The sky screamed.
Winds tore from the rift above, not with force, but with pressure—the kind that bent time, memory, and instinct. Lia fell to her knees, clutching her ears. Seren stood her ground, though even her myth-tier body quivered under the Watcher's gaze.
Kael didn't move.
The glyph beneath his feet shimmered, then rose into the air around him, spinning slowly—alive. It was no longer mere logic. No longer scribbles of control.
It was presence.
The Null Glyph had awakened.
---
The Divine's Test
The Watcher's voice rang again—not in words, but in primal truth.
> "Power is not stolen. It is given. Return what was not meant for Learners."
Kael exhaled slowly, then stepped forward. "You call it divine. I call it stolen potential."
The Watcher extended a finger. Light crackled around it like a divine guillotine.
> "Then prove your truth."
In an instant, the Watcher descended.
Faster than light.
Faster than Kael could see.
But not faster than he could predict.
Kael's hand moved.
A glyph flared mid-air—Pre-Anchor Glyph: a formula he'd calculated just last night, based on recursive reactions from Cressa's false glyph.
The attack struck it—
And shattered.
Exploded sideways, a backlash of glyphic logic dispersing through the air like fragmented glass. It didn't stop the Watcher—but it redirected the strike into the ruins.
The pedestal cracked. The wind halted.
The Watcher slowed.
> "You… repelled judgment?"
Kael didn't answer. He stepped forward again.
---
Seren Awakens
Behind him, Seren moved.
Her sword lit with azure flame, her aura coiling like stormfire. "Kael, that thing is beyond myth-level."
"I know."
"You can't stall it forever."
"I'm not trying to."
He reached into his cloak—and pulled out the First Scholar's Journal.
---
Null Glyph: Phase One
Kael held the Journal up, and spoke a single word:
"Unbind."
The glyphs lit like suns.
From every direction—sky, ground, Lia's trembling shadow—the air bent. Not in destruction. Not in wrath.
In negation.
The Watcher staggered. Its light flickered.
Its armor cracked.
> "This is not yours to wield!" it roared.
Kael's voice was calm. "It never was. You chained the world with order. I just found the key."
The glyph spiraled, wrapping around Kael's body in a lattice of burning equations.
Then—
Boom.
The Watcher descended again, full force, divine light compressed into a single blade.
Kael met it with his palm.
And Null Glyph: Phase Two activated.
---
Memory Reversal
Time fractured.
For a heartbeat, they all saw what Kael saw.
The original Talent kneeling before the Origin.
The chaining of the glyphs.
The burning of the old world.
The rise of divine empires.
Seren fell to one knee, eyes wide in shock.
Lia screamed.
Kael stood still. Frozen.
The Watcher faltered.
> "What have you done—?"
Kael whispered: "I rewrote your memory."
---
But Something Goes Wrong
The glyphs shattered.
The Journal burned in Kael's hands—violently. Pages disintegrated, writing reversed, energy turning inside out.
Kael coughed—blood.
His glyphs destabilized. The Null lattice cracked and spun violently, feeding on his thoughts.
Seren lunged, grabbing his shoulders. "Kael!"
The Watcher staggered back, its form flickering.
But its eyes...
They were smiling.
> "You saw too much."
Lightning split the air again.
But it wasn't divine.
It was summoning.
From the horizon, multiple glyph-towers erupted from the ground, spiraling into the clouds like spears.
And from them—
They came.
Figures wrapped in light, wingless, faceless.
More Watchers.