The glowing platform beneath Salemadon rotated slowly, adjusting to the fractures in the skies above. The twin constellations of Gemini shimmered, and the world's two halves — the chrome city and the lush paradise — seemed to breathe in tension, waiting for a signal.
He flexed his fingers. The white and black energy ribbons spiraled faster around him, tugging at his limbs, pulling his sense of reality apart. This was Pahtem responding — not as a tool, but as a living memory of his lineage. Every pulse of energy demanded a sacrifice, small or great, depending on what he would dare to do.
The silver-coated man from before hovered, calm as ever. "Do you understand what you've done, boy?" he asked.
"I've spoken my name," Salemadon replied evenly. "If speaking it breaks the world… then it was meant to break. But I will not let it erase me."
The man smiled faintly. "Brave… or foolish. Soon, you will find there is no difference."
At that moment, reality screamed — and the first fragments of The Redaction appeared. They were not creatures. Not shadows. Not human. They were living deletions, red glyphs in motion, moving like predatory thoughts. Wherever they touched, memory, sound, and even existence flickered like a dying star.
Salemadon took a step forward. His crystalline shoulders glowed. He whispered the three letters in his mind:
S – M – D
Then he extended his hands. The ribbons responded, not just around him but through him. One black strand struck a deletion fragment approaching the paradise world. Instead of destroying it, the strand anchored it — freezing it mid-motion.
The paradox was immediate: in Bali-Prime, to act was to alter, but to alter was to risk erasure of self.
A voice, soft but carrying across the fractured air, came from the lush forests of the right world:
"Salemadon… do you hear me?"
Salemadon froze. He did not recognize the tone, yet it felt familiar. An echo of a memory he never lived, a voice that might have belonged to the past — or to a future not yet written.
The man in silver adjusted his floating shards. "He hears echoes, does he not? That is the true danger. Pahtem responds not just to blood, but to resonance. Soon, the world itself will know your name."
Salemadon inhaled, feeling the platform vibrate beneath him. The white light expanded, crystal shards around him spinning in a delicate orbit. He knew that the first battle was not with a foe — it was with the universe itself.
And as the first deletion fragment blinked toward life again, Salemadon whispered softly, not as a command, but as a vow:
"I will not be unmade. Not by them. Not by time. Not by silence."
Reality shuddered, fractured once more — and in that shudder, Salemadon understood something new: to wield Pahtem was to risk everything, but to hide it was to vanish forever.
The first pulse of power had been used. The war to remain audible — to exist — had just begun.
"A name spoken aloud can fracture reality — but what happens when the one who carries it begins to hear the world itself rebelling?"