Chapter 71 — The Forgotten Watcher
The dawn of Ethereal Origin shimmered across creation.
Mountains gleamed. The golden tree hummed. The newborn beings of light and shadow sang in perfect harmony unaware that something vast and ancient was watching them.
Far beyond the edges of Erevan's new reality, past the veil where no Writer or god had ever reached, a void older than void began to stir.
It wasn't absence.
It was memory a living concept that remembered every version of existence that had ever failed to be born.
And it whispered one name.
> "Erevan…"
Across the Beyond, Erevan froze.
He heard it not with his ears, but through the fabric of his reality.
A voice that carried the weight of infinite forgotten worlds.
He rose above Ethereal Origin, his aura unfolding in layers of light and shadow, wrapping around his realm like divine armor.
> "Who dares to speak my name in my creation?"
The void answered not with words, but with imagery. Fractals of broken histories appeared before him half-formed universes, erased gods, lost beings who had never existed. Each fragment burned with the same strange power: The Forgotten Code.
And within that storm, a figure took shape.
It had no face, no voice just a presence so immense that even Erevan's aura dimmed for an instant. It was made of concepts that predated creation an entity born when reality itself was still imagining what it meant to "be."
Erevan's eyes narrowed.
> "You're not from the Writer's realm… You're from before."
The entity pulsed.
> "Before the first word, before imagination I existed. When there were no stories… I was the silence."
Erevan clenched his fist, the fabric of the Beyond trembling around him.
> "And now you've woken up in mine. Tell me why."
The Watcher moved closer, every step rewriting nearby laws of physics, time, and logic.
> "You've rewritten too much. You've broken balance. The Multiverse was never meant to be rewritten infinitely."
Erevan smirked, golden flames curling around him.
> "Then maybe balance should've been stronger."
The Watcher raised an arm and the cosmos screamed.
Entire galaxies in the Beyond shattered instantly. The golden tree trembled. The beings of light and shadow fell to their knees as existence itself bent backward.
Erevan stood tall amid the chaos, his aura splitting the void in two.
> "You're not the first to call me a mistake… but you might be the last."
He vanished. In the same instant, he reappeared behind the Watcher, his fist connecting with a blow that cracked through every timeline simultaneously.
The Watcher didn't fall instead, reality itself cracked around them, like glass under divine pressure.
> "You can't destroy what was never created," the Watcher hissed.
"Then I'll create your end," Erevan roared.
Golden and black flames erupted cosmic fire meeting primordial nothingness.
The clash was beyond omniversal comprehension. Every star in Ethereal Origin dimmed; every law of nature screamed in rebellion.
For the first time, Erevan felt resistance.
Not from a being, but from the roots of existence itself.
He smirked.
> "Good… I was getting bored."
The Watcher's form flickered.
> "This is only the beginning. Others like me will awaken. You have become the center of all creation and all creation now seeks to erase you."
Erevan stood firm, eyes glowing brighter than any sun.
> "Let them come. I am the rewrite."
The void shattered, and both vanished into the storm their battle echoing through eternity.