The Soundless Kingdom remained still, but the world outside shuddered.
Ripples of power surged across the sigil lattice that webbed the planet. Something ancient had stirred—an anomaly, a contradiction. An event. And in a world where the strong measured chaos to track profit and prophecy, this disturbance was a calling card.
Leaders noticed.
From the volcanic thrones of the Fire Faction to the starlit citadels of Spacewalkers, the tremble had been felt. Not as noise, but in what it wasn't—a void where pattern should be. A silent explosion.
In the Black Halls of Umbrach, capital of the Darkness Faction, the Warden stirred.
A figure cloaked in shivering dusk, his very presence dripping fear. Two concepts wrapped around him like loyal hounds: Null Fear and Veil Dominion. Each whispered into the minds of his enemies before he ever arrived. And now, both trembled in confusion.
"What in the devouring pits is this... silence?" the Warden muttered.
He didn't wait for reports.
He projected.
In the heart of the Soundless Kingdom, the air warped. Not with vibration, but with pressure—the oppressive crush of expectation. A looming shadow tore into the city's silence like ink spilled into still water.
A Darkness Projection: a pseudo-clone of the Warden made from fear itself.
It skulked over the broken temples and dead vaults, looking for a pulse.
But there was none. Only him.
Ink.
Perched atop the ruins of the Temple of the Dead Tongue like a vulture in thought. Legs dangling. Fingers twitching. Hair white as forgiveness.
"You're early," he said, without moving.
The Projection snarled, tendrils of shadow darting out.
"You bear forbidden power," it hissed. "You desecrated a sealed domain."
Ink blinked slowly. "You sound disappointed."
"You insulted the world's balance."
Ink grinned. "No. I rewrote it."
In the next moment, shadow wrapped around him—intent to crush, suppress, erase.
And failed.
Because silence is not absence. It is choice.
Ink's inverted Sound Sigil shimmered. No clash. No lightshow. Just void. The Projection's cries dissolved before leaving its throat. The fear it generated? Swallowed. Muted.
And in that silence, Ink spoke. Not loudly. Not forcefully. Just truthfully.
"You fear noise because you think it reveals you. But me? I fear silence... because it hides me."
The Projection flickered. Its form destabilized.
"I spent my entire life planning to be forgotten," he continued, standing now. "You think this kingdom muted me. But I... came here to learn how to mute you."
His hand rose. The air didn't tremble—it evacuated.
The Projection imploded. Not violently. Not theatrically. Just... gone.
Silence again.
Ink stood alone once more, letting the void settle. His chest still throbbed where the sigil had written itself into his flesh. It wasn't fully integrated. Not yet. But the Primordial Sigil had responded.
That rewrite? It worked. But only because death had almost claimed him.
"Rewrite," he whispered. "A gift for risking everything."
That was the law. Only at the edge of oblivion would the second function bloom. And that moment—when the Sound Sigil inverted—had confirmed it.
But there was more.
As the Projection vanished, something had shifted within him.
A sliver of sound—no, anti-sound—threaded through his bones. A technique.
He closed his eyes.
Then opened them with a whisper that traveled nowhere, yet reached everything.
"First note: Tyrant's Whisper."
Far away, in the outer realms, every sigil attuned to sound briefly faltered.
A melody was being rewritten.
And its composer was eleven.
Far from the ruins, faction scouts arrived at the edge of the Soundless Kingdom. None entered.
They only stared at the faint silhouette of a boy sitting cross-legged atop the ancient temple, feeding crumbs to a two-headed crow.
"Who is he?" one whispered.
A voice behind them answered. A voice soaked in prophecy.
"The one who rewrites laws... before he writes his name."
Back inside, Ink studied his own blood on the stone.
He had tested Rewrite.
But he hadn't used Transcendence yet.
And that made him the most terrifying thing of all:
An eleven-year-old with plans.