The void pulsed like a dying heart.
Where the Wheel had once hovered — torn away in the Second Collapse — the sky now bled. Not with blood, but with names. Thousands of them. Names that didn't belong to anyone alive.
> Names of erased players.
Names of gods removed before design.
Names of those who saw too much.
And then came the shape.
It didn't descend.
It formed.
From memory, from glitch, from the system's repressed trauma —
a body assembled out of unfinished ideas, raw code, forgotten screams, and severed limbs that twisted into place like puzzle pieces never meant to fit.
> GOD EMERGING: [CLASSIFIED]
ERROR. NAME UNAVAILABLE. SYSTEM CANNOT PROCESS ENTITY.
NOW REFERENCED AS: THE HIDDEN GOD.
PHASE ONE ENGAGED: THE FORGOTTEN NAME
---
Phase One: The Forgotten Name
The Hidden God hovered like a broken marionette — head upside-down, arms locked backwards, ribs open like wings. A halo of silent mouths circled its body, each one mouthing syllables that couldn't be remembered after they were heard.
> "It's erasing us…" Veyra gasped, clutching her temple. "Every second it speaks — we forget what we just heard."
Saylor narrowed his eyes. His Memory Core pulsed furiously, shielding his thoughts.
Lucia was already bleeding — but not from wounds. Her memories were leaking. Names, faces, even her own voice was slipping away.
Brant raised a kinetic shield. "We have to anchor ourselves somehow!"
"Lie," Saylor said. "Lie to keep your mind stable."
He snapped the Liars' Crown tighter on his skull.
> "My name is not Saylor Cogni. I am no one."
The Hidden God recoiled — slightly.
Its mouths hissed — hundreds of incomprehensible syllables.
And then — it moved.
With a flick of its bent wrist, space folded, and Marcus was gone.
Not dead.
Just undone.
Where he stood was only static.
> PLAYER REMOVED. 6 REMAIN.
Lucia screamed — a sound not of fear, but rage. Her bloodchains twisted, became blades of script and glyph, and lashed forward.
They didn't touch the god.
They passed through it — as if it were not entirely present.
---
Memory Lock Protocol
Veyra activated a new ability — part System-Breaker, part Ticket Fracture.
> "LOCK MEMORY: CORE SEQUENCE."
A visual anchor burned into the Field around them — seven runes glowing in a ring. One for each remaining player. So long as they remained inside the ring, their identities couldn't be erased.
The Hidden God screamed — mouths twisting.
It dove, flickering like bad footage, and smashed into the ring.
Saylor Rift-blinked just in time, dragging Lucia out of range.
"Everyone — rotate positions. Don't stay still!"
The battle was no longer physical. It was mental warfare.
A god of forgotten names.
A monster built from everything the system had denied.
---
Saylor's Vision: The Origin Memory
Then — Saylor blinked.
And he was somewhere else.
Standing in an infinite void, surrounded by millions of names written on cards, pinned to wires, spinning endlessly.
A terminal pulsed beside him.
The Wheel's earliest form. Primitive. Organic.
A voice spoke — but not the Watcher's.
Not the Wheel's.
> "The Hidden God was the first."
"But it wanted to remember."
"And so it had to be erased."
Saylor saw it — this entity, once a player. Once like him.
It had ascended, not through power, but through memory. It remembered every cycle. Every death. Every lie.
And when it demanded to be seen, the system responded by shattering it across timelines.
He woke up — heart pounding, breath ragged.
He understood now:
> The Hidden God wasn't just a glitch.
It was what Saylor was becoming.
---
Lucia's Awakening
In the chaos, Lucia's chains tore open one of the god's mouths.
A name escaped.
Not a random syllable.
> "Angela."
Saylor stopped cold.
Lucia collapsed to her knees. "I didn't mean to—"
"No," Saylor whispered. "That wasn't you. It wanted me to hear that."
The Hidden God flickered again — closer now. It was merging into this reality.
PHASE ONE ENDING.
> SYSTEM UPDATE: THE NAME HAS BEEN SPOKEN. NEW FORM RECOGNIZED.
The Field convulsed.
Sky fractured.
Light bled upward.
The Hidden God screamed — and its body reformed in front of them.
Now walking, tall and steady, draped in black script and golden wires.
Its face was now a perfect mirror.
Reflecting Saylor.