(Lawless Arc: Part XXXVII)
The void learned to watch.
Kael learned to walk without trembling.
But the multiverse learned something else entirely:
Stories repeat. People notice. Patterns bleed.
Kael stepped into a fractured star-market world — a crossroads realm where information traded hands faster than souls. The System did not appear, but its residue did, glitching faintly at the edge of perception:
[NARRATIVE FLOW: DETECTED]
[PATTERN VISIBILITY: RISING]
[FIRST READER CONTACT: INCOMING]
Kael exhaled.
"So someone's finally paying attention."
The System responded, voice like dust scraped off a tomb-tablet:
[ATTENTION IS NOT PRAISE.]
[IT IS THE FIRST SIGN OF A STORM.]
And then the Reader arrived.
Not cloaked in quasar-light like gods,
nor ink-dark like sovereigns,
but in pure anonymity — the scariest disguise in the multiverse.
A small silhouette.
A simple profile.
A user who looked ordinary enough to be ignored.
Until they spoke.
"Every chapter the author writes… has cracks."
A pause.
"Not mistakes. Cracks."
Kael turned slowly, eyes sharpening.
The Reader continued.
"Chapter 16 to 19… you were called Kael Veyron."
"And then 20… Je again."
"And 33 to 40… no System."
"And 41 onward… the void grows personal."
Kael's pulse hitched.
The Reader smiled — not arrogantly, not triumphantly, but inevitably.
"You're not mixing stories."
"You're not experimenting."
"You're remembering backwards."
The chamber air stuttered.
Kael whispered:
"…You're the first to notice."
The Reader nodded.
"And I won't be the last."
Kael stepped closer — not to attack, but to measure.
"What do you want?"
"Nothing," the Reader replied softly.
"I just wanted to see if the void flinched when someone finally read between the lines."
Kael smirked — a thin crescent, older now, heavier.
"And did it?"
The System residue glitched violently for the first time in centuries:
[VOID RESPONSE: UNSTABLE]
[CAUSE: READER COMPREHENSION BREACH]
[SYSTEM CORE STATUS: NERVOUS]
The Reader laughed softly.
"It did."
Kael turned away.
"Then leave. Before you read something that reads you back."
The Reader vanished through a portal of plain text and ordinary mechanics — no cosmic spectacle, only the echo of someone who realized the universe doesn't fear the loud ones…
It fears the ones who understand the script.