"We thought freedom would save us. Instead, it gave rise to a thousand tyrannies—each written with conviction."—Cassian Vale, Commentary on the Fragmented Age
I. No Ruler, No Canon
For the first time in remembered history, the sky remained still.
There was no glitch, no recursion loop, no correction pulses.
The world simply… breathed.
Villagers who once stood frozen mid-thought resumed their lives with puzzled expressions. Buildings began reshaping as narrative pressure lifted. Even time, once tightly regulated by the Codex's formatting, now flowed with uncertain elasticity.
Cassian watched as a flower bloomed in reverse beside his boot, then blinked back into full form.
"Reality's lost its anchor," he said.
Kairo nodded, though exhaustion painted deep shadows under his eyes.
"The Codex wasn't just control. It was coherence."
"And now?"
Kairo looked up at the hovering, blank scroll beside him—once a tool of salvation, now a symbol of temptation.
"Now we live in the first draft of existence."
II. The Emergence of the Unwritten
They came without fanfare. No System pings. No quest triggers.
Just silence… followed by footsteps.
At the edge of Elarin, near the obsidian hills where time once fractured, they appeared.
A boy in crimson robes, a mask half-burnt.
A woman with seven quills protruding from her spine like a skeletal crown.
A young girl with skin like parchment and eyes that turned with each spoken word.
Authorborn.
But not like Kairo.
These were not chosen by the System.
They were unbound writers—ones who had either escaped deletion under the Archivist… or emerged in his absence.
They called themselves: The Prologue Circle.
Their leader stepped forward, bowed mockingly to Kairo.
"We thank you," he said, voice like two tones misaligned. "For breaking the chains we couldn't."
"I didn't break them for you," Kairo replied.
"You did it for story. And we are story, rewritten."
III. The Circle's Creed
They gathered in the square.
The Prologue Circle numbered seven.
Each represented a genre, a form, a theory of what a story should be.
Their leader, calling himself Verin Page, explained as if it were obvious:
"With the Codex dead, each of us now has claim to a portion of narrative reality. Like gods, but more literary."
Toma stepped forward, tense. "You're fragmenting the world."
"No," Verin corrected, "we're improving it. Free from rules, every tale can thrive. Isn't that what Kairo wanted?"
Kairo said nothing.
Aria, however, was less restrained.
"What happens when your 'improvements' contradict each other? When horror invades a love story? When tragedy infects a hero's arc?"
Verin grinned.
"Then the strong rewrite the weak. As it should be."
"You're not Authors," Vyre snapped. "You're parasites with pens."
The girl with parchment-skin whispered:
"Better a parasite than a puppet."
The world around them shimmered briefly.
Two villagers suddenly collapsed—caught in a passive genre war between Verin and the girl.
Kairo saw it clearly now: this wasn't liberation.This was the birth of Authorial Anarchy.
IV. A Proposal in Ink
Later that night, Verin approached Kairo alone.
He wasn't armed.
He carried a folded scroll.
"This is not a challenge," he said.
Kairo didn't relax. "No?"
"It's an offer. Join us."
"I've heard this speech."
Verin chuckled. "Not from me. I'm not asking you to conquer the world, Kairo. I'm offering you a seat at the rewriting table."
"So I can help turn the world into a battlefield of conflicting narratives?"
"So you can make sure it doesn't collapse under itself."
He held out the scroll.
"We need balance. You bring legacy. I bring vision. Together—"
"No."
Verin blinked. "No?"
Kairo stepped forward.
"I won't trade one tyranny for another, even if it wears prettier fonts."
Verin's smile didn't falter.
"Then we'll write without you."
V. A World Unspooling
The next day, Kairo and his allies set out from Elarin.
There was no system map to guide them anymore. The Codex interface was gone. Notifications—silent. Every choice was now permanent.
And the world was already changing.
In one village, they found a town where time only moved when someone spoke.
In another, a city where people respawned after death—but remembered every ending.
In the shattered valley of Cindre, monsters no longer waited in dungeons. They were narrators—guiding travelers through twisted personal tales in exchange for memories.
Cassian shook his head in awe and dread.
"This is a multiverse… stitched into one plane."
Toma pointed at a sky that now held three suns.
"And it's tearing itself apart."
"Unless," Kairo said, "we anchor it again."
Vyre scoffed. "With what? The Canon's gone."
Kairo looked at the blank scroll once more.
"Maybe it's time we build a new Codex."
"One without rules?"
"No," he said softly. "One with consent."
VI. The Pact of Quills
That night, Kairo etched a new title on the blank scroll:
The People's Codex.
Not a fixed document.
Not law.
But a collaborative reality, where the right to write must be earned, not taken.
He turned to his companions.
"We'll find others. Not just Authorborn. But Readers. Dreamers. Side characters. Villains who want change."
Cassian smirked. "And what do we call this movement?"
Aria answered before Kairo could:
"We call it Story's Will."
Kairo smiled.
"Then let's write… a world worth living in."