After facing the White Sky, Cerith disappeared for three days.
Elmira searched for him… but couldn't tell herself why.
The war between Arquith and Miravel raged on.
Magical cannons pounded the border.
Rivers became floating graveyards.
The sky filled with unyielding smoke.
But Cerith didn't go to the front.
He went south.
To a city called Valdarin.
A trading capital.
A center of war supplies.
If it fell… the kingdom would suffocate.
But Valdarin wasn't weak.
Its walls were thick.
Its army was vast.
And its message was very clear.
Above the city itself, if you looked up, a huge line could be read:
"It will stand until the end."
Cerith stood on a hill overlooking it.
He didn't smile.
He didn't get angry.
He just thought.
"I can't break it from the present…"
Then… I'll break it from the past.
He entered the city archives at night.
He wasn't looking for maps.
For something deeper.
The history of its founding.
He found the original manuscript.
An ancient parchment.
Its first line:
"In the year 312, Lord Arith laid the first stone of Valdarin, to be the eternal fortress of the South."
The first stone.
Every city has a moment of birth.
Like humans.
And Arith… could touch ancient sentences.
But the past was harder.
More solid.
More resistant.
He sat in the darkness.
He opened the manuscript.
He placed his fingers on the ancient ink.
He felt immense pressure in his head.
As if a thousand hands were gripping his wrist.
The council's voice returned:
"Founding events may not be altered."
He smiled through the pain.
"You write the story…
But you forget that the reader can tear the page."
And he tugged.
He didn't erase the city.
He didn't delete the name.
He did something simpler… and more dangerous.
He changed a single word.
Instead:
"To be the eternal fortress of the South."
He wrote:
"To be a temporary experience."
The moment he finished…
He screamed.
Not just physical pain.
But something being ripped from his insides.
His sentence above his head shook violently.
"—cause—disaster—end—"
And suddenly…
In the present…
Valdarin began to change.
The South Wall… was gone.
Not that it had crumbled.
It was gone.
As if the stone had never been laid.
The watchtower was half-destroyed.
An entire street was empty.
People fell into nothingness.
Houses were suddenly reduced to ruins.
The soldiers were shouting.
"What is happening?!"
Above the city, the huge line:
"It shall stand until the end."
Began to unravel.
It turned into:
"It shall—"
Then nothing.
Hundreds died in minutes.
Not by the sword.
But because their existence was tied to a city that was no longer "eternal."
From miles away, she saw the sky break above Valdarin.
She arrived hours later.
She found no battlefield.
A chasm, in reality.
Half a city… existed.
The other half… had never been built.
A woman cried out:
"My home was here!"
But there was no foundation.
No trace.
As if only her memory held the evidence.
Elmira felt dizzy.
Above the people's heads, the sentences were jumbled.
"He lived here."
"He had a brother."
"The city was…"
Unfinished words.
She fell to her knees.
"This is not salvation… this is obliteration."
Cerith was on the ruins of the unfinished tower.
Elmira reached him.
She didn't immediately raise her sword.
"How many died?" she asked, her voice broken.
"I don't know."
"Why?!"
He looked at her at last.
His eyes were tired. "Because war would have killed more."
"And who gave you the right to decide?!"
Silence.
Then, with deadly calm, he said,
"No one.
That's why I'm more dangerous than them."
This sentence… wasn't a defense.
It was a confession.
Elmira felt something crumble inside her.
Because she knew—
If the text had decided to sacrifice Valdarin for her victory…
she would have accepted.
Among the ruins…
Someone was watching.
A young man with short black hair.
His eyes didn't reflect light.
He was looking up at the air… and seeing what Serith saw.
He read the unraveling line above the city.
And smiled.
"So you're not the only one."
He approached with quiet steps.
He said aloud,
"Greetings, beautiful mistake."
Serith turned slowly.
For the first time… he saw another person staring at the floating sentences.
"Who are you?"
"Someone who was deleted… and returned."
Above the young man's head, a clear but strange sentence:
"He should have died in the first act."
But he's alive.
And more dangerous—
His sentence is steady.
Undisguised.
The Council sensed them both.
Their voices were sharper this time:
"Multiple unregistered elements."
"Danger of total collapse."
"Unleashing the anti-hero."
Suddenly, in the capital…
A ten-year-old boy opened his eyes.
Above his head, a completely new sentence:
"He is the one who will kill the mistake."
At night…
Elmira sat alone among the ruins of Valdarin.
She was no longer sure if she was a hero.
Or a tool.
She no longer knew if her victory was a blessing… or a curse.
Above her head, her sentence changed slightly for the first time:
"She is the one who will triumph."
It became:
"She is the one who is supposed to triumph."
The word "supposed to" had never been there before.
Elsewhere…
Cerith looked at his hand.
The black in his veins was growing.
Every major change…
erases a part of it.
He finally asked himself:
"If I saved the world…
But I disappeared completely…
Would it be worth it?"
He found no answer.