "Malrik was but the preamble. The