The attack came without warning.
No Anchor flare.
No narrative shift.
No echo of inevitability leaning into place.
Just absence.
Aiden felt it the moment he woke—his catalog was missing shelves. Not erased. Never created.
He sat up sharply.
"Lyra," he whispered.
She was already awake, blade in hand, eyes scanning the Null Atrium.
"We're not alone."
---
THE UNSEEN STRIKE
Aidem moved first.
His staff cracked against the floor, runes blazing as defensive layers unfolded—
—and then failed.
Something passed through them without resistance.
Aidem staggered, blood blooming across his chest.
"Archivist!" Lyra shouted.
Aiden reached out—
—and felt nothing.
No future.
No probability.
No warning.
A figure stepped out of the void.
Not armored.
Not regal.
Featureless.
As if the idea of a person had been simplified to a function.
Aidem coughed.
"…Null Blades," he gasped.
"They kill before causality."
---
THE KING'S FINAL WEAPON
The figure spoke—not aloud, but directly into meaning.
> Target: Source of Variance.
Method: Immediate Termination.
Lyra attacked—
Her strike passed through the assassin like fog.
The thing turned its blank gaze to her.
> Collateral unnecessary.
Aiden moved without thinking.
Not predicting.
Choosing.
He stepped between Lyra and the assassin—
—and the Chorus did not respond.
No power surged.
No miracle happened.
The blade struck.
---
THE MOMENT THAT DIDN'T END
Pain exploded—
—and then stopped.
The blade had halted inches from Aiden's heart.
Not blocked.
Refused.
Reality buckled around him.
The assassin froze.
> Error, it transmitted.
Outcome undefined.
Aiden stared at the blade, bloodless and shaking.
"I'm not an outcome," he said quietly.
"I'm a decision."
---
THE BLEEDING KING
The Chorus roared back—not as command, but as alignment.
Aiden reached out—
—not to the assassin—
—but to the concept it represented.
A weapon designed to end futures could not function where futures were withheld.
The assassin cracked.
Shattered into fragments of erased intent.
Aiden collapsed to his knees, gasping.
Lyra caught him, sobbing.
"You got hit—"
"I know," he whispered.
"But it chose not to finish."
Aidem groaned nearby, alive but bleeding badly.
"It failed," the Archivist rasped.
"That thing… hesitated."
---
ESCALATION
The Anchor screamed.
Multiple void signatures.
Lyra looked up, terror in her eyes.
"There's more."
Aidem forced himself upright.
"Of course there are," he said bitterly.
"The King doesn't retry."
The Atrium's walls dissolved as more assassins emerged—silent, inevitable.
Aiden struggled to stand.
His catalog flickered, unstable.
"I can't fight all of them," he said.
Aidem met his gaze.
"Then don't."
He slammed his staff into the floor.
The Atrium collapsed inward, folding into a single impossible point.
Lyra screamed as space twisted.
Aiden felt himself tear—
---
THE SCATTERING
They fell.
Not together.
Not apart.
Elsewhere.
Aiden slammed into cold stone, gasping, alone.
The Chorus was faint.
Distant.
Muted.
He pushed himself upright.
"…Lyra?" he called.
No answer.
Aiden's heart sank.
The assassins had failed.
So the King had escalated again.
By separating what mattered.
---
THE KING DECLARES WAR
Far beyond reach—
The Echo King watched the scattering complete.
> Observation concluded.
Anomaly confirmed.
He did not smile.
He adjusted strategy.
> Commence absolute resolution.
Worlds trembled.
And somewhere, alone and wounded—
Aiden stood.
A King without a court.
A future without guarantees.