The Scarlands shook.
Ash curled in reverse, light shuddered, and the Core Thrones began to fracture — again.
"He remembers," Arashi whispered."And now… so will you."
She pressed her palm to Jinryu's chest — her glyph pulsed silver-blue, and instantly, the world dropped.
— Memory Dive: The Pact Before the Fall —
Twelve stood atop the Spire of Origin.
Twelve Corebearers. One Core.
Each of them different — young, old, warrior, healer, thinker, killer.
In the center, a golden flame: The Prime Core, pure and undivided.
Jinryu stood among them — hair shorter, eyes less burdened.
Maeryn stood opposite him.
And at the head…
Was Vael.
Tall. Hands bound in white bandages. A blindfold covering both eyes — yet he saw more than anyone.
"We must divide the Core," Vael had said."Or we doom ourselves to godhood."
The others agreed. The burden was too great.
Too singular.
Too dangerous.
But as they carved the glyphs from the Prime Core, something went wrong.
Vael didn't stop carving.
He kept going.
Beyond the twelfth glyph.
"What are you doing?" Jinryu had shouted.
"What you all were too afraid to finish," Vael whispered.
And from that moment, Glyph Thirteen was born.
An unstable, anti-glyph — nameless, untethered.
It did not represent balance.
It represented choice.
The Core shattered.
Memory scattered.
Vael vanished.
— Present —
Jinryu gasped as the memory tore away.
Ash around them warped into faces — screaming, whispering, remembering.
"Glyph Thirteen…" he muttered. "It wasn't supposed to exist."
Arashi nodded solemnly.
"Vael made it real. And now it wants form."
"Where is he?" Maeryn asked.
Before Arashi could answer—
The sky cracked.
A rift opened — but it was not made of light.
It was dark ink, twisting into symbols, pulsing with un-Glyphs — anti-scripts.
A figure stepped through.
Robe black, Core bleeding both forward and backward in time. No eyes. No voice.
But the world spoke for him.
"I remember you," it said, in twelve voices at once.
Vael's Echo.
Not the man.
But the fragment of his will, bound to Glyph Thirteen.
Jinryu stepped forward, Haeryun glowing red.
"I remember what you took."
Maeryn summoned her blade, her glyph roaring like wind.
Arashi's Core flared — for the first time in a century.
"Then remember this."
The Echo attacked.
— Combat: Echo of Vael vs. Three Corebearers —
The Echo didn't fight with martial forms.
It fought with possibility — splitting into a hundred versions of itself mid-motion.
Each flicker was a moment that could've happened — each swing a regret.
Jinryu parried, but was struck by a memory that wasn't his — a future where he became Vael.
Maeryn dodged, but saw herself leading the Council, emotionless.
Arashi unleashed a spiral glyph, binding time — but the Echo broke it with doubt.
The Scarlands burned.
In a final clash, Jinryu shouted a forgotten word — one only the First Pact knew:
"Una!"
The Haeryun blade roared.
And the Echo shattered, not with pain… but relief.
It faded, whispering:
"He still waits… in the place where Glyphs cannot form."
"Where the world ends… and begins again."
— Aftermath —
Arashi collapsed.
Her body was failing — staying in the Scarlands too long.
"Find the Twelfth," she said. "She knows the door."
"And Vael?" Jinryu asked.
Arashi's last breath:
"He's not trying to destroy the world."
"He's trying to rewrite it."