Lord of the Foresaken

The abyss opened like a wound that did not bleed.

From its center, something moved. Not shadow, not duplicate, but something older. The air cracked. Every breath Lio took dragged smoke and ink into his lungs.

He staggered to his feet, fists trembling, veins glowing with black fire. The more he fought, the more the flame inside him turned cruel. What had been stubborn defiance now burned with hunger. His skin itched. His thoughts twisted.

He wanted to fight. He wanted to kill.

And the abyss fed him.

The Narrativeless did not stop him. They only leaned closer, recognition pressing harder. They wanted him to drink from the blank. They wanted him to be more bridge than man.

But far away, deeper than distance, another meeting began.

The Originless had not gathered in one place for centuries. Most of the world believed they were myths. Some believed they were gods. Others whispered they were mistakes.

But now, eleven figures took their seats in a chamber outside of causality.

The room was simple: a circle of stone chairs on a floor of endless water. No walls. No roof. Only a sky of shifting ink, alive with scars of past choices.

Each chair filled slowly. Some shapes were men, some women, some too strange to name. They were not bodies but ideas that had chosen shapes. Eleven, though once there had been twelve.

The missing one had left the Inkless Realm undefined. And because of that refusal, the world bled.

The first to speak was a tall figure cloaked in ash. His voice was heavy, like an anvil dropped into deep water.

"The incursions spread faster. Geneva is already fractured. Arden Gate is… unstable. The boy is writing, but he is burning himself out."

A woman made of shattered glass leaned forward. Her shards whispered as she moved. "The Inkless Realm must be closed. Only then can the doorway collapse."

Another slammed a fist into their chair, fire sparking from their knuckles. "Close it? That realm is our creation. Our shame. Do you think the Narrativeless will stop because we shut a door? They will find another crack."

"They were invited," the woman of glass hissed. "By us. By him. By the page left blank."

The circle grew heavy with silence. Each Originless knew she was right.

Lio fought.

The duplicates swarmed again, claws tearing across his arms, words burning into his chest. But now, he did not fight with desperation.

He fought with hunger.

Every punch ripped more than bodies apart. It ripped meaning apart. When he struck, the doubles exploded in showers of ash that he inhaled, his veins darkening further. His teeth bared. He laughed, but the sound was not his laugh anymore.

The town trembled. People flickered in and out of history. Maren shouted, but the words never left her throat. Kito climbed, fell, climbed again. The baker sang, forgot, sang again.

Lio stood in the square, covered in blood that was not blood, ink running down his arms. He looked less like a man and more like a living fragment of the Inkless Realm.

And he wanted more.

The chamber of Eleven trembled. One Originless—hair like storm clouds, eyes like cracked stone—spoke.

"If we close the Inkless Realm, the incursions may stop. But it will erase everything that has been written into it. Every bridge. Every anchor. Every survivor."

"You mean the boy," another said coldly.

"The boy," the storm-haired one nodded. "And the town he clings to."

"He is not stable," said the glass woman. "Already his fire turns to hunger. Already he loses himself. He will become one of them if we let him continue."

"But if we end him," the fire-knuckled Originless snapped, "we end our only lock. The fissures will spread. Consensus reality will collapse."

The eleven turned on one another, voices rising, each argument heavier than stone. Close the Inkless Realm. Leave it. Seal it with sacrifice. Expand it into a prison. Every word shook the chamber of water.

No one agreed.

In Arden Gate, Lio dragged his claws across the ground. Yes—claws. His nails had blackened into hooked blades. His shoulders bulged, veins twitching with ink. His eyes burned with the fire of refusal, but behind it was thirst.

The duplicates circled. He tore through them, laughing as their sentences broke across his fists. He wanted them to come. He wanted them to feed him.

The abyss whispered louder.

Drink. Kill. Become more.

He did not argue. He did not deny.

He wanted it.

But somewhere inside him, the fragment of Shia's warning still lingered, faint as a dying ember: You left a page blank. Now something else is writing on it.

His laugh cracked into a snarl. He punched harder. He bled more.

And through the haze of violence, he realized something.

It wasn't the Narrativeless who had made the perfect door.

It was the Originless.

By refusing to define the Inkless Realm, they had created the only place the Narrativeless could walk freely. By leaving it empty, they had invited hunger.

His fury turned inward. His teeth clenched until they cracked.

"They did this," he growled. "Not me. Them. The Originless."

The ink on his arms flared hotter, dripping like lava. His bloodlust sharpened into direction.

He wasn't just fighting shadows anymore. He wanted to fight the Eleven.

In the chamber, the arguments reached breaking point.

One Originless rose. His body was a shadow of books, pages fluttering without wind. His voice cut clean:

"The Inkless Realm is a mistake. Close it, and we end this war."

The fire-knuckled one rose to oppose him. "Close it, and we admit failure. We give them victory. No—we fight until the Inkless bends to our will."

Their voices clashed. The water rippled.

Then the storm-haired Originless said, "You both speak as if the choice is ours. But the bridge is already rewriting the page. He is stronger than we expected."

"Stronger?" the glass woman spat. "He is a beast now. More blood than boy. Do you not feel it? His hunger grows. If we wait, he will come for us next."

Silence fell.

Because they all felt it.

They all felt his bloodlust rising.

And they all knew: if the boy survived the fissure, he would not remain their tool. He would hunt them.

Lio tore through another wave of duplicates, ink spattering the ground. His chest heaved, his breath thick with hunger. His claws dripped. His smile was sharp and wrong.

But inside, the guilt roared louder.

It wasn't just rage anymore. It was understanding.

"They gave you the door," he snarled at the sky. "They left it blank. They left me to pay."

The shadows leaned closer. The fissure widened. The abyss howled.

And Lio, drenched in ink and fury, raised his claws and screamed his vow:

"If the Originless made this, then I'll unmake them."

The town flickered. The gateposts split. The baker's song stopped mid-note.

And in the chamber of Eleven, each Originless froze.

They had all heard it.

The bridge was no longer their weapon.

He was coming for them.

The chamber shook. The water floor boiled. The sky of shifting ink split open.

Through it, they saw him—Lio, drenched in black fire, claws cutting through duplicates, eyes burning red. His laughter reached them, broken and bloodthirsty.

"He knows," the glass woman whispered. "He knows it was us."

The storm-haired Originless clenched his fists. "Then he will come."

The fire-knuckled one grinned. "Let him."

But none of them admitted what they all felt: fear.

Because the bridge was no longer just a lock.

He was a blade.

And the blade was hungry.

The fissure screamed. The abyss widened. Arden Gate flickered like a candle guttering in wind.

And in the chamber of Eleven, voices rose one last time.

"Close it."

"Leave it."

"Fight him."

"Kill him."

But no choice was made.

Because the town screamed as the shadows stepped closer.

And Lio, bleeding ink and fury, lifted his claws with only one thought left in his mind:

Not enough blood.