The *clack-clack-clack* of the Scissor-Guards grew into a deafening symphony of sharpened steel. From the jagged ridges of the Iron Peak, they descended—not as soldiers, but as a landslide of blades. Each Guard was a spindly, multi-jointed construct of rusted iron, their entire upper torsos consisting of a single, massive pair of shearing blades instead of arms.
"They're cutting the air itself!" Nelluru screamed, her lime-green aura flickering as the lead Guard nipped at the atmosphere, leaving thin, black slits of "Nothingness" in its wake.
The Citadel-Beast groaned as it tried to gain purchase on the Mountain of Swords. The rusted blades beneath its feet shifted and groaned, a treacherous terrain that wanted to draw blood from every step. As the Scissor-Guards reached the lower ramparts, they didn't bash against the obsidian; they began to "snip" at the city's history.
One Guard closed its blades on a defensive catapult. The wood and iron didn't break—they were simply *excised*. The catapult vanished, leaving a clean, square hole in the battlement where the story of its construction used to be.
"They are 'Revisionists'!" the Architect wailed, clutching his head. "They aren't destroying us, Alicia! They are cutting the parts of the city they don't like! If they reach the Spindle, they'll snip the King right out of the book!"
Alicia stood at the center of the High Spire, the **Phantom Quill** held tight. Her violet-stained veins were glowing so fiercely they began to illuminate the falling silver sleet.
"You want to edit my work?" Alicia's voice was a low, dangerous growl. "I am the one who holds the pen. You're just the scrap on the floor!"
She didn't try to block the blades. She reached into the air and began to weave the silver sleet itself. Using the "Phantom Limb's" resonance, she turned the freezing copper rain into a **"Tangled Draft."** She threw a web of chaotic, unorganized thoughts—sketches of things that might be, sentences that ended in the middle, and messy ink-blots of raw emotion—directly into the path of the Scissor-Guards.
The Guards' blades snapped shut on the "Draft," but there was no clean line to cut. The chaos of the Phantom Quill's unrefined ideas jammed their hinges. They couldn't "revise" a mess that didn't have a structure yet.
"Clevatess! Use the Phantom Reach!" Alicia commanded. "Don't let them find the rhythm! Break the shears!"
From the Sky-Fray, the King lunged. His new violet-sketched arm elongated, his fingers turning into hooks of pure, unwritten potential. He didn't punch; he gripped the pivot-screw of the lead Guard's chest and *unscrewed* its existence.