The candlelit war chamber beneath the Sanctum trembled—not from battle, but revelation.
Ari stood tall, the pale-blue mantle of Originis swirling with residual glyphs that shimmered and reformed endlessly behind him. His Thread was no longer silent; it pulsed like a living construct, echoing ancient Signum before it was named. Around him were the matriarchs and patriarchs of the Six Pillars, the king upon the Crystal Throne, and his closest companions: Cerys, Eluin, Lysira, and Primira.
The throne room should've been the most secure place in the realm. But it wasn't.
A vibration pierced the ambient wards. Runes cracked along the wall—then shattered. A scream of twisted Signum surged as a cloaked figure emerged from a rupture in reality. Not a breach. Not teleportation. Something older.
A Fragmentwalker.
"How poetic," the voice rasped, lips hidden beneath silver-threaded veils. "The Originis reborn… among the very worms who broke it."
Ari's gaze sharpened. The man's presence felt... wrong. Like his Thread wasn't from this world—or any world governed by the System.
Eluin's hand trembled beside him. "That's… not a Thread. That's raw code. Detached. Pre-scriptual."
The intruder raised his hand. In it, a black prism shimmered, rotating in jagged motions against the natural flow of energy. Glyphs danced across it—ancient, corrupted versions of Signum. They weren't created. They were ripped from reality.
"We are the forgotten chainmakers," he said. "The ones who wove the roots beneath your Systems. And we did not forget how you broke free."
The tension in the room cracked as the truth began to unfurl.
This faction—the Echoes Beyond the Script—were not the erased. They were the ones who had orchestrated the annihilation of the Originis. They manipulated the Six Pillar Families millennia ago, planting false prophecies, rewriting history, and creating the illusion that Originis was too dangerous to live. They created the myth of balance, using the Six to destroy the only lineage that could resist their coming return.
Obelmar's matriarch fell to her knees. "No… no, we were used?"
"You didn't build the System," the man said, smiling beneath the veil. "We did. And you just maintained the cage."
Ari stepped forward. "What do you want?"
"Control. Restoration. Order under our code." The Fragmentwalker bowed mockingly. "But you, Ari Solen... you are an anomaly. You carry the seed of the Original System—the only code that did not bend. That is why you must be rewritten."
From the void behind him, two more Fragmentwalkers emerged—one made of rusted symbols, another cloaked in a fluid form of reversed time. Even the king was silent.
Cerys stood protectively before Ari, her Aetherthread spiraling like blades of wind. Eluin whispered a Dreamscript incantation. Lysira and Primira positioned beside him—no longer out of rivalry, but loyalty.
"You forgot something," Ari said. "The difference between control and choice."
His aura ignited. Not with light or fire—but intent. The very air warped around him as pre-Signum syntax crawled up his arms and shimmered like divine code. Not even the Fragmentwalkers could predict it.
Their expression faltered.
"He's writing new rules—" one of them whispered.
And with that, the war wasn't just a matter of kingdoms.
It was a matter of Reality versus Rewrite.