The first sign wasn't thunder.
It was silence.
The kind that presses on your skin. Makes your heart skip without knowing why.
Zara stood first.
Her eyes narrowed.
Her blade hummed.
"Something's coming."
Velda's runes started glowing even though she hadn't summoned anything.
Claire's staff lit up on its own.
Lilith?
Already on her feet, eyes burning red.
Lucius?
Still.
Focused.
He felt it before any of them.
Not a god.
Not a beast.
A judgment.
---
The sky cracked.
A soundless fracture. Like glass under pressure from a scream that hadn't been spoken yet.
And through it—
They came.
Not angels. Not demons.
Archivists.
Clad in silver veils.
Faces wrapped in silence.
Voices stolen to avoid saying the names they'd once erased.
The highest order of the divine pantheon.
The ones who document and delete.
And they were here for one reason:
To erase Lucius before the final memory came back.
---
> [New Threat Unlocked: Archivists of the Final Line]
Rank: Absolute Enforcers
Objective: Erase Sovarion's identity from existence
Conditions: Engage before 100% memory recovery
Time Left: 3 minutes
---
Claire whispered, "They're not attacking…"
"No," Velda said. "They're waiting for his mind to finish unlocking. They want to strike the moment he becomes dangerous."
Lilith growled, wings flaring. "Cowards."
Lucius stepped forward.
Slowly.
"They want me silent."
He looked up at the sky.
"But they forgot something."
---
He drew the Blade of the Last Name.
The sky roared in response.
"They erased my name…"
The fire around the girls ignited.
"But they never took the part that mattered."
His eyes burned crimson and silver.
"I'm not just Sovarion. I'm everything they were afraid he'd become."
---
The first Archivist moved.
A flash of void.
A slice aimed not at Lucius—
But Claire.
Zara moved to intercept—too slow.
But Claire didn't need saving.
The Blade of the Last Name burned brighter.
Lucius vanished from sight.
Reappeared behind the Archivist.
And whispered one word—
"No."
---
The blade cut through silence itself.
Time bent.
The Archivist split—erased by the very memory it sought to destroy.
---
> [Skill Unlocked: Final Bond – Severance]
Effect: Lucius can now cut through memory-based entities and time-anchored beings.
Bonus: Allies within radius resist all divine erasure effects.
---
The other Archivists moved.
Too late.
Lucius didn't fight with rage.
He fought with certainty.
Every strike carried grief, love, loss, and truth.
And the moment he slashed the fourth one down—
He remembered her name.
All of it.
First. Last. Voice. Laughter. Pain.
Arielle Elthwyn.
---
The sky shattered.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
The divine veil cracked and fell like a mirror dropped from heaven.
And somewhere, far above—
A god screamed in a voice it never wanted mortals to hear.
---
Lucius turned to the girls.
"I remember."
They didn't ask what.
They already knew.
Because the flame behind him?
Took shape.
And Arielle stepped forward, barefoot and bright, alive inside the flame.
Not as an echo.
Not as a dream.
But something new.