They were reading.
And they were not amused.
The Blank Pages—the pieces of reality not yet written—were the bait. The battlefield itself was a trap. The Inkless were distractions.
The true battle was not for land, or life.
It was for the narrative authority of what came next.
Etari saw it too.
She twisted mid-fight, hurling a stream of glyphs skyward—spells not of fire or ice, but of narrative redirection.
"We need to close the breach!" she shouted.
But Aiden already knew.
He felt it.
The gap in the blank sky had widened.
And something was emerging.
Not a form.
A concept.
A Name That Should Not Exist.
Aiden turned toward the breach. The world behind him warped with every step. Inkless scattered, unable to bear proximity to what was arriving.
He stood alone at the front now.
Sword in hand.
Facing not an enemy.
But a question.
What do you become, when you are no longer written?
The breach yawned wider.
And from it poured something impossible.
The sky tore.
