They came like ghosts — silent, silver, and holy.
Two dozen Arc Keepers, drifting through the ruined sky above the Blighted Coast, robes fluttering like torn scripture in the storm winds. Each one radiated magic so precise, so controlled, it didn't burn — it suffocated.
They didn't speak.
They didn't scream.
They were executioners.
---
Raen stood beside Dareth, both of them barely breathing, still steaming from their battle-turned-reunion.
The crater was ruined. The earth broken. The sky still trying to recover from their clash.
And now?
Now judgment had arrived.
At the center of the formation hovered the woman in light. Her feet never touched the ground. Her voice came from her lips, but echoed from within the mind like prophecy.
> "Raen Val'torren. Dareth Vale. You are Unwritten. You have committed the highest heresy: self-reclamation."
Her eyes opened — glowing white, emotionless, divine.
> "Your existence threatens the Order of the Crown. Surrender your memories. Or perish."
---
Dareth stepped forward, one hand still trembling.
> "I remember my name," he said. "That's all I've done."
> "Then your name is your sin."
---
Raen didn't wait.
He knew these people.
They didn't negotiate.
They didn't reason.
They purged.
He whispered:
> "Return."
The sword dropped from the sky like a divine judgment of its own — landing in his hand with a metallic ring that shook the wind.
The Arc Keepers reacted instantly — hands raised, casting symbols mid-air with glowing runes that reshaped space.
The first Keeper fired — a lance of white lawlight, screaming toward Raen's heart.
CLANG!
Raen parried mid-spin, blade dancing like it remembered a hundred wars.
Dareth joined him, lightning forming in both hands, coating his arms like armor.
> "One last dance?" he said, smirking.
> "Don't die again," Raen replied.
---
They moved.
Like shadows.
Like storms.
Like they had never been erased.
Raen sliced through the first Keeper, cutting through the enchantment mid-air — his sword burned not flesh, but records. The Keeper didn't bleed. He forgot his own spell mid-cast — and dropped.
Dareth surged forward, lightning curling from his fingers into chained bolts. He grabbed a Keeper mid-air, spun, and unleashed a blast that turned the air into molten light.
Two down. Twenty to go.
---
But the Arc Keepers weren't just strong — they were programmed. Cold. Machine-like. Fighting with synchronization that twisted the air into rules.
> "Lawbind: Gravity x10."
Raen hit the ground like a meteor, knees buckling under impossible weight.
A second Keeper raised his hand:
> "Edict: Sight Denied."
Raen's eyes went dark.
> "Not again—"
Then fire.
Real fire.
Dareth roared.
A thunderous wave exploded outward, breaking the bindings. He grabbed Raen and pulled him back just in time before a blade of compressed sound ripped through the ground where he stood.
> "You good?" Dareth asked.
Raen nodded. "I'm tired of being erased."
---
He stood again, blind, but guided by his sword's hum.
It sang not to him — but with him.
Like it finally understood its master had returned.
> "Let me show you," Raen whispered, "why they were right to fear me."
---
He raised his hand. Spoke a word he didn't know. One that came from somewhere beneath the world.
> "Let the sky remember our names."
The blade exploded in golden memoryfire.
The air froze.
For a single heartbeat — the world remembered who Raen was.
And so did the Arc Keepers.
They hesitated.
And in that hesitation… Raen moved like light itself.
Three Keepers fell. One screamed. Another forgot its own existence mid-fall.
The woman in light narrowed her eyes.
> "Then we escalate."
She lifted her arms.
Behind her, the sky cracked.
And from it descended a being not bound to flesh.
It had no face. No form. Only light.
Its name wasn't spoken — only remembered:
> "The 8th Law: REMOVAL."
A god.
An anti-god.
A living law.
And it was descending straight onto the battlefield.
---
Raen's grip tightened.
Dareth's lightning faded.
> "What… is that?" Dareth whispered.
Raen looked up at the thing that had once devoured empires, the Law that removed heroes from history with a whisper, and answered with one breath:
> "Our past."