At first, It had only watched.
Silently. Patiently. There was no movement, no sound—just the sensation of being seen, the weight of an unseen presence pressing against the world like a fingerprint on glass. It had no shape, no discernible form, and yet it had always been there, lingering at the edges of perception, waiting.
Watching was not an idle act. Watching was claiming.
And now, It had found what It came for.
Now, It descended.
The world recoiled. The air, once weightless and free, thickened as if turning to liquid, pressing inward from all directions. The very fabric of space buckled under an unseen force, bending toward It as though reality itself was surrendering. The survivors felt it first—not as something entering their world, but as something draining it, hollowing it out piece by piece.
It was not simply here.
It was everywhere.
The Watcher did not move. It did not need to. Its presence was movement. It was not bound by physicality or location—it was a ripple across existence itself, a void that devoured meaning the way a black hole devoured light. To see It was to feel something deep within yourself begin to slip, like a name on the tip of your tongue that you could never quite grasp.
It did not kill. It did something far worse.
It unmade.
It stripped away names, dissolving identity as easily as mist dissipated in the wind. It swallowed memories, unraveling them thread by thread until only a silent, thoughtless husk remained. It erased significance, reducing a person to something that had never been, could never be, and would never be remembered.
And now, It was taking.
One by one, the survivors felt their thoughts unravel, fray at the edges, as if their very existence had been written in fading ink. They could feel the loss, but they could not recall what had been lost. Names blurred. Faces became meaningless shapes. Something inside them whispered that they were forgetting—but they could not remember what.
Then, Erasmus saw it.
Two names had already disappeared.
Riven. Rei.
They were not missing.
They were gone.
Not taken. Not captured. Not hidden in some unseen dimension.
They had been scrubbed away from the very concept of being.
His Fractured Sight should have shown something—some remnant of fate, some fragment of a future where they still existed. But there was nothing. No echoes of their steps in time. No threads of possibility leading back to them.
It was as if they had never existed at all.
And that was when Erasmus understood.
This was not random.
This was targeted.
And now, It had turned Its gaze on him.
—
"Everyone, get in front of me! It's targeting me!"
Erasmus' voice cut through the suffocating silence, sharp and deliberate.
For a single, unbearable moment, no one moved.
His words lingered, hanging heavy in the charged air, not because they did not believe him—but because something in them resisted the command. A terrible, unspoken thought had begun to take shape in the back of their minds, an accusation they had never dared to voice.
Doesn't that mean this is your fault?
It festered in their silence, blooming into something dangerous. Suspicion. Doubt. Fear, not just of the Watcher—but of him.
Some turned toward him, their expressions unreadable, their hands tightening around their weapons—not as tools for battle, but as instincts hardened by survival. Others hesitated, caught between the paralysis of terror and the boiling pressure of suspicion.
And Erasmus?
He felt it.
He saw the fragile balance teetering on the edge of collapse, the unraveling of trust that could shatter everything. He saw the way terror twisted the human mind, turning comrades into threats, forcing them to search for someone to blame.
So, he did what he always did.
He shaped the narrative.
His hesitation lasted precisely half a breath, just enough to let the thought fester, just enough to let them doubt—before he cut through it like a blade.
"It is drawn to those who resist," he said, his voice low, measured, weighted with certainty. "That's why it hasn't touched me yet."
A half-truth. A carefully placed deception.
Not a lie—never a lie, for the best manipulations were always rooted in truth.
It had not erased him.
Not yet.
But the why was his to define.
"The moment you panic, the moment you fight against it, is the moment you become vulnerable." His gaze moved over them, calm, unyielding. "That's why we need to move together. That's why it hasn't acted yet. It is watching, waiting for us to falter."
It made sense.
And sense was a lifeline in terror.
The doubt wavered.
The moment stretched—then, snapped.
One knight moved first, stepping closer. Then another. And another. Until, at last, the collective hesitation collapsed, and they stood before him—not out of blind obedience, but because they needed to believe in something stronger than their fear.
And just like that, Erasmus had done what the Watcher had.
He had rewritten their thoughts.
—
The Watcher did not speak. It had no mouth, no voice.
But its will pressed down, thick as iron, wrapping around Erasmus like unseen chains.
Then, a thought reached him.
A single, inescapable command.
"Name yourself."
It did not ask. It did not request.
It demanded.
The weight of it was unbearable, crushing against the very fabric of his being. This was not merely a question—it was a judgment. His name was no longer his own. It was something being ripped away, pulled from him like a thread unraveling at the seams.
This was what had happened to Riven and Rei.
They had not been taken.
They had been undone.
The others could not see the battle taking place. To them, he stood unmoving, facing the Watcher as though unshaken.
But Erasmus was not standing.
He was holding on.
If he answered, if he acknowledged the command, it would take his name.
If he refused, it would erase him anyway.
There was only one way forward.
So, he exhaled. Straightened his posture. Let his Fractured Sight flicker—not forward, but inward.
He could not defy the Watcher.
Not yet.
But he could play the game.
"My name?" he repeated, voice smooth, calm, untouched by the weight pressing against his soul. A faint, knowing smile curled at the edges of his lips.
"You already know it."
A ripple. A hesitation.
The Watcher did not pause. It did not hesitate. It was beyond thought, beyond emotion—but something shifted.
And in that instant, Erasmus understood something critical.
The Watcher was not a god.
It was not omnipotent.
It had rules.
And that meant it could be outplayed.