The capital stirred.
Royal banners snapped in the breeze, gold-threaded and ominously silent, as the spires of Argenthall glittered under the pale afternoon light. But beneath that gleam, behind the sanctuary of walls and noble lineages, the High Chamber boiled.
At its center stood High Lord Ardyn, flanked by robed advisors and lesser nobles, all pacing or whispering in growing agitation.
"They confirmed it twice," rasped a messenger, soaked in sweat and wind. "Kael is alive."
"Impossible," hissed Councilor Nareen. "He was sentenced. He should've been—"
"He escaped," Ardyn said, cutting her off. His voice was calm, but his fists clenched around the pommel of his ceremonial blade. "With help. Which means someone has broken the royal seal."
A heavier silence fell.
Someone had defied divine order.
And worse — that someone might hold the First Scholar's Journal.
---
The Royal Response
"The people believe him dead," said Nareen carefully. "If we act now, we can frame it as a rogue scholar's rebellion. Root him out before his 'myths' infect the public."
Ardyn turned, slowly. "Do you understand what it means if that boy truly accessed the Nameless Monastery?"
She hesitated.
"It means," Ardyn continued, "he may already know the glyph that erases divinity."
The room darkened.
---
Far From Argenthall
Miles away, past mountain passes and godless plains, Kael stood at the edge of a ruined observatory — an ancient circle of stone that once gazed into the sky.
Wind whispered through the broken columns. In the center stood a pedestal, eroded by time but faintly humming with resonance.
"This was Iriel's anchor point," Seren said, approaching the stone with reverence. "The first Talent emerged here. The first glyph was given… here."
Kael knelt.
The glyph shimmered faintly beneath his palm. It didn't reject him. It didn't test him.
It recognized him.
The lattice unfolded around him—glyphs assembling like a fractal bloom, pages of energy unscrolling across the very air.
Lia gasped.
Kael's eyes widened. "This isn't just a glyph. It's a... recording."
---
The First Memory
A voice filled the air — ancient, broken, but full of unfathomable will.
> "I gave fire to mortals. I sealed the sky with my blood. I chained knowledge in flesh and called it blessing."
The image formed: a tall figure cloaked in radiance, standing above a battlefield.
> "But they made thrones of my gifts. Crowns of my name. So I erased myself."
Kael whispered, "The origin god... sealed itself away."
Lia grabbed his arm. "Kael—look!"
The glyphs were changing. Spiraling inward. Forming a shape Kael had only seen once — in the fractured symbol burned into the Journal.
But this time, it was whole.
The completed Null Glyph.
Kael's heartbeat raced.
---
But So Did the Sky
The air cracked.
Lightning forked from a cloudless sky — not natural, not divine. A judgment.
From above, a tear opened.
A gate.
And descending through it, wrapped in light shaped like armor, was a figure Kael had never seen—but instantly recognized.
Not from memory.
From instinct.
A divine entity.
A Watcher.
Its eyes were endless wells of glyph-fire, and when it spoke, it did not echo in sound, but in truth.
> "You were warned."
Kael stood slowly, the glyph still burning beneath his feet.
"I remember," he said.
> "You have touched the origin."
"I'm not afraid."
The Watcher raised its arm.
> "Then you are ready to fall."
The sky split.