The labyrinth was gone.
Its walls of living shadows had collapsed the moment Zhen stepped out, as if the very fabric of the pocket realm had unraveled behind him. He stood atop a stone platform that hovered over a sea of stars—yet this was not the real world, nor the void.
It was the pause between breaths in the multiverse. A space not meant for mortals.
The system chimed again, but it sounded... hesitant.
> [System Error: Root Node Interference Detected.]
[Fallback Protocol Engaged.]
[User "Zhen" is now marked as — Classification: Undefined Entity.]
[Initiating Isolation Procedures… ERROR.]
[Permission Denied by External Authority.]
Zhen felt it before he saw it—a weightless presence, ancient beyond time, yet lighter than a whisper. Then the stars rippled, and something spoke.
Not in words. In meaning.
> "You are not written in the Book of Realities."
He turned slowly.
There, in the heart of the cosmos, loomed a being not shaped like man or beast. It had no body, but threads of starlight spun around it in the shape of a vast, open tome. Runes twisted across its pages like living serpents of thought.
The One Who Records.
A god of knowledge. Forgotten by most, feared by the rest.
Zhen didn't kneel. He couldn't. Something in him—perhaps the very fragment he carried—refused to bow.
> "You walk unmarked, bearing the Fracture of the Unwritten. Do you seek to scribe your name above gods?"
Zhen's voice echoed into the void. "No. I seek to reclaim what was erased."
Silence fell.
Then, the pages of the god turned.
---
Back in the Upper Realm – Moonfall Citadel
Ji Yuyan stood with her arms crossed, watching the false sun rise over the crystalline towers of Moonfall. Her presence, as always, was commanding—draped in robes woven with lunar silk, eyes as cold and sharp as obsidian blades.
Beside her, Shen Lian adjusted her cuffs with deliberate precision. "You do realize," she said mildly, "that interfering with the Enforcement Halls of the Nexus Court could be considered high treason."
"Then it's good we're already traitors to most factions," Ji Yuyan replied.
They watched as a battalion of foreign cultivators—marked by crimson brands and tattooed with runic scars—began surrounding the outer nodes of the court's patrol.
"The Void-Eyed Tribes aren't subtle," Shen Lian observed.
"They're not meant to be." Ji Yuyan turned away. "They're noise. What I want is time. Time for Zhen to return before the Enforcement Lords realize what we stole."
---
In the Realm Between Time
> "The Unwritten King was never meant to return."
The voice echoed around Zhen.
> "He was devoured by the Architect, shattered across realities, erased from all records. His name no longer exists in the Index of Origin."
Zhen felt his heart pulse once, then slow unnaturally.
> "Yet you found a shard. And the shard chose you."
Suddenly, the being shifted. A sigil appeared above the book—a burning rune in a language Zhen could not read, yet somehow understood.
> [You Are Being Observed By: The Archivist of All That Was.]
> [Do you accept the Trial of Names?]
A choice?
Zhen hesitated. The System didn't chime. No options. No safety net.
But the fragment within his chest yearned.
He nodded.
> "So be it."
The stars disappeared.
---
Trial Realm – The Chamber of Forgotten Names
Zhen stood in a stone chamber where the walls bled with shifting letters, broken names, shattered oaths. A thousand voices whispered in tongues that hadn't been spoken since before the First Dawn.
A single obelisk stood at the center.
> "Write your truth," the god's voice said. "If it breaks, you are false. If it holds, you are Real."
A quill of light appeared in his hand.
He stepped forward—and paused. For the first time, fear prickled through him. Not fear of death. But fear of being unworthy of the thing within him.
Still, he began.
> "I am Zhen. Son of the nameless, chosen by none, discarded by realms. I have no master, no god, no fate."
The obelisk groaned. Letters appeared. Cracks formed.
> "I carry the fragment of the Unwritten King, not by luck, but by will. I claim no throne, only my path."
The cracks widened—but did not shatter.
> "I am not a god. But I will not be ruled by them."
The chamber shook.
> "I AM ZHEN."
The obelisk burst into radiant fire.
---
Elsewhere – System Core Level 4
In a place no mortal could see, the System panicked.
> [WARNING: Path Violation Detected.]
[Ranker "Zhen" has triggered Forbidden Class Pathway.]
[Attempting Lockdown…]
[LOCKDOWN OVERRIDDEN.]
[USER RECOGNIZED: "Fragment-Bound Ascendant"]
Somewhere, a mechanical voice whispered:
> "Level Zero... is no longer safe."
---
Trial End – The God Speaks
Zhen stood amid ash and echo.
The obelisk was gone. The chamber gone.
The voice returned, softer now.
> "You are real. More than most."
> "But beware. Those who write their own names must face the erasers."
A sigil burned into his back.
> [Title Acquired: Echo of the Unwritten]
[Effect: Immune to System Class Lock. Hidden Rank Pathway Opened.]
> [Trial Complete.]
---
Back in the Mortal Realm
Zhen awoke in a crater.
Not from battle.
From impact.
His body burned, not with pain, but power. He gasped—and the ground around him breathed with him.
A familiar voice broke through the static.
"Zhen?!"
He turned.
Yan Xiaoyun.
She dropped to her knees, grabbing his shoulders, tears in her eyes. "You disappeared for four days! What the hell happened?!"
Zhen tried to answer, but his words caught. Too much had changed.
Then another presence stepped from the shadows.
"Looks like he survived," Shen Lian murmured, lips twitching. "Ji Yuyan owes me fifty spirit tokens."
Yan Xiaoyun turned. "This isn't the time for jokes."
Zhen looked between them—and then skyward.
The stars above had rearranged.
He could see them now.
Moving.
Watching.
Whispering.
And one of them… was calling his name.