The air was wrong.

  Not just heavy. Not just shifting.

  But waiting.

  Like something vast and unseen was watching.

  Like something old and patient was about to move.

  Darius and Ais kept running.

  Behind them, the city of Vornis remained broken.

  Not erased. Not rewritten.

  Suspended between realities.

  The Thanatarchy had failed to correct it.

  And now—they would escate.

  They reached the outskirts of the city just as the first echoes of something greater arrived.

  Darius felt it before he saw it.

  A pull.

  A gravity beyond the physical.

  Like the weight of history itself was bending inward.

  Ais slowed, her breath sharp.

  She felt it too.

  Darius clenched his fists. "They’re sending something new."

  Ais nodded. "And I don’t think we can outrun it."

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  The sky darkened.

  Not like a storm. Not like nightfall.

  But like the concept of color itself was being drained away.

  The ground shook.

  Not violently. Not with force.

  But with inevitability.

  Like the world was being rewritten at a level deeper than memory.

  And then— It arrived.

  It did not step into existence.

  It did not descend.

  It was simply there.

  A figure.

  Taller than an Inquisitor. Broader than a Watcher.

  Wrapped in yered robes of bck and grey, moving like the fabric of reality itself was stitched into its form.

  It had no face.

  No eyes.

  Only a single, shifting sigil where its head should be.

  A mark that burned into the air itself.

  It did not speak.

  It did not breathe.

  But when it raised its hand—

  The world around them began to unmake itself.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Darius and Ais staggered.

  The earth beneath their feet vanished.

  Not cracked. Not broken.

  Just... gone.

  As if it had never been there.

  Darius’ mind reeled.

  "This isn’t an Inquisitor."

  Ais’s grip tightened on her dagger. "No."

  Darius’ voice was quiet. "It’s something worse."

  And then— It spoke.

  "Designation: ARCHITECT OF CORRECTION."

  The voice was not a sound.

  It was a command.

  A statement of something already decided.

  "Anomalous interference detected."

  The ground erased itself beneath their feet.

  Darius and Ais lunged sideways.

  The space where they had stood vanished into nothing.

  Ais’s breath was sharp. "It’s not attacking."

  Darius’ pulse pounded.

  "No."

  "It’s removing the battlefield itself."

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  The Architect of Correction moved forward.

  It did not hurry.It did not rush.

  Because it did not need to.

  It did not need to chase them.

  It simply erased any pce they could exist.

  Darius' mind raced.

  They could not fight this.

  They could not run from it.

  The Thanatarchy was not just erasing them now.

  It was erasing the possibility of them ever having existed.

  And if it succeeded—

  They would not just be forgotten.

  They would become a mistake that had never been written at all.

  Darius exhaled sharply.

  Then—he acted.

  "Ais!"

  She turned, and in that moment—he made a choice.

  Not to fight.

  Not to flee.

  But to do the one thing the Thanatarchy had never prepared for.

  He grabbed her wrist—

  And ran toward the Architect.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Ais swore.

  "Darius, WHAT—"

  He didn’t let go.

  Because the Thanatarchy corrected from a distance.

  Because the Thanatarchy removed what did not belong.

  And now—

  Darius was about to see what happened when someone forced their existence into the thing rewriting them.

  The Architect did not react.

  It did not adjust.

  Because it did not believe they could reach it.

  It did not believe they were capable of touching something beyond time.

  But Darius had already broken a rewrite before.

  And now—he was going to do it again.

  They closed the distance.

  Ais gritted her teeth, matching his pace.

  The Architect raised its hand.

  Reality itself folded inward.

  The rewrite colpsed around them.

  And just before everything disappeared—

  Darius reached out.

  And touched it.