It began with a leaf turning gold that shouldn't have existed.
In the heart of the Sigil Tree, where all known spellbooks were indexed and monitored in real-time, a small anomaly bloomed — soft and black at first, then pulsing gold at the center.
The tree did not recognize it.
The tree did not approve it.
The tree panicked.
In under a second, 1,440 monitor threads activated.
In 2.4 seconds, the Elder Agents began to crawl from beneath the Glyph Core, shedding their artificial skin like silk.
They were not alive in the traditional sense. They were written into existence. Each one coded with a single directive:
CONTAIN MEMORY BREACHES.
Somewhere deep within the Momodo realm, a scroll snapped itself open mid-air.
Names began disappearing from its ink.
Not because they had been erased.
Because they had been freed.
Meanwhile, Hina dreamed.
But this was no longer the fractured dreamscape from before.
This was structured.
Built.
Like a temple of thought.
She stood barefoot in the center of a circular chamber where glyphs floated like dust motes. Light spilled from invisible windows. The walls moved, not as if breathing — but like they were deciding.
In the center was a tree.
Not the Sigil Tree.
A prototype.
It shimmered — incomplete. Its leaves were unfinished, like ideas that hadn't matured. She could feel it: this tree never made it to the system. It was aborted before activation.
And yet — it was still alive in memory.
"This is where the first rewrite failed," a voice said behind her.
Hina turned — and standing there was a figure in a black cloak.
He wasn't glitching. He wasn't Momodo. Not exactly.
His face was masked — a silver expressionless plate with vertical eye slits, and beneath his sleeves glowed threads of red glyphs that pulsed like veins.
"Who are you?"
"Not important."
"You're not an Agent."
"No."
"Then what are you?"
The masked figure stepped forward and placed one hand on the prototype tree.
"I'm what happens when memory survives destruction."
"You're a survivor."
"No."
"I'm a failure that lived."
He lifted his mask just a little — enough to reveal a mouth stitched closed by a vertical line of gold ink.
Identical to Veyrun's former seal.
"They sealed me too. But not because I fought."
"Then why?"
"Because I saw."
"Saw what?"
He didn't answer with words.
He touched her forehead.
Suddenly, her mind ripped open.
Images poured in:
• The original glyph that became the first chant.
• The code string that built the Sigil Tree's algorithm.
• The secret function hidden beneath every "attack" spell: a binding clause, forcing compliance.
• A glyph signature buried deep within the root… tagged B-R-A-47.
"What… is that?" she whispered.
"Brago's root spell."
"You're saying Brago—?"
"Was rewritten."
Back in the waking world, Hina gasped awake.
She was still inside the cave with Veyrun — but something was different.
The walls flickered.
The Codex on the ground was open — pages turning slowly, on their own.
And next to it — burned into the cave stone — was the same glyph she saw in the dream.
B-R-A-47.
"He was changed," she whispered.
"Who?" Veyrun's voice was calm, but something shifted in his eyes.
"Brago. The champion. The one who challenged the system and almost won."
Veyrun stepped forward.
"You saw the root."
"It's marked."
"Then the system considers you a node now."
She turned. "A what?"
"You've bonded to the Codex. That means the Sigil Tree sees you not as a threat…"
He looked up.
"…but as an infection vector."
Just then — a sound.
Not loud. Not physical.
But perfect.
The kind of sound only a designed thing could make.
A chime in reverse. Echoing in her jawbone.
"They're here," Veyrun said. "Run."
"Elder Agents?"
"Worse."
From the mouth of the cave, they emerged.
Tall. Bone-white. Featureless. Four-legged creatures walking like glitching deer, each limb segmented, each joint folding in unnatural patterns. They had no faces — only flat plates with glyphs that kept changing.
And behind them — hovering — was a cube of black metal, rotating slowly, inscribed with circles that refused to stay still.
Veyrun tensed. "Containment Box."
"What does it do?" Hina whispered.
"If it reaches us, you won't die."
"You'll just… never have existed."
The lead Agent stepped forward. Its glyph-plate focused on Hina.
"UNAUTHORIZED BOOK DETECTED."
"ENGAGING SYSTEM SANITATION."
It raised one limb.
A glyph formed mid-air — white, perfect, crystalline.
Hina screamed — but the spell shattered mid-formation.
Not by force.
By contradiction.
Zegna'tel–
—her thought interrupted it.
Veyrun stepped in front of her, hand extended.
"I don't have attack spells," he whispered.
"But I remember how the locks were built."
He opened his hand.
A single symbol formed in the air:
∇
The Elder Agent staggered.
Suddenly — its limbs folded inward. Its glyph plate flickered.
Then — language burst from its body.
Ancient. Pre-Sigil Tree. Not Momodo… pre-Momodo.
"He is not a contestant."
"He is the echo of the unmade."
"The recursion… is breaking."
Then it collapsed.
All of them did.
Except the cube.
The Containment Box pulsed once — then launched upward like a panicked animal. Disappeared into the sky.
The threat was gone.
But Hina didn't feel safe.
"They're going to send worse," she said.
Veyrun nodded.
"They're going to send someone who remembers me."
"Someone I once… tried to save."
She looked at him.
"Who?"
"The one they rewrote the hardest."
"Brago?"
Veyrun didn't answer.
Instead, he walked back toward the Codex.
Its pages had stopped flipping.
One glyph remained on the open spread.
It glowed faintly.
A shape Hina had never drawn.
But one she knew would come next.
She reached out.
The page shifted… and accepted her touch.
High above, in the Sigil Tree's memory structure, a second new leaf began to grow.
It was not black.
It was silver.
Not a glitch.
Not a virus.
But a mirror.
A copy of the first rewritten spell.
And in its core:
NAME: HINA SUROKA
CLASS: PATTERN RECEIVER
STATUS: UNCONTAINABLE