Before the first word was spoken, there was the Codex.
It did not merely record reality—it dictated it.
To be written was to exist. To be unwritten… was to be nothing.
The Archivists say the Codex cannot be altered. That every name, from the lowliest beggar to the highest god, is inscribed in celestial ink upon its eternal pages. That fate is a language, unerring and absolute.
They are wrong.
In the deep between realms, where no stars shine and time forgets itself, a name awakens—one that was never recorded, never acknowledged, never born into law.
A breath stirs in the void. A heartbeat echoes through the hollows of the divine script. And somewhere in the sanctum of the Codex, a page begins to bleed.
Not ink.
Not prophecy.
But rebellion.
A cloaked figure stands at the threshold of a ruined gate, eyes like twin voids reflecting forgotten worlds. He wears no sigil, bears no mark of origin. Around him, reality bends—not in reverence, but in rejection.
He steps forward. The stones beneath his feet scream. The stars above falter.
He is not meant to be.
But he is here.
And somewhere—across a thousand temples and ten thousand timelines—an ancient priest wakes from prophecy-drunk sleep, clutching his chest, weeping blood.
"The Unwritten walks."