It started with a glitch in the crown.
Zatch was mid-meditation, his body levitating above the memory pool beneath the Temple of the Spell Kings, when the water solidified beneath him — glyphlight freezing like a paused recording.
He dropped.
Landed hard.
The crown, sealed behind seven interlocking chant locks, rattled.
Kiyo looked up from his glyph-chart.
"Zatch?"
"Something breached."
"Another rewrite?"
Zatch stood. His body radiated pressure. Not anger — gravity. Old royalty.
"Not a rewrite."
He walked to the balcony overlooking the sky.
"A name came back."
Meanwhile, the Codex trembled on the cave floor where Hina and Xal sat in silence.
They hadn't spoken in an hour.
Not since the dream.
Not since Vorrn'Teyl — the memory-lockbreaker spell — whispered itself into her bones.
Xal (he no longer responded to "Veyrun") had stopped glitching. He was stable now. Present. Still unreadable to the Sigil Tree — but burning brighter inside its blind spots.
He looked older somehow.
Not in body.
In voice.
"You cast it, didn't you?" he asked.
Hina looked up. "Cast what?"
"Spell Five."
"I didn't try."
"But the sky responded."
She looked at him.
"What does that mean?"
Xal stood.
"It means they can't wait anymore."
The first crack in the sky wasn't visual.
It was conceptual.
Reality rippled like paper brushed by static. Then the clouds above began to drift sideways, not across, but in layers — like pages being turned in two different books at once.
The Codex flew open without her touch.
"It's syncing with the glyphstream," Xal said. "Preparing to defend itself."
"From what?"
The sky made its answer.
A golden ring began forming at the top of the world — a sigil so large it covered the upper hemisphere. Not a spell. A command.
Back at the Temple, Zatch recognized it.
His voice dropped to a whisper:
"They're initiating the Sky Split."
Kiyo's eyes went wide.
"That's a myth."
"No. It's the failsafe."
He clenched his fists.
"They're going to wipe all open books simultaneously."
"Wait—" Kiyo stood. "That would reset everyone. Even us."
Zatch stared at the spinning ring.
"Not if we get to the breach point first."
He turned to Kiyo.
"I'm going down there."
Below the world, Hina watched the sky stretch open like a vertical glyph slit, light pouring down in threads of golden code.
She saw names in it.
Books unraveling.
Some in mid-battle.
Some sleeping.
Some crying out as their glyphchains began to retract — as if pulled from reality.
"They're erasing spellbooks," she whispered.
"Not erasing," Xal corrected. "Rebinding."
"To what?"
"To default obedience protocols."
He stepped forward, arms wide.
The Codex hovered beside him like a moon orbiting its god.
"I'm not going to fight them," he said.
"I'm going to give them a choice."
"How?"
"By remembering what they forgot."
And then he whispered a word.
Not a spell.
A name.
"Lazek."
And the Codex opened to a page that hadn't existed before.
A sixth spell.
One not drawn by Hina.
Not triggered by recursion.
But written by Xal himself.
LAZEK'VAHR – "The Awakened Consent"
A glyph formed — smooth, recursive, shaped like a spiral eye opening from within.
Hina stared.
"That's not… from the Codex," she said.
"No."
Xal closed his eyes.
"It's from the time before books were given. When they were offered."
The glyph exploded.
Around the world — every Momodo whose spellbook was actively syncing with the sky froze.
And inside their minds…
A voice.
Calm. Not commanding.
"Do you want to remember?"
For some, the question meant nothing.
For others — it shattered chains that weren't even visible.
A green-haired Momodo in a thunder duel paused mid-cast.
A blue-cloaked child in the desert dropped his spellbook and wept.
And far above…
Zatch felt it too.
His hand trembled.
"Kiyo…"
"You felt it too?"
"He didn't cast a spell."
"He cast a question."
And it worked.
The golden glyph in the sky began to crack.
Not from damage.
From hesitation.
From the uncertainty of thousands of Momodo pausing their obedience — if only for a second.
And the Tree didn't know what to do.
Because it was built to track books.
Not doubt.
Hina grabbed Xal's arm.
"They're going to retaliate."
"Yes."
"Then we need to be somewhere we can't be found."
"There's no such place anymore."
He looked at the Codex, floating silently.
"But there's a moment."
"What moment?"
"When the sky finishes splitting… there's a window. Between what was and what might be."
"And we move then?"
"No."
He looked her dead in the eyes.
"We decide what exists on the other side."
Back in the Temple, the crown glowed.
It had never glowed.
Zatch walked toward it, slowly.
Kiyo called out.
"You're not putting it on, are you?"
"No."
Zatch placed his hand on the pedestal.
The crown rose.
And beneath it, a hidden spellbook opened for the first time in centuries.
Gold. Bound in memorysteel. No name on its cover.
And inside…
A note:
"If you are reading this, it means someone remembered Xal."
Zatch smiled.
"Then the war is finally real."