Aiden felt the ripple before he understood it.
A faint tremor, like a whisper brushing against the back of his skull.
Not a sound.
Not a voice.
Something deeper—
A presence.
The air thinned. The stars inside the chamber froze mid-glimmer, suspended like beads of dew.
Aiden's breath hitched.
What… what was that?
He turned to Yunaria, but she was already looking toward the darkness behind the sealed Astral Gate. Her expression—normally unreadable—shifted into something dangerously close to fear.
And if someone like her could feel fear…
The floor beneath them pulsed faintly, as though the temple itself felt the stirring of that unseen consciousness.
"Astral fluctuations," Yunaria whispered. "Too early… far too early. The Gate shouldn't be reacting yet."
Something about her tone bothered Aiden.
"What do you mean too early? What woke up just now?"
Yunaria didn't answer. Instead she placed a hand on the Gate's surface. Lines of silver runes lit up one by one—shaking slightly, trembling as if resisting her touch.
"I sealed this… I personally sealed this aeons ago," she muttered. "It shouldn't wake unless—"
She stopped.
Aiden stepped closer.
"Unless what?"
"Unless something recognizes you."
A chill slid down his spine.
"Recognizes… me? Why would anything here know who I am?"
Yunaria looked at him then—finally. Her amethyst eyes held too many unspoken things.
"Because, Aiden," she said, voice quiet, "sometimes the worlds we forget do not forget us."
---
A Pulse of Light
Before Aiden could respond, the Gate emitted a sudden flare of blue light—sharp enough to force him to shield his eyes.
The chamber shook.
Loose dust scattered.
The patterns on the orb embedded in the floor lit up like constellations, spinning, aligning, reconfiguring themselves around Aiden's feet.
"Yunaria?"
"This is—this shouldn't—!"
The light swirled upward, lifting Aiden gently off the floor.
For a moment he felt weightless—floating inside a column of shimmering astral glyphs.
Then—
FLASH.
A vision pierced through him.
---
A Thousand Erased Worlds
He saw—
A ruined sky split open like fractured glass.
Cities collapsing into clouds of blue dust.
People screaming without sound—voices erased with the worlds they came from.
A silver-scaled dragon stretching across a horizon of shattered reality, its wings larger than continents.
And at the center of it all—
A throne.
Floating in the void.
Empty.
Waiting.
Waiting…
…for him.
A voice—not spoken, but felt—echoed through the void:
"Found you."
Aiden gasped.
---
Back to Reality
He fell to his knees as the light shattered like broken crystal around him.
His hands trembled violently.
His vision blurred.
Yunaria caught hold of his shoulders.
"Aiden! Look at me."
"I—I saw…" His chest constricted. "A dragon. A giant one. And… everything was collapsing. Like… like entire worlds dying."
Yunaria's grip tightened.
"What else did you see? Think carefully."
"…a throne," Aiden whispered. "Floating in the void."
Yunaria's expression shifted. Not fear. Not shock.
Something heavier.
"…so it really is beginning," she murmured. "The Astral Throne is calling him back."
"Calling me back?" Aiden repeated, voice cracking. "I don't even know what any of this means!"
"You're remembering," Yunaria said softly. "Even if only fragments."
Aiden's pulse hammered in his ears.
"Remembering what?"
She opened her mouth to answer—
—but a sound cut her off.
A deep, resonant crack.
The Gate was splitting.
Thin fractures ran across its surface like veins of light.
Yunaria went pale.
"No… no, no, no—this timeline wasn't supposed to open it yet. We're not ready. You're not ready."
The fractures widened.
A low growl—like stone grinding against bone—echoed through the chamber.
Aiden instinctively stumbled back.
"What's coming out of that thing?!"
Yunaria's voice hardened, all hesitation gone.
"A trial," she said. "Written for the Lost King himself."
She summoned her star-forged dagger, its blade humming with celestial resonance.
"Stay behind me. Whatever comes through—do NOT touch it. Its existence erodes anything unbound to this world."
Aiden swallowed.
"…erodes?"
She didn't answer.
---
The Gate Opens
A piece of the Gate's outer shell fell away, dissolving into dust before it even hit the floor.
Then…
Something stepped through.
Long arms.
Elongated limbs.
Skin like fractured void, glowing with cracks of blue light.
A head without features—only a jagged opening where a face should be.
Aiden choked back a scream.
"What is that?!"
Yunaria's tone was grim:
"An Oblivion Hunter."
The creature turned its faceless head toward Aiden, and the cracks on its body brightened.
It had sensed him.
It was moving toward him.
Yunaria positioned herself between Aiden and the creature, dagger raised.
"Do not let it reach you, Aiden! That thing is drawn to your existence—your soul resonates with erased worlds!"
The Hunter lunged.
Yunaria struck.
Her blade sliced through the creature, but the wound didn't bleed—it distorted, the edges glitching like damaged data.
The Hunter screeched soundlessly, then twisted its body in unnatural angles, dodging Yunaria's second strike.
It lunged again.
Aiden froze.
He knew he had to move—
He knew Yunaria couldn't protect him forever—
But his legs refused to obey.
Not fear.
Something else.
Something pulling him.
His head rang with an echo:
"Found you."
The Hunter's claws stretched toward him.
Aiden's heart spiked in terror.
"NO—!"
And something inside him snapped open.
---
The Archivist Awakens
A pulse erupted from Aiden's chest.
Not light.
Not sound.
A memory.
His own?
No—
A fragment of a world long gone.
The chamber filled with the scent of burning plains.
Wind filled with ashes.
Voices chanting ancient war-songs.
And above them—
Aiden saw himself.
A silhouette wearing a crown of starlight, holding a blade forged from fractured constellations.
The lost king.
The one he used to be.
The one the worlds had erased.
The one waking inside him.
Aiden screamed—not from pain, but from overflow.
Raw, unfiltered memory became energy.
Energy became force.
A star-shaped sigil burst beneath him, crackling with silver flames.
The Oblivion Hunter was flung across the chamber, slamming into the far wall. The impact sent ripples through the stone, distorting the very image of the world around it.
Yunaria spun to face Aiden, eyes wide.
"You—You activated an Archivist Seal! Without training—without a conduit—how did you—?!"
"I—I don't know!" Aiden gasped. "It just—happened!"
The Hunter rose again.
Barely damaged.
Its body flickered, glitching as though reality struggled to contain it.
Yunaria tightened her grip on her dagger.
"Aiden, listen. Archivist power responds to memory and will. Whatever you saw, whatever part of you awakened—use it again."
"I don't know HOW!"
"You don't need to know how!" Yunaria shouted. "You just need to WANT!"
The Hunter lunged again.
Aiden stumbled back, eyes wide.
His mind raced.
I want to live.
I want this to stop.
I want—
Memories flashed again.
Wings of starlight.
A blade of infinity.
A throne waiting in the void.
His heartbeat slowed.
Not calmer—
Sharper.
More focused.
Aiden raised his hand.
"Stop."
The command wasn't shouted.
It didn't need to be.
Reality rippled.
The Hunter froze mid-leap, limbs trembling violently as though held in place by invisible chains.
Its body cracked, pieces of void peeling away as if eroded by a force older than existence itself.
Aiden's entire body burned with the weight of it.
He felt like he was drowning in echoes.
A thousand past selves watching him.
A thousand lost worlds whispering in his ear.
Yunaria's voice reached him distantly:
"Aiden—! That's enough! You'll burn yourself out—!"
But Aiden couldn't stop.
The Archivist power surged, unstoppable, devouring every thought except one:
Erase the thing that should not exist.
He closed his hand into a fist.
The Hunter shattered into dust.
Silence crashed into the chamber like a falling star.
Aiden collapsed.
---
Yunaria's Fear
Yunaria caught him before he hit the ground.
"Aiden! Aiden—stay with me!"
He blinked weakly, vision swimming.
"…that… thing… is it dead?"
"Yes."
Her voice trembled.
He had never heard her voice tremble.
"Aiden… you used a World Erasure Command."
He frowned weakly.
"What's… that?"
Yunaria swallowed, her throat tightening.
"That ability is forbidden. Even among kings. Archivists were never meant to access it. It wipes away anything that shouldn't exist… but the cost is catastrophic."
"What cost…?" Aiden whispered.
Yunaria hesitated.
Then—
"…your memories."
Aiden froze.
"Every time you use erasure," Yunaria continued softly, "you erase a piece of yourself."
A cold dread pooled in his stomach.
He looked up at Yunaria.
"Did I… lose anything just now?"
Yunaria didn't answer immediately.
"…some," she said finally. "Not much. But enough that I felt the time-stream shift."
Aiden's breath shook.
"My memories… my self… it'll disappear if I keep using this power?"
"Yes."
Aiden's voice cracked.
"And if I don't use it…?"
Yunaria looked toward the shattered Gate.
More cracks were forming.
Something else was waking up.
"If you don't," she whispered, "the worlds will."
Aiden closed his eyes miserably.
"I can't win either way…"
Yunaria cupped his cheek gently.
"You're not alone," she murmured. "Not this time. Not again."
Aiden blinked.
"Again?"
Yunaria froze.
Realizing what she had said.
Aiden grabbed her wrist weakly.
"What did you mean—again?"
Yunaria opened her mouth to answer—
—but the entire temple rumbled violently, throwing both of them off balance.
The Gate was splitting apart completely.
A wave of black mist spilled out like a living shadow.
Aiden felt something inside the mist.
Something ancient.
Watching him.
Recognizing him.
The same voice from the vision echoed through the chamber:
"Found you… at last."
Aiden's blood froze.
The Gate cracked open.
And through the darkness—
two glowing eyes stared directly at him.