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> "When death is not enough, they erase you from ever having lived."
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[Location: Roadside Hamlet near Gwangju]
Morning dew clung to wilted leaves.
Children played with sticks near a well. Old women laughed, boiling rice over firewood. A young man practiced sword forms with clumsy intensity beside a barn.
Everything felt… normal.
And then it wasn't.
---
The birds vanished.
The clouds stilled.
A cold hush fell over the village—too quiet even for silence.
No wind.
No insect.
No breath.
And then—
One child vanished.
Mid-step.
Gone.
No scream. No flash. Just… absence.
---
[Outside Village – System Pulse Detected]
Jin-Soo and Yuna were moving toward the next fragment site when their systems pulsed violently.
> [System Alert: Memory Collapse Detected]
[Coordinates: 2.1 km Southwest]
[Threat Detected: Architect-Class – Eta-Void]
[Targeting: Civilian Consciousness Signatures]
[Effect: Erasure from All Recollection Layers – Local + Global]
Jin-Soo's eyes sharpened.
Yuna was already moving, her feet gliding silently over the dirt road like a ghost reborn.
---
[They Arrive]
But it was already too late.
Half the village was missing.
No signs of struggle. No blood.
Just… missing gaps in the world.
A house with half its rooms gone.
A tree with only one branch left.
Yuna whispered, trembling:
> "They're not dead.
They've been removed from every memory connected to this place…"
> "Even the land forgets them."
---
[Jin-Soo's Sister's Photo – Flickering]
Jin-Soo checked the photo he always carried in his pocket.
His sister, smiling brightly under a cherry blossom tree.
Her face—blurred for a second.
The image wobbled.
Like her existence was being questioned.
He gripped it tighter.
> "No… no, not her too."
---
[Eta-Void Descends]
Reality cracked open in the center of the village well.
From the rift stepped a man in robes stitched with black mirror fragments.
His face was featureless—just a shifting surface of lost memories.
The moment he stepped onto the ground, the well disappeared.
Not exploded. Not crushed.
Just erased.
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[Name: Eta-Void – Memory Collapse Agent]
> Specialty: Selective Unrecollection
Class Function: Rewrite memory-based anchors. Erase social, cultural, spiritual, and emotional trace existence.
> Purpose: Dismantle Monarchs by erasing the reason they fight.
---
Eta-Void spoke—not aloud, but in the collapsing fragments of Jin-Soo's own memories:
> "You are fighting for a sister."
> "What if she never existed?"
> "What if you forget why you resist?"
---
[Jin-Soo's System Reacts]
> [Dissonance Effect: Cognitive Immunity – Temporary Block]
[Memory Corruption: 2%… 4%… 7%]
[Countermeasure: Activate "Echo Stamp"?]
[Effect: Bind one memory permanently to soulframe]
Jin-Soo selected it without hesitation.
> Target: "Sister – Ji-Eun"
[Memory Locked]
His heart throbbed.
His soul pulsed.
And he whispered her name aloud—not for himself, but for the world.
> "Ji-Eun."
> "I will not forget."
---
[Yuna's Response – The Voices Awaken]
Yuna stepped forward.
Her eyes were glowing silver, but her lips were unmoving.
And yet—hundreds of voices spoke through her:
> "I was a mother."
> "I was a student."
> "I was a son who tried."
> "I… I mattered…"
These were the erased.
And through Yuna, their rage, their fear, and their hope began to return.
Her hands lit with mournful energy.
> [Skill: Echo Reclamation]
[Effect: Recovers one erased memory anchor per second.]
[Field: 100 meters]
---
[Battle Begins]
Eta-Void lifted one finger.
A crack in the sky formed.
> "If memory resists…
I'll erase time itself."
A massive loop opened—showing a moment ten minutes earlier, where the child disappeared.
And then that child disappeared again, overwritten.
---
Jin-Soo surged forward, system igniting—
> [Skill: Codeburst – Layer Disruption Activated]
[Effect: Memory loop blocked temporarily.]
Jin-Soo slammed his hand into the air like breaking glass.
A ripple of raw system static shattered the loop.
Eta-Void staggered.
> "You cannot fracture permanence—"
> "I don't need to," Jin-Soo said.
"I just need to remind you…"
> "That we were real."
---
[Jin-Soo + Yuna Combo Skill: Soulprint Pulse]
Their systems synchronized.
Dissonance.
Memory.
Grief.
Rage.
All fused into one silent wave—
And a single pulse surged outward, like a heartbeat from the void itself.
Eta-Void screamed—not in pain, but in confusion.
He reached for the village again…
And found names.
Faces.
Proof.
He faltered.
---
> [Memory Collapse: Halted]
[Eta-Void Status: ERROR – "Contradictory Existence Detected"]
[Retreat Recommended]
Eta-Void vanished in a burst of static.
Not dead.
But disrupted.
---
[Aftermath – Village Restored]
Children reappeared, mid-game, laughing.
The well returned, as if nothing had happened.
But Jin-Soo knew better.
He looked at the photo of Ji-Eun again.
Her face—sharp and clear.
Safe.
For now.
---
[Final Scene – Temple of the Ninth]
Far to the east, hidden behind broken time barriers, a final Monarch Core pulsed.
And in the darkness, a single sentence echoed:
> "He remembers her.
Then I will remember him."
A new Monarch…
Was waking up.
---