Anchor 9H9.H — The Throne of Lost Tomorrows
The sky in Anchor 9H9.H had no stars.
Only dead constellations — glowing faint outlines of futures that were never lived.
The land was quiet, too quiet.
Not with peace.
With absence.
Because this Anchor had once belonged to a King.
A king so feared, so obsessed with his own survival, he ordered time itself to forget him.
> And it obeyed.
---
Until now.
A tear in the temporal fabric had reopened his tomb — not in space, but in memory.
Kael, Myra, Aren, and Ghost Ronin landed amidst what looked like a crumbling palace made from obsidian sundials and shattered hourglasses. The grass didn't sway. The birds didn't fly.
Time here was... holding its breath.
Aren scanned the soil. "Temporal static. This place remembers forgetting. That's paradox-grade trauma."
Ghost Ronin held up a shattered crown, still radiating anti-chronal energy.
"It's him."
Kael stared at the palace gates.
"The Forgotten King."
---
Inside the throne room, they saw a mural etched in time-stone, still half-erased:
A crowned figure.
An army of clocks behind him.
Beneath: the words, "He will rule what remains when memory fades."
Suddenly, the air shimmered — and the mural bled into reality.
The Forgotten King stepped forward.
But not as flesh or ghost.
As Echo.
A figure made of distorted seconds and broken yesterdays — his voice delayed slightly after he spoke:
> "𝘔𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘭𝘢𝘸. 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘭𝘢𝘸 𝘪𝘵𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘰𝘵."
---
Kael stood tall. "You erased your name from the timeline. Why come back now?"
The King's echo-body flickered.
His voice answered before his mouth moved:
> "𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘵. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥."
Suddenly Kael saw it—buried deep in his own fragmented past—a brief memory, years ago, when he was a child watching an old cartoon with a villain wearing a dark crown.
He had whispered once, "He's scary. I hope I never see him."
That was all it took.
A single memory.
A seed.
Now the King had returned.
---
Myra charged first, time-lashing with her dual chronoknives.
They phased through the King.
Ghost Ronin followed, slashing echoes and drawing him into combat within a pocket memory loop.
But the King was rewriting the order of cause.
Swords broke before they were swung.
Injuries healed before they landed.
And Kael…
Kael was trapped in a personal timeline where he had already lost.
He saw the team die.
Over and over.
> "𝘍𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘦," the King said, stepping forward, "𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘬 𝘮𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘴."
---
But Aren — brilliant, unpredictable Aren — did something the King hadn't calculated.
He began to forget.
On purpose.
Wiping his own short-term memory with a neural-scrambler, Aren created a paradox chain in his own brain.
> "I don't know you. I don't care what you erased."
And for one brilliant second, the King blinked.
Kael struck — not with a weapon, but with a name.
The one hidden deep in the King's timeline. Spoken in the tongue of the Clock Tower from Chapter 15.
> "Aervan."
The Forgotten King screamed — not in pain, but in remembering.
And that was enough.
---
His body fractured.
Not destroyed.
But reabsorbed into the very timelines he had once devoured.
The palace cracked.
The stars above reappeared — futures restored.
---
Anchor 9H9.H – REMEMBRANCE COMPLETE
Entity: The Forgotten King (Aervan) – Bound to Memory-State
Danger Level: Dormant, Conditional on Silence
---
Back in the Sanctuary...
Kael was quiet.
Ghost Ronin poured tea. "That name. It meant something to you."
Kael nodded. "He wasn't a villain in that cartoon. He was the hero. I just… forgot."
Myra whispered, "Memory is the most dangerous time machine of all."
Aren smirked. "Good thing we're learning to drive it."