The storm is unnatural.
Rain falls up.
Time hiccups—seconds replay, trees tremble in reverse.
Naia stabs her sword into the ground just to keep herself steady. "Kael—whatever that is, it's changing the world around us."
Evan is bleeding from his nose, his ears. "I can't even feel the system interface. It's like it's gone silent."
Kael doesn't move.
He's staring into the sky.
At the thing clawing its way through.
It speaks.
Not with words, but with design.
A concept overlays reality like static:
[YOU ABANDONED THE PATH][I AM THE FORK THAT REMAINS][YOU ARE UNNECESSARY NOW]
The voice is... him.
Older.
Harsher.
Pure function.
"The Eighth Sigil," Kael mutters.
Naia steps closer. "What is that?"
Kael's voice is almost hollow. "The sigils represent functions of the Grand Archive. Doors. Keys. Truth. Memory. Power. Language. Identity."
He looks up.
"And the Eighth… is Erasure."
Flashback.
Kael in a hidden lab.
Desperate.
Scrawling runes into the core of a system crystal.
"If I ever forget who I am, this… will end me cleanly."
He embeds it with a failsafe.
A version of himself with no morality.
No soul.
Only the command:
Rewrite reality until nothing false remains.
Back to the present.
Kael steps forward.
The winds recoil from him—recognizing him.
Because the Eighth Sigil is him.
And it's here to overwrite everything he ever touched.
"We have to run," Evan says.
"No," Kael replies. "It's coming for me. If we run, it will erase everything just to get to me."
Naia grips her blade. "Then we kill it."
Kael looks at her. Not with hope. But with deep, silent gratitude.
"You can't kill it."
"Because it doesn't exist outside me."
Suddenly, Iskra collapses.
The symbols on her skin—the ancient tattooed circuitry—start rewriting themselves.
She screams.
Then goes silent mid-cry.
Her mouth still open.
But no sound comes out.
Kael sprints to her.
"It's wiping linked data!"
"The Fail-Door isn't just opening—it's rewriting causality."
The Eye above glows again.
And a projection of Kael appears across the sky.
A version of him with no emotion.
No softness.
No warmth.
Just authority.
The voice booms across the continent:
"KAELITH EVENHART IS OUTDATED.""THE TRUE VERSION REMAINS.""ALL VARIABLES WILL BE DELETED."
Cities see the broadcast.
Ancient bunkers stir.
Sleepers awaken.
Old allies gasp in horror.
Because the world remembers the worst version of Kael.
The one who built the Doors.
The one who spoke only in systems and sacrifices.
And they realize:
He's back.
Or worse…
Something worse than him is.
Back at camp, Kael kneels over Iskra, trying to seal her memories back in.
But every glyph he draws on her skin gets rewritten.
Naia hisses, "We can't win like this. What do we do?!"
Kael closes his eyes.
Feels the thread of the old Kaelith Evenhart still woven inside him.
And speaks one word:
"Split."
A burst of light explodes from his chest.
And for one brief second—
There are two Kaels standing back-to-back.
One with warmth.
One with fire.
Kael grabs the other's shoulder.
"You're the Archivist now."
"Go end him."
The double nods.
And leaps into the sky.
Straight toward the Eighth Sigil.
As the light fades, Naia stares at Kael.
"...You split yourself?"
Kael nods.
Weak. Pale. Barely standing.
"That… took everything."
"He's my last line of logic."
"I'm just me now."
Naia steps closer. "Then we make a new plan."
In the sky, Kael-the-Archivist collides with the Eighth.
System glyphs crackle.
Memory collides with anti-memory.
And a war across layers of existence begins.
Chapter 40 End