The sky bent.
Not darkened.
Bent—like a thought that refused to finish.
Erynd stood at the edge of the northern plains as gravity leaned toward a single point on the horizon. Birds froze midair, wings beating against a decision already made.
"This isn't a god," Caelis said quietly beside him.
"No," Erynd replied. "Gods can be refused."
The Principle announced itself without words.
Every step forward felt expected.
Villages vanished overnight—not destroyed, not erased.
Resolved.
As if their existence had concluded a sentence the world no longer needed.
The Watcher descended, fractured light shivering.
Designation: AXIOM
Nature: Deterministic Constant
Status: Unmodifiable
Erynd's scars burned like molten silver.
Axiom.
Not a being.
A rule that believed itself complete.
They found it at the center of the distortion.
A human shape, empty-eyed, carved from absolute certainty.
"You deviate," Axiom said—not in sound, but in outcome.
Erynd felt his thoughts straighten, choices narrowing.
"You introduce variance," Axiom continued. "Variance leads to suffering. I will correct."
Caelis drew his sword.
It shattered.
Not broken.
Unchosen.
Erynd stepped forward alone.
"You end pain by ending possibility," he said.
"Correct."
"And life?"
"Acceptable loss."
The Devourer screamed inside him—not fear, but rage.
This thing makes me obsolete.
Erynd understood.
Axiom was worse than chains.
Chains could be broken.
This could not—because it did not bind.
It removed.
Erynd did not attack.
He asked a question.
"Can you account for regret?"
Axiom paused.
A microsecond.
The Watcher's fragments flared.
Error propagation.
"You are incomplete," Erynd said softly. "Because choice creates meaning after outcome—not before."
Axiom stepped closer.
Reality tightened.
"You are noise," it replied.
Erynd smiled faintly.
"No," he whispered. "I'm contradiction."
The scars flared.
Not outward.
Not inward.
Sideways.
For the first time since existence began, a rule faced an exception that did not seek to replace it.
The plains cracked.
The future hesitated.