Darius made contact.

  His fingers brushed against the Architect of Correction.

  And the world shattered.

  Not in the way gss breaks. Not in the way stone crumbles.

  This was deeper.

  This was the unraveling of something fundamental.

  The rewrite was not meant to be touched.

  It was meant to be absolute.

  Darius had just done the impossible.

  And now, reality itself was trying to understand what he was.

  The Architect did not react.

  Because it could not.

  Because it was not programmed to comprehend resistance.

  Because nothing in existence had ever touched it before.

  But Darius had.

  And for the first time—the rewrite hesitated.

  Not like a glitch.

  Not like a failure.

  But like a question had been asked that had no answer.

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

  The sigil where the Architect’s face should have been flickered.

  Its hand—still raised to erase him—froze in pce.

  The rewriting process stalled.

  Darius’ breath came sharp and ragged.

  His body burned.

  Not like fire.

  Not like pain.

  But like he was standing between two different versions of reality at once.

  As if the rewrite was trying to decide which version of him to keep.

  And which to erase.

  Ais grabbed his arm, trying to pull him back.

  "Darius, LET GO!"

  But he couldn’t.

  Because for the first time— He wasn’t being erased.

  He was inside the rewrite itself.

  And he saw it.

  The structure of the rewrite.

  The yers beneath reality.

  The logic of the Thanatarchy’s corrections.

  It was not just rewriting history. It was following a script.

  A sequence of changes. A preordained structure.

  Something that had been decided long ago.

  Something that was being followed without question.

  Darius saw the paths.

  The patterns.

  And for the first time—he saw the original world underneath.

  The world that existed before the Thanatarchy rewrote it.

  And then— The Architect reacted.

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

  The sigil fshed violently.

  The force of it sent Darius reeling backward.

  He hit the ground, his body still burning from the contact.

  Ais was already beside him, pulling him up.

  "Darius, what the hell just happened!?"

  Darius gasped for air.

  His vision was still split.

  Half in the present.Half in the original world.

  The city around them flickered—

  Between Vornis.

  And something older.

  Something the Thanatarchy had erased long ago.

  Darius’ voice was raw.

  "I saw it."

  Ais’s eyes narrowed. "Saw what?"

  Darius turned to her, heart pounding.

  "The first version of this world."