The fractured sky split apart.
From within the roaring edges of the multiverse's dying veil, a single step echoed out—a slow, deliberate entrance as Julius stood at the boundary between time and creation. Behind him trailed thirty figures, all newly formed, all unwritten until moments ago. The Lorecore Vanguard. Concepts given flesh. Powers undefined. Limits unknown.
Some didn't even have names yet. Only placeholders. One was labeled [Witch_X3_Beta], another wore a tag that read [MeleeSupport_Male_Gen06]. But their eyes were real. Their spirits were burning. Even without a past, they had a mission.
"Your job isn't to find your story," Julius told them, "it's to become it."
One girl stepped forward. Silver hair, code-laced eyes, gloves that shimmered with data scrolls.
"I want a name."
Julius smiled. "Earn it."
In the world ahead, Spectra's essence still lingered like oil over water—burned but not erased. The Editors of Oblivion hadn't fallen back. They were waiting. Rebuilding. They'd hijacked tropes, archetypes, genres—every tool available to reshape narrative reality.
The Vanguard's first test wasn't going to be easy.
Julius pointed forward.
"Go."
They scattered like starfall, each one dropping into a different corrupted zone of the multiverse. Missions unsaid. They'd write their own.
And Julius stayed behind—because his role wasn't just to lead.
He was guarding the heart of the rewrite.
The Citadel's core.
Asher stood in front of a new map stitched together from layers of broken timelines. Remi hovered over his shoulder, her fingers twitching every few seconds as though resisting the urge to reach out and alter.
"You're getting worse," he said softly.
She didn't deny it.
"The closer I am to the broken parts, the more I hear them," she murmured. "It's like they're whispering in source code. Telling me how things should've gone. Who should've died. Who should've lived."
He studied her face.
"Do you believe them?"
Remi's eyes flashed purple, then returned to normal.
"I want to."
That was worse.
Because desire, in a world like this, was more dangerous than any blade.
Asher looked away.
"They've breached the Tower of Origins," he said.
Her gaze snapped to him.
"That's the place where the first rewrite began, isn't it?"
He nodded. "The Editors are after the Root Syntax."
Remi's breath caught.
If they got the Root Syntax, they wouldn't need her anymore. They wouldn't need any of this. They could end the entire multiverse, and start from a clean page.
Pure annihilation masked as creation.
They had to stop it.
Madara had reached the Apex Battlefield.
It was once a stable world—one of the strongest narrative anchors in the multiverse. Now, it had become a trial ground. Endless waves of summoned fragments came at him. Not weaklings. Not fillers. Legends.
A variant of Yami from Black Clover.
A fusion of Eren Yeager and All Might, an Editor-forged icon meant to mock hope.
Even Naruto stood before him—but this one had crimson Rinnegan eyes and a Hollow mask. An inverted version of a hero, forged from unresolved arcs and fanfiction bitterness.
Madara tore through them.
But not carelessly.
He studied them. Measured the level of twist. Understood how the Editors were fighting.
"They're not just using power," he muttered. "They're using expectation."
And they were good at it.
Each attack felt pre-scripted. As if they'd read the fans' minds. Knew what moments would trigger nostalgia. Pain. Doubt.
Madara smirked.
"That's your mistake."
He activated Susano'o, but not the traditional kind. This one wasn't blue. It was obsidian, with glyphs across its armor spelling out different fandom names—Naruto, Bleach, DBZ, One Piece, MHA, and more.
Each blade it formed wasn't chakra—it was memory. Key scenes from across thousands of stories, compressed into attacks. He wasn't just fighting back.
He was making statements.
"I am not the character you wrote," Madara roared. "I am the one you remembered."
And the battlefield shook.
Kairos had locked himself inside the deepest chamber of the Citadel's Archive. The gears of lore churned beside him, spinning constantly to organize everything written and unwritten across all multiverses.
He was looking for one thing.
A key.
An author's key.
A relic from before the first rewrite—said to unlock the central rewrite engine itself. With it, whoever held it could veto even Editor-level commands.
Only one had ever used it.
The Architect.
And the Architect vanished after the first Reset.
But Kairos believed.
He scraped through meta-code, bypassed compiler locks, broke encryption built from metaphors.
And there—at the end of a forgotten subdirectory, he found a file.
[Legacy_Override_Artifact.exe]
He didn't open it.
Not yet.
First, he messaged Julius.
Found the Key. But using it could corrupt user. Strong chance of total self-deletion.
Julius responded instantly.
Hold position. Reinforcements inbound. No activation unless we lose Core Control.
Kairos exhaled.
He knew what that meant.
The war was only halfway through.
And the worst was still coming.
Remi, Asher, and a trio of Lorecore initiates stood before the Tower of Origins. It loomed above them, dark glass twisted into an infinite spiral. Words floated through the air around it—raw dialogue. Unspoken monologues. Deleted scenes.
"This is where I was born," Remi whispered.
Asher placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Then let's make sure you're not the last."
They entered.
Inside, time bent backward.
Memories tried to rewrite themselves.
One of the Lorecore members screamed—her body rapidly morphing into different characters with every step. A side character from a shoujo manga. A rogue from a cultivation story. A background soldier from a mech war.
Asher drew his blade.
"Stay grounded!"
He turned to the others.
"Remember who you are!"
Remi gritted her teeth. Her fingers bled from resisting the code. She saw herself flicker—saw her own arc rewritten a dozen ways in a second. In one version, she was a villain. In another, a forgotten lover. In another, she never existed at all.
She screamed.
And fought.
"I AM REMI," she shouted. "AND I WILL NOT BE ERASED!"
The tower groaned.
Reality bent.
And at its heart—sat the Editor Prime.
A robed figure, face hidden behind a mirror. It didn't speak. It didn't need to.
Its presence declared: All must be streamlined.
Remi stepped forward.
"No."
The Editor raised a hand.
She raised her staff.
And a storm began.
Back at the Citadel, Julius felt the resonance.
He looked at the stars. They were glitching.
The rewrite war had reached its next phase.
And even he wasn't sure who would win anymore.