The bells of bone tolled once more.
Then shattered.
All across the Shadow Court, inscriptions peeled from stone walls and drifted upward like burning parchment. Glyphs—millennia old—tore themselves free, dissolving into black ash that swirled into the sky.
And at the epicenter, hovering above the Council's sanctum on his skeletal wyvern, was Daemir.
His body was wrapped in layers of corrupted scripture—living runes that slithered like parasites beneath his robes. His face remained hidden, but one eye had torn open across his chest, stitched in flesh and ink. Around him, the sky was dimming.
The Shadow Court wasn't just under attack.
It was unraveling.
---
Selira stood at Jace's side atop the Temple's main spire, hair whipping in the growing wind.
"He's using Reversal Ink," she muttered. "It unbinds our ward-glyphs and rewrites them in his favor."
"Can we stop it?" Jace asked, his voice tense.
"We have two minutes to kill him before he completes the Ritual of Erasure. After that… everything here becomes part of his Codex."
Jace's grip tightened on the Revenant Glaive. The Shadowblood Carapace surged beneath his skin, itching to surface. His Codex flickered.
> [Incoming Threat: S-Class Inscription Master – Daemir]
Threat Type: Reality Rewriter
Time Remaining Before Domain Shift: 1 Minute 43 Seconds
"Then we take him now."
Selira raised a brow. "Together?"
Jace looked her straight in the eye. "Together."
---
They launched.
Selira moved like lightning, arcs of black script spiraling behind her as she leapt skyward, slicing through waves of corrupted ink with her twin sabers. Each strike etched runes in the air, counteracting Daemir's destabilizing glyphs.
Jace followed close behind—armor manifesting mid-leap, glaive splitting into twin spectral blades thanks to a mid-air Inscription Shift: Echo Divide.
They reached Daemir just as he finished a looping glyph across the sky.
"Too late, fledglings," he whispered, his voice layered like a choir in reverse. "The Codex does not belong to you. It belongs to me."
He raised both hands—
And the sky cracked.
---
Reality shivered as the first of his rewritten glyphs came to life.
Time Splintered.
For a moment, Jace felt himself living five seconds ago and five seconds from now all at once. The air thickened. His blood tried to walk backward.
> [Codex Defense Triggered – Memory Burn Active]
You are resisting Time Inscription: Loop Spiral (78% Integrity)
Selira cut across his field of vision, slamming one of her sabers into Daemir's chest. The blow should have pierced him—but the blade phased through.
"Projection," she cursed.
Daemir's true form shimmered beside her, stabbing a bone-quill dagger straight toward her spine.
Jace moved instinctively.
Echo Step.
He blinked across space, catching the strike with the flat of his glaive. Their blades clashed, and for the first time—Daemir truly looked at him.
"You carry her blood," he said. "And Veyra's spark. How... perfect."
Jace growled, shoving him back. "You're not worthy to speak her name."
The Codex within him roared.
And then—
A new glyph burned into being across his armor's chestplate.
Not one Selira had taught him.
Not one he had written.
But one born from his will.
> [Codex Evolution – Personal Glyph Created]
Name: Glyph of Defiance
– Effect: Negates next forced inscription
– Cooldown: 3 hours
Codex Integration: 35% → 37%
Jace dove through the air.
Daemir conjured a glyph of inverted flame.
Jace slammed through it.
And struck true.
The glaive pierced Daemir's shoulder, black blood hissing into the air like acidized ink. The corrupted master howled—not in pain, but in pleasure.
"Yes… that's it. Rage. Rejection. Let me taste what the Codex hides."
A dark circle began forming behind him—large, layered in serpentine script.
Selira's eyes widened. "He's opening the Library of the Broken Tongue."
Jace blinked. "That's… bad?"
"Bad enough that I never opened it."
> [Threat Escalation – Forbidden Realm Access Incoming]
Category: Cataclysmic | Status: 12 Seconds to Gate Completion
"Then we shut it," Jace growled.
"Together."
---
They moved as one.
Selira carved a glyph mid-air—Seal of the Silent Verse—binding Daemir's movement for half a second.
Jace followed up with a new move: Blood Echo Slam—a spinning glaive strike empowered by the Shadowblood Carapace's core. It detonated against Daemir's center mass, hurling the former master backward into the gate he had just opened.
Selira didn't hesitate.
She threw her dagger, inscribed with a suicide glyph.
The moment it hit the portal—
BOOM.
The sky tore itself in half.
And then reknit.
Daemir was gone.
The Ritual stopped.
The sky returned.
And the glyphs… stilled.
---
Both Jace and Selira crashed to the platform, exhausted, bloody, but victorious.
A moment later, the Court bells tolled again.
This time… in triumph.
"The Circle Prime"
The Council Chamber was unlike any place Jace had ever seen.
Suspended above a bottomless chasm, the chamber floated—not on stone, but on an endless spiral of Codex pages bound together by threads of blood and soul. Each page shimmered faintly, as though inscribed with truths too sacred—or too dangerous—for mortal eyes.
This was where the Circle Prime held dominion.
The highest echelon of the Shadow Court.
The ones even Selira bowed to.
And now… they had summoned him.
Jace stood in the center of the spiral dais, flanked by pillars of liquid obsidian that rose and fell with each breath of the Court. Twelve thrones loomed in a wide ring around him, each occupied by a shadow-wreathed figure cloaked in relics of ancient Codex lineage.
Selira remained behind, arms crossed, her presence tense but watchful.
The central figure leaned forward.
Their voice was ageless. "Jace. Son of no known house. Bearer of the Bloodbound Codex."
"Your actions have disrupted the glyphflow. Altered the trajectory of the Codex inheritance cycle."
"You survived Daemir."
"You unlocked your Soul Armor."
"And worse…"
They all spoke in unison now.
"You wrote your own glyph."
The air grew thick.
A test.
A judgment.
Jace didn't flinch. "You brought me here to scold me for surviving?"
Murmurs rippled through the Circle.
One elder stood—her robes stitched from strands of forgotten languages.
"I vote we bind him. Place a blood collar around his Codex and use him as a tool."
Another, older, chuckled. "Fool. The Codex has already accepted him. If we collar him, it will kill us all."
Selira stepped forward. "You summoned him for one reason. Give him the Key."
The central elder turned toward her.
"You vouch for him, then?"
"I do."
"Even if he walks the same path as Veyra?"
Selira didn't blink. "Especially if he does."
A long silence.
Then—agreement.
The circle pulsed, and from the center of the spiral, a small object rose.
The First Blood Key.
A simple ring of crimson metal, engraved with runes older than the Court itself. It hovered before Jace, pulsing faintly in tune with his Codex.
> [Item Acquired: First Blood Key]
– Unlocks Feature: Codex Vault – Personal Inscription Storage
– Grants Access to Hidden Codex Functions (2%)
– Required to access Gate of Fangs (Sealed Area)
Codex Integration: 37% → 39%
As the ring settled into his palm, a new window opened in his vision:
> [Codex Vault – Activated]
– Stored Glyphs:
• Glyph of Defiance (Personal)
• Glyph of Severance
• Mark of Echoes
– Vault Capacity: 10 Glyphs (Base)
– Vault Expandable via Blood Keys and Beast Crystals
Jace stared at it.
He had a vault.
A place to inscribe, refine, and even merge glyphs into more complex spells.
Selira stepped closer. "The Vault is what separates novices from gods. Use it well."
---
But not everyone in the Circle was pleased.
As Jace left the chamber with Selira, one figure remained seated long after the others departed.
A thin man with hollow eyes and a silent Codex embedded in his neck.
He whispered into the void:
"He's not supposed to exist."
And the void whispered back:
"Then make him not."
---
Meanwhile…
Far across the continent, a lone figure moved through the ruins of an ancient battlefield. Corpses of godbeasts littered the land, and in her hand, she held a cracked Codex leaking black light.
Violet.
She stopped suddenly, her breath catching.
And turned her eyes north.
"Jace… you've awakened the Key."
Her fingers tightened.
"Then so have I."
"Whispers in the Vault"
The Codex Vault manifested as a circular sanctum of pulsing runes—visible only to Jace through his Codex's perception layer. In the real world, he sat cross-legged in his training chamber, eyes closed, shadowblood aura swirling faintly around him.
But within the Vault?
He stood in a world made of ink and thought.
Floating platforms held his stored glyphs, each one rotating slowly in the air like ghostly script caught in a gravity loop. The Glyph of Severance burned red and sharp. The Mark of Echoes shimmered in pulses. And his Glyph of Defiance—the personal one—hovered at the center, protected by a circle of forbidding light.
He reached toward Severance.
A line appeared.
Then toward Echoes.
A second line formed—like a diagram made of memory and pressure.
> [Vault Synthesis Mode: ACTIVE]
– Attempting Hybrid Glyph Creation…
Result: Glyph Fusion 83% Stable
New Glyph Created: Severed Echo
– Effect: A slashing attack that activates once, then echoes the damage two seconds later with amplified force
– Cost: Moderate ki + 2% blood essence
– Cooldown: 8 seconds
Codex Integration: 39% → 41%
Hybrid Glyph Slot Created (1/3)
Jace opened his eyes slowly, sweat beading on his brow.
"That… felt awesome."
Selira, standing at the edge of the chamber, looked up from her scrolls.
"You fused your first glyph?"
"Yeah. I call it Severed Echo." He smirked. "Thought I'd keep it on-brand."
She didn't smile.
Instead, she turned serious.
"Good. You'll need it."
---
Later that evening, as the Court dimmed under the pale firelight of the inverted Blood Crescent, whispers began to swirl through the lower halls.
Some whispered of Jace the Godstealer—a heretic forging his own path through the Codex.
Others murmured of Selira's weakness, of how her obsession with her new pupil made her blind.
But not everyone whispered.
Some acted.
---
Jace returned to his quarters late.
He stripped out of his training tunic, bone-carved armor fragments folding away into his Codex storage, and sat at the edge of the obsidian-bone bed, head lowered.
Exhausted.
Drained.
Then he heard it.
Silence.
Too much silence.
A heartbeat passed.
He didn't move.
But the Codex did.
> [Alert: Assassin Glyph Detected – Glyph of Silence / Glyph of Pulse Kill]
Threats: 3 | Combat Rating: A-Class | Origin: Inner Court – Circle IV
He moved before they did.
Echo Step.
Jace blinked behind the closest figure—an assassin in a mirror-black cloak with runes stitched into their veins. He drove his elbow into their back, just as they activated a compression sigil.
BOOM.
The room detonated in a wave of kinetic pressure.
He rolled with it, crashing into the far wall.
One down.
Two remaining.
---
The second assassin came from above—mid-flip, launching twin blades inscribed with Glyph of Hollow Veins. If either struck, they'd collapse his cardiovascular system on contact.
But Jace was ready.
Severed Echo.
He slashed upward with his glaive, catching the attacker mid-descent. Blood sprayed.
Then, two seconds later—
WHAM.
The echoed strike hit even harder, hurling the assassin backward into the blade of his own partner.
Both collapsed in a heap.
Dead.
> [Codex Sync: Reinforced – Assassination Resistance Achieved]
New Trait Unlocked: Reversal Pulse – Converts final 10% of ki into one reflexive Codex counter when below 15% HP (1/day)
Codex Integration: 41% → 43%
---
Selira arrived moments later, storming into the room in full combat attire.
"Who sent them?!"
Jace shook his head, panting. "Didn't say. But they were Inner Court."
Selira's jaw clenched.
"There's a mole in Circle IV."
She looked him over—cut lip, scorched shoulder, bruised ribs—and her expression cracked.
Just for a second.
"Are you okay?"
Jace nodded slowly.
Then, to both their surprise, she pulled him into a tight embrace.
"You're not just a student anymore," she whispered.
"You're ours."