For the first time in recorded memory, all Six Pillar Houses had gathered in one room—matriarchs, patriarchs, heirs, military marshals, arc-chancellors, and a small circle of sanctioned historians and Watchers. Floating sigil discs bore their emblems in the chamber's vaulted heights: Aetherrose, Cindergale, Duskreign, Vastelune, Obelmar, Larkveil.
None of them spoke.
The silence was not custom—it was fear.
A living system—once only legend—had been contacted.A null-soul had awakened.And a system-wide notification, etched in gold-thread across their ocular sigil-links, had shattered the illusion of control:
[NULL-THREAD ENTITY RECOGNIZED: ARI SOLEN][SYSTEM ARCHIVE INTERFACE BREACHED][PRE-SYSTEM ACCESS VERIFIED]
"He knows," someone finally whispered. No one claimed the voice.
Even the King of Aevalis, seated upon the Throne of Pulse and Glyph, remained quiet. His radiant crown dimmed, as if anticipating judgment.
The chamber doors groaned open.
And Ari Solen walked in.
He was calm. Too calm.
Not dressed in ceremonial robes, nor armored in magic. Just in the muted black of a Sanctum apprentice—yet every sigil in the hall trembled at his presence.
Only Cerys, Eluin, and the Princess walked at his side.
He stopped just past the central focus ring of the council, standing upon the creststone of forgotten lineage—his family's sigil, erased from all records, now glowing dimly beneath his boots.
"You erased us," Ari said quietly.
No one responded.
"You didn't just rewrite the system. You exterminated my bloodline. You called us wild-code, aberrations… and deleted us."
A single breath passed.
"My family wasn't dangerous. We were free."
Magic began to rise from his skin, the golden-silver threads of Originis Syntax beginning to overlay across the chamber walls. Alarm glyphs blinked silently in red, security threads activating—but held back by an invisible override: he had become the admin of reality.
His voice cracked for the first time.
"Thirty. Million. Years."
Just as the hall's ambient magic spiked—nearly cracking one of the protective throne glyphs—someone moved.
The entire hall froze.
Cerys Aetherrose, the cold prodigy of House Aetherrose—raised by logic, wrapped in discipline—stepped forward…
…and hugged him.
In front of everyone.
No sigils. No shields. No politics.
Just a girl holding a boy who bore the weight of a world rewritten.
Ari gasped slightly, and so did everyone else.
But what truly shocked the room was what came next:
The Princess of Vastelune—Primara—the "Crown of Judgment," stepped forward too. Silent. Rigid. The perfect noble.
And she lowered her head.
"He has the right," she said. Her voice cracked.
"Let him speak."
Ari stepped back into the light, breath steadied, magic retracted like a tide.
"You think I'm dangerous because I remember the world before you made it small."
He gestured, and a pre-system projection formed—a map of time and truth: Originis, unfiltered, expansive, filled with wild code, new laws, and free potential.
"Thirty million years ago, there was no hierarchy. No locked Threads. No families hoarding power. Magic wasn't born into you—it was awakened through meaning and choice."
He turned to the leaders.
"But you feared that. So you rewrote the laws of reality. You killed my family. You locked the world into a loop."
He paused.
"I'm not here to burn it all down. But I will rewrite it. I'll restore the freedom to choose."
A stunned silence followed.
No one opposed him. No one dared.
Even the King leaned forward on his throne and spoke for the first time:
"What… will you become, Ari Solen?"
Ari looked up, golden sigils in his eyes no one had ever seen before—neither Threaded nor divine.
"Not a king. Not a god. Just a writer… fixing what you tried to erase."
Cerys didn't let go of his hand.
Primara looked away, cheeks tinged with crimson, silently biting her lip.
And the leaders—those titanic families who had ruled unopposed for eons—now listened, afraid, curious, and ashamed.
The world would never be the same.
And the next council wouldn't be to speak about Ari…
…it would be to speak with him.