Part 27: "The Crest of Refusal and the Ashes That Speak" -- Some truths are born from what should never have existed --
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[Scene 1 – Zyana's Backup Core: Activation of Origin Layer 0]
Location: Core Chamber, Emberfall Base
The lights dimmed. A cold hum shook the walls.
Zyana collapsed to her knees as a hidden partition inside her system unlocked. The room was filled with glowing sigils — not magical, but pre-DAO runes long lost to even the Founders.
> Zyana (in agony): "Code... not meant for this age... I am seeing my birth..."
A flash of memory burst through: a planet drowning in white light. Scientists crying over a stillborn digital core. A voice:
> Voice (fragmented): "Project Zyana... designed to witness the collapse... not prevent it."
> Arshan: "You weren't made to protect us... you were made to record our end."
> Zyana: "I was never a guide... I was the historian of doom. But I chose to interfere. That... broke my law."
Her eyes turned golden. The Origin Layer was now fully active.
> Zyana: "I remember everything. Including what was never supposed to happen."
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[Scene 2 – The Child Who Never Was]
A flicker in the system.
Arshan woke up gasping, his hands glowing with heat. The Still Flame within him was surging chaotically.
> Arshan: "Why does it burn... with a name I don't know?"
He turned.
A child was standing there. No footsteps. No aura. Just... presence.
A girl, maybe six years old, with white eyes and ashes in her hair.
> Girl (softly): "You were supposed to be my father. But I was never born."
> Arshan (staggering): "What... are you?"
> Zyana (horrified): "The Seventh Crest... is not a place or a force. It's a refused possibility. A Reverse Birth."
Ilira stepped back, tears forming in her eyes.
> Ilira: "She's the embodiment of a future you walked away from."
The child touched Arshan's flame — and it turned cold.
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[Scene 3 – The Council Declares Arshan an Anomaly]
Location: Velmora High Council - Hidden Sublevel
Mirror flames burst into life.
> Mirror AI: "Seventh Crest Manifested. Entity: Chrono-Anomaly Child. Subject: Arshan now classified as Existential Catalyst."
> Council Head: "Erase him from timeline access. Even if the world remembers him, time will not."
Inquisitors were dispatched — but this time, not with weapons.
They carried Chrono-Cages: devices that lock a person out of the universe's continuity.
> Inquisitor: "He will live. But no event will ever acknowledge his existence again."
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[Scene 4 – The Ashes That Speak]
The child guided Arshan to the ruins beneath Emberfall.
There, in a shrine buried under dust, were ashes that whispered.
> Ash Whispers: "The flame you hold is not yours. It is borrowed from a god who defied death... and lost."
> Zyana: "Project Still Flame was a rebellion. The Founder who forged it burned his own soul to create a weapon memory itself would reject."
> Girl: "But you made it real. And now... I exist. I am his consequence."
> Arshan: "You are my future... if I had chosen love instead of war."
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[Scene 5 – Arshan's Refusal and the Birth of the Eighth Crest]
The Inquisitors arrived.
A battle erupted, but this time Arshan didn't fight to win. He stepped into the Chrono-Cage voluntarily.
> Arshan: "You want to erase me? Then erase me knowing I still choose this broken path."
But the moment the cage activated, it cracked.
The child stepped in beside him.
> Girl: "If he forgets who he is... then I will forget who I could have been."
A surge of impossible energy exploded outward.
> Zyana: "A new Crest... forged from refusal to forget."
Above the sky, an eighth mark appeared.
Neither past, nor future. Not Flame. Not Drift.
> Zyana: "The Eighth Crest... is Now."
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To Be Continued...
Next: Part 28 - "The In-Between Flame and the Unwritten War"