Ari crossed the quiet southern reaches of the Virellean Highlands—mist-laden and veiled in silence—his footsteps light, his pendant glowing faintly as it pulled him onward. Every step was guided not by path, but resonance. The lingering thread of Originis was calling him—no, reaching for him.
Beyond the ridges and into the kingdom of Caldris, he found it.
A town built around flameforges and bloodcoin. Not a lawless place, but one where law bowed to wealth. It was in the center square, beneath the gaze of apathetic nobles and the quiet hunger of the masses, that he saw him.
A boy—no older than sixteen—head bowed, arms shackled with runic manacles, red hair matted with soot and sweat, eyes like burning coals resisting dimming.
And threaded around his soul, hidden behind suppression glyphs—an Originis Thread.
Ari's blood surged.
The boy was paraded as a combat slave, scarred from battles he never chose. When he lifted his head, Ari felt it. The weight. The will. A fragment of the Originis Willcore still pulsing inside the boy's spirit, fragmented, but unyielding.
The auctioneer barked prices. Nobles sneered and leered.
Ari stepped forward.
"I'll take him," he said quietly.
A laugh. "Do you carry coin, wanderer?"
"I carry law," Ari replied—and lifted his hand.
Syntax spiraled into the air—Authority Sigils, Royal Class, reinforced by the Originis Pendant. A sovereign flare flared through the crowd.
"By accord of Originis and the Compiler's Accord, I claim this kin as mine."
The pendant shone like a falling star. And the manacles cracked.
But the slavers refused. Magic detonated across the square. Spells crashed, flames surged. Ari moved like scripture through wind—his glyphs a blur of light and force. He did not attack. He rewrote.
"⌘ Thread Inversion: Arrested Flames"
A fireball meant for him collapsed into its caster.
"⌘ Syntax Lock: Triple Layer Reversal"
Three mages froze mid-incantation as their threads spiraled backward and entangled.
The boy looked on, wide-eyed—both in awe and disbelief.
Ari approached him as the last slaver dropped to his knees. Then he extended his hand.
"Your name."
"…Kaien," the boy answered, hesitant.
"Your thread remembers," Ari said gently, unlocking the last of the shackles with a tap of the pendant. "I will teach you to remember, too."
Kaien fell to his knees, not in submission, but in stunned freedom. And the people of the town—commoners, even a few guards—stood speechless. The name Ari Solen passed among them like wildfire.
They sat beneath a rusted bridge outside the city. Kaien said little, still processing.
"You're like me," he finally whispered. "The same kind of thread. The same silence… inside."
Ari nodded. "We're not born from the world. We're born to rewrite it."
"…Then will you help me remember who I was?"
Ari gave him the pendant for a moment. It glowed softly in Kaien's palm.
"You already are," Ari said, smiling faintly. "Let's walk."