There were no skies in the Void.
Only soft echoes.
The kind that didn't belong to a voice—but to a thought that was never allowed to finish.
Syra stood motionless on a floating platform made of cracked marble. Around her spun fractured timelines, like shattered glass drifting through oil. No gravity. No rules. Only residue.
Lucian was gone.
Unwritten.
Not killed. Not erased in the way humans understood death. More like… he had never happened. Only she remembered him now. Even Riven, when she spoke his name earlier, had blinked in confusion.
"Lucian? The dead brother? I don't remember him being with us at the Vault…"
She didn't blame Riven. The Architect's touch had undone Lucian's narrative existence.
But Author knew.
He always knew.
The Shrine of Null
After retreating from the Vault, Syra hadn't slept. Her fingers ached from gripping the journal Author had left her. Its pages now shifted constantly—names, maps, diagrams, poetry that rhymed with nothing.
And then one word began repeating on the margins of every page:
"Null. Null. Null."
Syra closed the book, took a breath, and found herself walking.
Through a veil she hadn't noticed before.
And into a space between places.
TheShrine of Null.
The air shimmered like a dying dream.
Monuments floated in the dark: glowing statues of people Syra didn't recognize—heroes? Villains? Maybe both. Each bore a name... and then those names glitched, scrambled into unreadable glyphs.
This place remembered the forgotten.
And at its center…
A statue of Lucian.
But not whole.
Just fragments of his body mid-expression, held in place by golden chains. A face that tried to smile, a hand reaching forward, and eyes that almost remembered.
Syra's breath caught. "Why…?"
"Because some souls fight fate too loudly."
The voice came from behind.
She turned—and found the Architect.
But not as it was before. It had taken on a semblance, wearing what could only be described as Lucian's silhouette—but made of light, with no features.
"You remember him. That is dangerous."
"Why?" she demanded. "Why show me this?"
"Because if you forget him… he truly dies."
"You erased him!"
"No," the Architect said softly, "he stepped forward. I merely opened the door."
Syra wanted to scream. But she couldn't. The Shrine absorbed all rage like mist.
A Choice of Memory
The Architect extended a hand—not threateningly, but with ritualistic calm.
"There is balance in the story. Some must be forgotten. Others remembered too vividly."
"And what about me?" Syra asked. "What am I to you?"
"You are a footnote grown bold."
A pause.
"Or a protagonist… improperly edited."
That stung. Because a part of her suspected it was true.
The Architect turned, motioning toward the fractured statue.
"You may keep him alive, in part. One memory. One scene. Choose it. Carve it into your soul. And I shall allow it to remain."
"Just one?" she asked.
"Too many remembered can break a story."
Syra stepped forward. The statue shimmered.
The choice hit her heart like a storm:
The day Lucian taught her to wield a blade in the rain.
The night he saved her during the Demon Siege.
The moment he turned on their father—but hesitated.
The final time he said her name… and meant it.
"I choose the rain," she whispered.
"So be it."
The rest of the statue crumbled. Only that one pose remained: Lucian, young and laughing, holding a sword too big for his arms, offering it to her.
The Architect bowed.
"A ripple remains. But nothing more."
"You're a monster," she whispered.
"No. I am the page you write upon. The ink does not mourn the hand that spills it."
Return
Syra opened her eyes.
She was back in her tent outside the ruins, still holding the journal. Riven stirred nearby, cooking over a dim fire.
Nothing had changed.
Except that now, in the corner of the journal's first page, a single sketch had formed: Lucian, standing in the rain, smiling.
No one else would see it.
No one else would remember.
But Syra did.
And that was enough.
Meanwhile – A Glimpse of the Hell King
Far beneath the fractured Earth, in the lowest circle of Hell's Domain, the Hell King studied a different vault—smaller, metallic, and humming with corrupted celestial energy.
"Three keys remain unbound," he murmured. "And one is already bleeding its signal."
Beside him stood a girl with no face, humming an ancient song.
"She's waking up," the girl said. "The daughter of Kaelion."
The Hell King bared his teeth in a grin.
"Good."
End of Chapter 13