Kael sat alone in the Throne of What Shouldn't Be.
The battlefield was gone. Fake Chapter 92 had faded. But something remained. An itch. Not on his skin. Not in his heart. In his sentences. Every time he thought… a second thought followed. Like someone else was co-authoring his silence.
I need to rest.
You don't have time.
I should rebuild the thread map.
But you don't deserve a map.
Kael froze.
That… wasn't me.
He stood. Looked around the glitch-field. Empty. Dead silent. And then a whisper. Not a voice he knew. Not male. Not female. Just... narration.
"The glitch stood still, pretending he was still the one writing this."
Kael's blood ran cold.
"Who said that?" he barked.
Silence. Then again "Oh, I'm not speaking, Sovereign.
I'm describing."
❝WARNING: FOREIGN NARRATION DETECTED
Entity Classification: UNKNOWN
Thread Access: Internal
Writing Source: [REDACTED]
Emotional Signature: Mirror-Level Parasitic
Effect: Competes for narrative control.
Codename: WHISPER.❞
Kael clenched the Chaospen.
You want to take my voice?
You'll have to break it first.
"Get out," he said.
The whisper laughed.
"I never entered.
I was always in your pages.
Buried in the margins."
The throne began glitching again. But not visually. Grammatically. The words Kael had written before on the very ground were being reworded.
"I will fight to earn every word."
→ "I will try, but fail to hold onto my words."
"This story is mine."
→ "This story once felt like his."
Kael roared.
"NO."
He raised the Chaospen. Slashed a single command through the sky:
"Lock Paragraph."
A firewall of burning ink circled him.
Every word he'd ever spoken flared in crimson light.
❝ACTIVE DEFENSE: VOICE SHIELD
Your authored lines are now temporarily protected.
Duration: 3 Chapters
Cost: Stability -5% per inner conflict.❞
The whisper paused. Then, calmly…
"Well played.
You know how to write shields.
But can you write… without doubting yourself first?"
And then...Nothing.
It left.Or…it hid.
Kael's breath slowed. But his mind raced. This isn't just a narrator…It's a second author. One I didn't invite.
He stood again. And said something he never thought he'd have to: "If someone's writing over me…" "Then it's time to find their pen."
❝SYSTEM ACCESS: RESTRICTED
ZONE: [MARGIN]
LOCATION: BETWEEN LINES
WARNING: No physics. No time. Only forgotten words.❞
Kael stood before an invisible wall except it wasn't made of stone. It was made of white space. That eerie emptiness between paragraphs. He reached out. The Chaospen vibrated violently. A small prompt blinked:
"ENTERING THE MARGIN WILL COST YOUR CONTEXT."
"Proceed?"
Kael took a breath.
"Let it cost."
He stepped through. The world vanished. In its place: half-written sentences. Sentences that started…..but never ended.
"She was almost—"
"If only he hadn't—"
"I should've said—"
Each phrase floated, unfinished, begging for closure. But Kael couldn't fix them. If he did, he'd risk becoming one of them.
He walked carefully. The ground was unstable not dirt or stone, but ideas. Old ones. Broken ones. Whispers echoed in the blankness. Not voices. Deleted drafts.
"You were supposed to be a side character."
"We cut your arc for pacing."
"He's too broken. Readers won't connect."
Kael clenched his fist. So this is where discarded fates live…A graveyard of forgotten storylines.
And then. A flicker. A desk. In the middle of nowhere. Black. Leaking ink from its edges. Sitting behind it...The Whisper. Not a monster. Not a demon. Just a hooded figure, scribbling. Every line it wrote floated into the air searching for a paragraph to corrupt. Kael stepped forward.
"So this is where you hide."
Whisper didn't look up.
"I don't hide.
I edit."
Kael growled.
"You're rewriting my thoughts."
"No," Whisper said.
"I'm just giving them endings you were too afraid to write."
Kael's eyes narrowed.
"What do you want?"
Whisper stopped writing. Looked up. No face. Just empty skin where eyes should be but Kael saw his own reflection inside.
"I want co-authorship.
You write with emotion.
I write with structure."
"Together… we'll make a perfect tragedy."
❝DANGER ZONE: AUTHOR SPLIT THREAT
The Margin feeds on doubt.
If Kael accepts, narration will permanently divide.
If rejected, Whisper may evolve into Free-Writing Parasite.❞
Kael didn't speak. He wrote. One line midair.
"I don't need endings that fear healing."
Whisper's hand cracked pen snapping in half. The margin around them shivered. Unstable. Kael stepped closer.
"I'd rather write an imperfect truth…
than co-author a flawless lie."
Whisper stood.
"Then write alone."
It vanished but not without leaving something behind:A book. Black cover. No title. Kael opened it. One page.
One line: "This is how your story ends… if you ever stop rewriting."
❝MARGIN ZONE EXITING
New Passive Gained: Voidwalker
Effect: You can now read deleted thoughts and detect unspoken narrative attacks.
System Update: Whisper has gone rogue. Now a full Parasitic Author-Class Threat.❞
Kael looked up. The white void faded. The world returned. But his pen now pulsed with dark blue light. A piece of the Margin still inside it.
He whispered: "If the pages between the chapters hold enemies now…"
"Then every silence must be rewritten."
The moment Kael stepped out of the Margin Zone,
he felt it. Something was wrong. The Throne Room still there.
The system still silent. But his world…had been redrafted. Subtly. Wrongly.
He opened his Archive Panel.
❝CHARACTER LIST:
– Kael
– Nyra Veilthorn
– Thorne Arkveil
– Serah of the Windwell
– Ruun, the Thoughtbound
…❞
But something was off. Thorne Arkveil. His loyal strategist.
Stoic. Disciplined. Never speaks more than needed. Now... listed as:
"Emotionally unstable.
Frequently questions Kael's commands.
May betray in Chapter 18."
Kael's hand trembled.
That's not who he is.
I never wrote that.
He flipped through the dialogue logs. Thorne's words had changed.
"We're wasting time." → "You don't know what you're doing anymore."
"I follow your lead." → "Your chaos is infecting us all."
Kael clenched the Chaospen. Whisper hadn't stopped. It had simply found a better way to hurt him:Corrupt the people he believes in.
❝SYSTEM ALERT:
Character Rewrite Detected
Entity: WHISPER
Technique: Hidden Annotation Hijack
Infected Nodes: 3
Narrative Control: 68% Stable
Warning: If 100% reached, characters may become self-aware alternate versions.❞
Kael summoned the rewritten Thorne. He appeared glitch flickering on his shoulder, eyes... off.
"You summoned me," Thorne said, tone sharper than usual.
Kael stepped forward.
"You told me once: 'I'm the blade that bends, not breaks.'
Do you remember that?"
Thorne blinked. Eyes twitched.
"I… don't recall. That sounds like weakness."
Kael flinched. He's slipping away. He raised the Chaospen. Not to erase. To remind. He wrote in the air, a floating sentence that hovered between them: "You were written to survive loyalty. Not shatter under doubt."
The moment the line formed Thorne staggered. The glitch on his shoulder sparked violently.
"Kael... I..
I can hear someone else in my head."
"That's not someone," Kael said quietly.
"That's something trying to rewrite you."
He stepped forward. Held out his hand.
"I don't want to overwrite you.
I want to remember you the way I chose to write you."
Thorne looked at the words still glowing in the air. Then slowly…he reached out. The moment he touched the sentence the glitch evaporated like ash.
❝REWRITE BLOCKED
Character Thorne Arkveil Restored
Anchor Trait Reinforced: Unshakable Loyalty
New System Unlock: Echo-Lock Pen Mode
You can now inject Memory-Lines into characters to protect them from corruption.❞
Kael let out a shaky breath. One saved. But as he looked at the Archive Panel again...Two more names flickered.
Serah of the Windwell – status: "Emotionally rewritten."
Ruun, the Thoughtbound – status: "Under reconstruction."
Kael whispered: "So that's your game now, Whisper..."
"If you can't control my voice you'll steal the voices I created."
He looked at his glowing pen.
"Then I'll just rewrite them back.
One soul at a time."
Far within the Margin Zone... Whisper watched through fractured mirrors. Its voice cracked like ink boiling:
"He saves them...one line at a time?"
It smiled.
"Let's see how he handles betrayal rewritten from love."