It didn't bleed.
It didn't breathe.
The thing standing before Root wasn't alive. It was programmed. A collapse-model erasure unit from the Crown's deepest system vaults—something built not to fight, but to delete anything the throne couldn't process.
It lunged.
Reality tilted.
The thing didn't walk—it rewrote the ground beneath it. Glyphs etched themselves mid-air, carving out coordinates faster than gravity could keep up. Slices of the room vanished as it moved, entire sections of the floor blinking out like files being dragged to a trash bin.
Root didn't flinch.
Veyr stepped forward, one gloved hand raised lazily.
"You know, normally I'd crack a joke here," he muttered, "but I think this guy's immune to sarcasm."
The deletion construct's arm extended—then folded into a spear made of collapsing runes.
[ Target Lock: Confirmed.
Subject: ROOT
Deletion Protocol: Engaged ]
Root moved.
Not fast.
Not smooth.
Just… clear.
Like something inside him had clicked. Like every instinct in his body had finally caught up to the fact that he was standing in a room designed to erase him—and instead of panicking, his body aligned with something deeper.
Null wasn't energy.
It was absence.
And absence obeyed him.
The construct's spear came down.
It missed.
Not because Root dodged.
Because the space where he'd been—no longer existed.
He hadn't moved through time.
He'd cut a hole in it.
The entity stumbled, recalibrating.
[ Thread Misalignment Detected ]
[ Subject Status: ??? ]
Recalculating threat…
"Veyr," Root said, voice low. "Now."
Veyr smiled.
Then split.
Not into clones.
Not into shadows.
But into frames.
Seven frozen flickers of himself spun around the room—glitches of gravity moving in perfect orbit. Each one whispered a different word in a tongue the system couldn't parse. Together, they spoke a command.
"Permission granted," Veyr said. "Null Bind: Crownbreaker."
The throne exploded.
Not outward.
Inward.
Its core collapsed into a miniature black hole—pure null spiraling around the raw light of system control, suffocating it.
The deletion construct reeled back—its coding distorted, limbs flickering.
Root didn't wait.
He moved straight through the collapsing air.
He didn't summon.
Didn't scream.
He just stepped into the core of the Crown's authority—and said no.
The deletion construct convulsed.
Lines of Crown code—once smooth and absolute—now cracked like shattered glyphs spiraling off its limbs. The moment Root stepped through the collapsing throne's core, something inside the system panicked.
This wasn't protocol anymore.
This was survival.
[ ALERT: Null Contamination Expanding ]
[ Backup Crown Sync Attempt Failed ]
[ Initiate Fallback Purge—ERROR—ERROR—ERROR ]
The construct raised both arms.
Reality bent.
Not in a poetic way.
Literally.
The entire chamber folded, pulling toward the center as if Root had suddenly become a black hole of unranked data. System stabilizers screamed—glyphs lashing across the ceiling in desperate arcs. A normal student would have died. A normal summon would have dissolved.
But Root wasn't normal anymore.
He was Riftborn.
"Veyr," Root said calmly, "what happens if I walk through it?"
"Define 'it,'" Veyr replied.
"The core. The deletion signal."
"Oh." A pause. "You'll probably be wiped. Or reborn. Or cause a dimensional outage and ruin the Crown's aesthetic. Either way…"
Root walked forward.
Into the light.
Into the deletion field.
Into the exact center of what the system had declared unfixable.
It should've ended there.
A clean line.
A full purge.
But the system never expected a null-born tether. It didn't factor for a summon like Veyr—a being not created by threads, but cut from them. It didn't anticipate Root's refusal.
[ WARNING: Null-Type Anomaly Has Survived Erasure ]
[ New System Tag: RIFTBORN ]
[ Authority Score Assigned: Manual Evaluation Required ]
Root fell to one knee.
Sweat poured down his neck, skin burning with frictionless cold. His body felt empty, like everything inside had been hollowed out and replaced with pressure. But he was still here.
He looked up.
The deletion construct stood frozen—its arms glitching in place, mid-strike, its code unable to parse what had just happened.
Root stood.
One word echoed across the broken thrones.
"Denied."
The construct shattered.
Not explosively.
Not violently.
Just… ceased.
Like it had never been built.
Like the system itself decided to unwrite the moment it failed.
In the silence that followed, the room rebooted.
Lights flickered.
Stone reformed.
A new screen appeared before Root.
But it wasn't a prompt.
It wasn't a warning.
It was a request.
[ Subject: ROOT ]
[ Status: Riftborn (Stable) ]
[ Hollow Point Bank: 120 ]
Ability Unlock Path: Veyr (Null-Class)
Available Ability:
Gravity Well
– Create a field of altered weight and fall, centered on Root. All enemies within the zone become sluggish, and ranged projectiles curve or fail.
Passive: Root gains balance, unshakable stance, and increased strike force.
Unlock this ability?
Cost: 30 Hollow Points
Root smiled for the first time in hours.
"Do it."
The system confirmed the transfer.
And deep in his bones—beneath the system, beneath even thought—something clicked.
He wasn't a glitch.
He was a countermeasure.
He didn't destroy the throne.
He replaced it.
Root stepped through the crumbling archway of the Room of Second Trials.
The hallway beyond was the same—but it felt different. Cleaner. Quieter. As if the system was pretending nothing had happened. The surveillance threads that usually buzzed in the air were absent now. Cut.
They weren't monitoring him anymore.
They were avoiding him.
Veyr hovered behind him, his hands folded neatly, his tone smug.
"Well. That was anticlimactic," he said, eyes gleaming behind the mask. "No applause? No glitchy fireworks? Not even a cookie?"
Root kept walking. His breathing was steady. Heartbeat slower than before.
Everything in him had changed.
Not because of the fight—but because he realized something fundamental:
The Crown didn't know what he was anymore.
And that meant he had the advantage.
They turned a corner and reached the Academy's central transit node—a sleek platform with floating rails that moved students between wings. Normally, the area would be full of chatter, duel-scarred uniforms, and sleepy-eyed cadets dragging summons behind them.
But not today.
Today, the node was empty.
Root stepped onto the platform.
A system voice whispered from the walls.
[ Transport unlocked: Hollow Wing to Central Forum ]
Destination: Auto-set by faculty order.
Estimated Arrival: 3 minutes
—Recommended: Maintain composure. The Forum will be watching. —
Veyr's mask tilted.
"They're sending us there?"
"Apparently."
"Oho. Well then," he grinned, "time to look menacing. Or charming. Depends on the lighting."
The platform began to move.
And as it glided through glowing tunnels toward the central pillar of the Academy, Root saw something in the glass beside him—his own reflection.
But not just him.
A crown.
Faint. Fragmented. Floating just behind his head in the glass.
Not worn.
Not claimed.
But waiting.
When the platform arrived, the Forum was already packed.
Instructors stood stiff-backed on high balconies. Summoners lined the lower courts. Students clustered like rumors, whispering too quietly for the system to catch.
And in the center of it all—
A stage.
And a single prompt glowing in the air above it.
[ Subject: Root ]
[ Status: Riftborn ]
System Request: Explain your Summon.
Forum Protocol: All eyes observe.
Speak truth. Or be erased.
Root stepped forward.
Veyr floated beside him like a butler entering a courtroom.
"Well," Veyr whispered. "Ready to break their brains?"
Root nodded once.
Then looked up.
The crowd went silent.
And with no fear in his voice, he said:
"This is Veyr. He's my summon.
He's null. He's not ranked. He's not registered.
And he's not here to fight for the system.
He's here to break it—if it ever tries to break me again."
The Forum didn't speak.
It pulsed.
Just once.
As if the entire Academy drew in a breath and didn't dare release it.