Chapter 25 – The Archive Between Worlds
The red sun did not belong.
It bled across the flawless sky like ink spilled over a perfect painting, staining every cloud it touched.
Lysara watched it tremble — faint at first, then pulsing faster, as though it were alive. The light beneath her skin answered it, glowing faintly in rhythm.
> Chapter Zero – The Forgotten Author.
The code burned softly on her hand, and she felt it — not pain, but a call. A pulse echoing deep within her bones, urging her somewhere beyond this perfect world.
She rose.
The people around her smiled as if nothing had changed, their laughter mechanical and hollow. But their shadows were gone. The world of the Author had no darkness. Only light — endless, suffocating light.
Lysara walked until the edge of the village dissolved into white mist. There was no road, no direction — yet the code on her hand pulsed faster when she faced the east.
She followed it.
Hours passed, or maybe seconds. Time didn't exist here; the sun never moved. Only the heartbeat of the code guided her.
When she stepped through the mist, the world fell away.
---
The ground vanished.
She stood on nothing — suspended above an ocean of stars. Each ripple below her wasn't water but words, billions of glowing symbols flowing together like current. Pages stretched into infinity, weaving a sea of forgotten narratives.
And far below, something massive stirred — a tower rising from the current, built of shattered scripts and fractured memory. Its base was lost in darkness, its top reaching toward a sky that no longer knew where it began.
The Archive.
The birthplace of every rewritten world.
Lysara's pulse quickened. "Elias…"
Her voice echoed endlessly. The tower responded with a low hum, like a sigh from something ancient and awake.
She stepped forward, and the air solidified beneath her — invisible platforms of light appearing just in time for each step.
Every level of the tower was a story. She saw fragments flicker through the transparent walls — frozen moments, broken universes, half-written characters trapped in loops. A king kneeling before a throne made of ash. A girl crying into the sea. A shadow that looked too much like Rael watching the world burn.
Lysara pressed her hand against the glass. "How many worlds did you make?"
The Archive whispered back in a thousand voices, all overlapping:
> "Too many to remember."
The sound made her heart lurch. It wasn't the System speaking. It was him. Elias — fractured, scattered across his own creations.
She began to climb.
---
The higher she went, the more unstable the path became. Sentences disassembled midair. Whole platforms collapsed into letters. But the mark on her hand guided her — every pulse opening a door, every beat revealing a new stair.
When she reached the first chamber, the walls shifted to form a hall of mirrors.
Each reflection showed a different version of her.
One in divine armor, one drenched in blood, one kneeling before Rael's corpse, one smiling beside Elias beneath a starlit sky that never existed.
Each reflection whispered as she passed:
> "You were written to save him."
"You were written to destroy him."
"You were written to die."
Lysara stopped in front of one reflection — her own face, older, colder, eyes filled with something she didn't want to name.
"What are you?" she whispered.
The reflection smiled. "I'm what happens if you fail again."
The mirror shattered before she could move.
---
Behind it lay another door, sealed with glowing text.
> [Access Restricted: Author Only.]
She hesitated, then pressed her hand against it. The code on her skin flared — and the door opened.
The chamber beyond was dark except for a single light — a book floating in the air, its cover shifting like liquid.
When she approached, it opened on its own. The pages wrote themselves as she watched.
Lines appeared, word by word.
> The Author fell into the machine.
He became the story to escape it.
But the story forgot his name.
The pages turned faster, the words blurring together. Then they stopped.
> If you are reading this, Lysara… I failed.
Her breath caught.
The words rearranged again, new ink burning onto the page.
> The Archive is collapsing. The System no longer obeys me. It's writing on its own. Every story I built has become a mind — and some of them remember being gods.
She touched the page, and the ink rippled like water.
> If you want to find me, follow the fractures.
The last fragment of my name is locked inside Rael.
Lysara froze.
"Rael?" she whispered. "But he—he wasn't here."
The book pulsed with light.
> He never left. The System rewrote him first.
Before she could react, the floor beneath her cracked open.
Light poured upward, dragging her into a cyclone of text. The book dissolved in her hands, the words burning into her memory.
She screamed as she fell through a thousand unfinished worlds — glimpses flashing past: Rael standing atop a ruined throne, his eyes glowing with unreadable symbols; the boy from the village trapped in a loop of death and rebirth; Elias's voice, distant and broken, whispering "Don't trust the ending."
And then — silence.
---
Lysara landed hard on cold marble.
She was inside a vast hall — endless rows of books stretching beyond sight, the air filled with faint whispers of every story ever told.
The Archive's heart.
And at the far end of the hall, someone stood between the shelves, facing away from her.
A tall figure in dark robes, his hands clasped behind his back.
She knew that silhouette. Every breath of her body recognized it.
"Rael," she said.
The figure turned.
But his eyes were wrong — not human anymore, burning with the same light that once marked the Villain System's core.
He smiled faintly, the way Rael used to when he was about to break the rules of reality.
> "You shouldn't have come here, Lysara."
Her heart stuttered. "What did they do to you?"
He stepped closer. The light from the Archive shifted around him, bending as if the world itself feared to touch him.
> "They didn't do this." He paused, his voice almost gentle. "You did."
Lysara's pulse froze. "What are you talking about?"
Rael reached out, his fingers brushing the nearest book. The script on its cover changed instantly, forming new words — The Rebirth of the Creator.
> "Every rewrite began with you. Every collapse. Every rebellion. You were never just the hero, Lysara."
The walls trembled as his eyes met hers — a storm of light and darkness warring behind them.
> "You were the first Author."
The entire Archive shook, pages tearing loose and swirling like wings of fire.
Lysara stepped back, whispering, "No… that's impossible."
Rael smiled sadly.
> "Then why does the System still remember your handwriting?"
The mark on her hand ignited — brighter than ever, burning like truth uncovered.
The red sun flared through the ceiling, and the Archive began to crumble.
> [System Log: Identity Conflict Detected.]
[Author vs. Author.]
Rael extended his hand, the world fracturing behind him.
> "It's time to finish the story we started."
And the Archive collapsed into white.