---
They sent him to erase me.
Instructor Duris Than — a man whose magic didn't bend reality.
It locked it.
He didn't come with fire.
He came with chains.
Vein of Kyr — the Law of Gravity, Binding, Time.
He didn't speak like a man.
He spoke like a verdict.
"Turn over the girl. Surrender your Codex.
Submit to cleansing."
---
I stood between him and Lunamiria.
She clung to my sleeve, eyes wide but quiet.
She didn't beg.
She didn't ask.
She trusted.
So I answered for her.
"No."
---
Chains erupted.
Not steel.
Conceptual.
They wrapped around my limbs, my lungs, my soul.
The Codex screamed.
"Suppression field engaged. Identity collapse imminent."
Duris's voice echoed:
"You are an error.
A fracture in the system."
"I know," I said.
"And I'm done apologizing for it."
---
The Codex awakened.
> "Codex Override: RED WALTZ"
"Permission granted to devour constraint."
"Soul dance: Begin."
My body twisted.
Memory fragments surged through my veins — stolen from the dead.
A blade stance from a thief who died nameless.
A backstep learned from a slave turned warlord.
A punch laced with grief from a forgotten martyr.
I became every soul I had ever absorbed.
And I danced.
---
Duris's chains cracked.
The air bent.
His expression changed — not in pain, but disbelief.
> "You should not exist."
> "I don't."
I struck once — through his aura.
Chains shattered.
The courtyard split.
Duris dropped to a knee.
---
> "What are you?" he whispered.
And I gave him the truth.
No titles.
No masks.
Just the truth.
---
> "I am the Heir of the Void."
"Born without prophecy. Living without permission."
"I carry the names the gods forgot — and I refuse to be bound."
---
He looked into my eyes.
And saw nothing.
Not emptiness.
Not madness.
Just a place where every rule broke.
And every pain remembered.
---
He knelt.
Not by choice.
By inevitability.
---
Lunamiria stepped beside me.
She smiled, soft and glowing.
"You're colder than before, Mister."
"Sorry."
"No. I like it.
It feels like the part of the dream that doesn't lie."
---
And for the first time since my death…
…I believed her.