The chamber was carved from obsidian and light.
Its walls shimmered with ancient runes—some still glowing, others cracked and silent. Above, twelve insignias floated like celestial eyes, representing each Council member present. The air itself felt heavy, charged with expectation.
Riven stood at the center of the room.
Unarmed. Alone.
But not afraid.
He met the gaze of the veiled figures around him, each one cloaked in robes woven from enchanted threads that moved like mist. Their faces were obscured by veils of shifting light—identities erased for the sake of "judgment without bias."
It made him want to laugh.
"State your defense," one of the Council members said coldly. "You breached the Forbidden Sector. Interacted with a collapsed timeline. Tampered with system-locked memories. That alone could unravel a world-thread."
"I didn't tamper with anything," Riven said evenly. "The door opened for me. The Sector let me in."
Murmurs passed between the figures.
Another voice spoke—older, colder. "Doors do not open for no one."
"No," Riven agreed. "But they do for someone."
The room fell silent.
Then another question came, slower, calculated. "What did you see?"
Riven hesitated. Not because he was unsure—but because he didn't trust them.
"I saw a memory. A child. A mirror that spoke with my voice. A warning… and a version of me that shouldn't exist."
No reaction. No visible surprise.
Just silence.
Until one of them leaned forward.
"You have touched a Proto-Thread," he said. "An erased lineage. Something that predates the current Codex."
"I saw a name," Riven added. "Chaosborn. Prototype Zero."
That stirred them.
Subtly.
A barely noticeable twitch of mana. A faint ripple in the runes above.
"You weren't supposed to see that," one whispered.
Another responded immediately. "It doesn't matter. The system locked that identity cycle out eons ago. The Chaosborn thread was an anomaly—a failure."
"But it still exists," Riven said quietly. "Why?"
No one answered.
Instead, a third Council member redirected.
"The girl. Your sister. What is she?"
Riven stepped forward.
"She's a child."
"She erased an Abyssal Reaver with a thought," came the sharp reply. "No child should be capable of that. Her existence is… not accounted for. She's not in the Codex. Not in the memory banks. Not even the Future Threads recognize her. That makes her dangerous."
"That makes her free," Riven snapped.
The Council didn't like that.
One of the figures rose. "You are dismissed. But be warned—any further deviation from system-bound conduct, and you will be confined. Permanently."
As Riven turned to leave, another voice echoed behind him.
A woman's voice.
Soft. Sharp.
"Chaos doesn't obey systems. It rewrites them."
Riven paused.
He didn't look back.
But he smiled.
Deep beneath the Academy
Lira sat in silence, drawing symbols in the air with her finger. Each trail of glowing light faded moments after appearing, like thoughts forgotten before they could be spoken.
She tilted her head.
"They're scared of me," she said to no one.
A soft chime echoed through the room. Her system screen blinked to life.
[New System Notice: Null-Identity Detected.][Awakening Level Two: Echo-Born Protocol Engaged.][Your next step awaits beneath the Root Chamber.]
She didn't know what the Root Chamber was.
But something inside her… did.
She closed the screen.
And she whispered a name she'd never heard before.
"Prototype Zero."
Elsewhere – Demon Lands
The Sleepless Ones stirred.
Dozens of them.
Eyes stitched shut. Skin covered in shifting runes. Born from failed systems and fed on erased memories.
And above them, standing at the edge of a blood-soaked cliff, the demon-king smiled.
"She remembers," he murmured. "And the Chaosborn walks the path again."
His general knelt.
"What are your orders, my king?"
The demon-king turned, eyes blazing.
"Unseal the Vault of Broken Names. Send a message to the shattered worlds. Let them know…"
He paused.
"…the war for reality has begun again."