Opening
The sky still split with divine light. A man in white-gold robes stepped across the air as if it were solid ground.
The people below bowed instinctively, crushed under the weight of destiny's law.
He announced his name:
> "I am Serapheon, Arbiter of Fate, voice of the High Council."
---
Confrontation
Serapheon explains that Ael's erasures may seem merciful, but they unravel the balance of countless intertwined lives.
Example: the man Ael saved should have died; his wife would have risen as a priestess who would change the city's future. Now that fate is gone.
Ael is shaken—he had never thought of such consequences.
---
Debate
Ael: "So you call me guilty for refusing to watch people die?"
Serapheon: "Not refusal—acceptance. You are a child tearing the threads of the world."
Lyra cuts in: "And binding everyone into chains of your Council's making—is that not another kind of killing?"
---
Secret Revealed
Serapheon speaks of Umbra:
"You don't know, do you? The power in your hand is but a shard of what once nearly erased the entire world."
He hints that the Council fears Ael not out of hatred, but because each erasure awakens something beyond the veil.
Ael begins to realize there are forces at play he never understood.
---
Ending Hook
Serapheon offers:
> "Surrender the Blank Page. Your thread will remain untouched. You will not be hunted."
Ael looks at the family he just saved, crying in gratitude.
He clenches his fist and replies:
> "If fate means watching people die, then I refuse to walk that path."
Golden light bursts from Serapheon as the battle looms.
---