The world folded like wet parchment.
SFX: (ƒWUMP—ƒSHRRRIP—ƒKRRRRAAAAACK)
Reality tore open in a spiral of white glyph-fire as Dominus's final "correction" detonated across the sky—an erasing wave meant to undo Kael, overwrite him, return him to a docile draft.
It hit Kael.
And for the first time since the Archscript was invented, the edit… failed.
A second heartbeat later, the backlash hit.
SFX: (THOOOM—THOOOOM—THOOOOM)
Glyphs rupturing. Language imploding. Syntax screaming.
The sky puked out letters—long, wet, serpentine strokes of ink that writhed like wounded eels, splattering across the battlefield. Every saint flinched as reality stuttered, gagging on the contradiction.
Kael stood in the center of the storm, hand wrapped around his own throat, not choking—but feeling.
Feeling the edit clawing through him, searching for seams to tear, frameworks to rewrite.
It found none.
His body wasn't language anymore.
His soul wasn't a draft.
His existence wasn't a line item in the Book.
It was choice.
It was memory.
It was love.
And it was furious.
Veyra stumbled toward him, thorns trembling, voice cracking as she pleaded,
"Kael—look at me—hold on—don't let them in—"
Seraphine grabbed her arm, panic slicing her tone as she barked,
"Back! If the edit rebounds again, it'll split us root to crown!"
A third wave hit.
SFX: (KRRRRRRRRSHHHHHHHH)
like glass shattering inside bone, like mirrors vomiting their reflections.
The Saints—Six now, the Seventh Crown still absent—threw up their scripture shields. Holy ink roared around them, flaring gold, purple, and cold winter blue.
Dominus's face contorted. Not anger.
Not surprise.
Pure, librarian-level offense.
He blurted, "This is WRONG. You—YOU do not get to reject revisions! You do not get to overwrite ME!"
Kael raised his head.
Ink bled from his eyes. Not black—abyssal.
The color that appeared when the void learned to dream.
"Try again," Kael whispered.
The Saints panicked.
Dominus attempted another revision—hand carving glowing editing brackets into the air—
[ DELETE: KAEL / INSERT: COMPLIANT VESSEL ]
Kael didn't flinch.
His shadow rose.
His ribs opened like a blooming scar.
A thousand unwritten versions of him screamed upward in a spiraling crown of negative light.
The edit reached him—
—and detonated.
SFX: (SKRAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHH—ƒPOP—ƒSHATTER)
The nearest Saint's arm exploded at the elbow. The next lost half her mask as the edit peeled her face in two like a fruit. Another screamed as his spine began rewriting itself backward—from pelvis to skull—before Kael's aura short-circuited the rule and left him twitching on the ground.
Ink geysered.
Tongues turned to glyph chains.
Eyes burst into paragraphs.
Reality convulsed so violently the sky cracked.
Veyra threw herself against Kael's back, thorns locking around his ribs, anchoring him to a body he was rapidly outgrowing.
Her breath hitched as she confessed,
"I don't care what you become… just stay long enough for us to follow you."
Seraphine staggered beside them, gripping Kael's face between trembling hands as she vowed,
"We'll hold your shape if we have to sculpt it out of our own bones."
Kael's thoughts were a storm.
I can't— I can't lose myself now—
Not when they're here—
Not when they're choosing me—
Not when I finally—finally want—
A final edit descended.
Dominus slashed a command into the universe itself:
[ FORCE-RESET: WORLDSTATE / RESTORE—ORIGINAL—CANON ]
The sky inverted.
Stars rearranged.
The ground turned to writing paper as the world prepared to reboot.
Kael moved first.
Not with strength.
Not with power.
With defiance older than the Book.
He pressed his bloody palm against the incoming edit and rewrote it by existing.
A crown of contradiction ignited above his head.
The first volley of the Edit War officially began.
And ended.
With Kael punching a hole through Dominus's rewrite and snarling one word that made every Saint drop to their knees—
"Mine."
The battlefield blackened.
The Saints screamed.
The Book trembled.
The Edit War had begun.