The morning light was soft and gold, bleeding in through the windowpanes. But Cael didn't feel warmth.
He woke with a start—gasping.
His body ached. Not the sharp pain of combat, but something deeper. Like marrow scraped raw. Like something vital had been spent.
He sat up slowly in his bed, muscles sluggish, breath shallow.
"Why am I this drained?" The system hadn't warned him about lingering side effects from the rewrite. "I just.....feel so weak."
Then again, the system had been acting strange lately.
He rubbed his temples, trying to gather his thoughts. A memory surfaced—a face, a woman's voice.
Soft. Laughing. Familiar.
But the moment he tried to hold onto it—
"Blank."
The image dissolved into static.
His hands stilled.
"…Mother?"
No response from the memory. Just a hole.
He clenched his fists beneath the blankets.
This wasn't the first time he'd felt something was missing. But it was the first time he knew.
"How much of myself have I erased already? Well, I did know this was gonna happen."
Just as the silence thickened, the system pinged to life.
[Milestone Achieved – High-Impact Rewrite Executed]
System Evolution Progress: +12%
Reward Unlocked: [Thread Cutter – Unbound]
A hum filled the room, low and unnatural. Light pulsed at the edge of his desk.
Cael turned his head—and froze.
An object had appeared there.
A small obsidian needle. Thin as a hairpin, long as his palm. It shimmered with a wrongness, absorbing light instead of reflecting it.
He didn't touch it at first. Just stared.
Item Description:
Thread Cutter (Unbound)
A forbidden relic capable of severing fate threads.
One use only. Untraceable.
WARNING: Created by the Weftless Weaver.
Use voids karmic law.
Carefully, Cael reached out and picked it up.
It was cold—but not with the chill of steel or frost. It was the kind of cold that reminded him of death. Of silence. Of endings.
It didn't hum with magic. It didn't glow. It didn't vibrate in his hand like enchanted items usually did.
It was utterly still.
He summoned the system again, trying to appraise it—scan its nature, trace its origin.
SCAN FAILED. ARTIFACT UNMAPPED.
This item exists outside the boundaries of system protocol.
Another line blinked into existence, this time as a tooltip beneath the main description:
"The Weftless Weaver weaves without threads. Beware their gifts."
Cael stood there, staring at the obsidian needle cradled in his palm.
One use. Untraceable.
A weapon against fate itself.
"But from who?"
The same presence behind the Black Thread? The same force that slipped a threat beneath his door?
Was this a warning—or a temptation?
He didn't know.
And that scared him more than the note.
He pocketed it carefully, wrapping it in cloth before slipping it into the inner lining of his coat.
Not ready to use it.
Not yet.
First, he needed answers.
"And if fate won't give them to me… I'll carve them out myself."
The system's interface pulsed unnaturally—slower, darker than before. Then it spoke.
Not in its usual clean, clinical tone.
This time, its voice was low and distorted, resonant and hollow. As if echoing from beneath the floor of the world.
"Do not mistake tools for power.""The Weftless Weaver was cast out for a reason."
Cael froze mid-step, eyes narrowing.
"Cast out?"
He called out mentally, What is the Weftless Weaver?
The system pulsed.
"The one who rewrote without consequence.""Until consequence rewrote them."
Cael frowned.
"Cryptic answers now? That's new."
He asked again—pressing harder.
But the system refused to respond. The interface dimmed. Silent. Watching.
And for the first time… Cael got the feeling it was afraid.
Later that morning, unable to shake the weight pressing against his mind, Cael made his way to the library.
The path between the trees was quiet this early. A faint breeze stirred the ivy along the brick walls. He'd hoped for solitude.
But someone was already there.
A girl stood motionless near the old sundial, staring at a floating thread—visible only to her eyes.
Pale hair. Faintly glowing pupils.
He'd seen her once before. Never enrolled in classes. Always alone.
As he passed, her gaze snapped toward him.
She said nothing at first. Just watched.
Then, as he moved to go by—
"You touched something that doesn't belong in this world," she whispered.
Cael paused.
"Excuse me?" He tilted his head, tone light. Feigning ignorance.
Her eyes narrowed. But she didn't press.
Instead, she gave a small, sad smile.
"Your thread… it's thinning."
She walked away.
And for a long time, Cael stood frozen among the old trees, the breeze cold against the back of his neck.
Back in his dorm room, the walls felt too narrow. The ceiling too low.
The obsidian needle sat on his desk, wrapped in the same cloth, but he could feel it through the fabric. As if it pulsed with something deeper than magic.
Cael sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees.
He looked at his reflection in the mirror above the desk.
Sharp eyes. Pale skin. Sleepless shadows under his gaze.
He looked the same.
But he wasn't.
A memory flickered—his mother brushing his hair back, humming something. A lullaby.
He tried to remember the melody.
Gone.
The warmth behind it—gone.
Then the system pinged:
[Emotional Core Stability: 87% → 85%]Warning: Continued rewrites may destabilize identity matrix.
Cael's breath slowed.
"I'm losing pieces."
He reached out toward the needle—then stopped.
A whisper echoed faintly, like a voice caught in a dream.
He couldn't understand it. Couldn't even tell if it was language.
But he knew it was watching.
Something was watching.
He shoved the needle back into the drawer and slammed it shut.
That night, the system spoke again—unbidden.
The Thread Cutter is a gift.Use it when fate becomes unbearable.But know: the thread you sever may be your own.
The room was dark. The moonlight painted thin lines across the floor.
Cael lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, eyes wide open.
The drawer beside him glowed faintly—just a pulse of violet light through the wood. Faint, irregular, like a heartbeat.
And in the silence of the academy night, with no one else awake, a question wrapped its fingers around his mind.
A question the system would not answer.
"What happens to a man when even fate refuses to look at him?"