Somewhere far above Greystone, in a tower no citizen had ever seen, a bell rang without sound.
No one heard it. Not with ears.
It echoed through threads, vibrating across the invisible web of fate that held the world together.
Within the Tower of Chronos, an ancient automaton stirred for the first time in ninety-three years. Its eyes opened — not round, not human — and flickered with threads of golden light.
[Alert: Thread Disruption]
[Classification: Impossible]
[Origin: Greystone – Slum Sector 7C]
The machine didn't move. It simply watched.
And then, it began to write.
Back in the streets of Greystone...
Arther stood on the edge of the floodway bridge, watching the reflection of the city ripple in the water below.
He hadn't returned to the ruins.
Didn't need to.
The book was no longer in the chamber. It was inside him now.
Not physically — but spiritually. Like something imprinted on his soul.
He could feel it. A weight in the back of his mind. Faint. Cold. Alive.
And something else was there, too.
A pressure.
A sense that eyes were watching from somewhere unseen.
He didn't panic. Didn't run.
That would be stupid.
Instead, he made himself smaller.
Just another street orphan.
Just another shadow.
Just another ghost.
Greystone was the perfect place to disappear. If you knew how.
The city was a broken maze of towers, smoke, and machines — each district built atop the bones of the last. Rich in the clouds. Poor in the filth. And in between: information, power, rot.
Arther knew the slums better than anyone.
Which streets flooded. Which guards could be bribed. Which orphan gangs were too stupid to realize they were being manipulated.
He returned to Sector 6 — the dead zone.
Abandoned warehouses. No light. No clocks. No patrols.
He found the old mill, kicked open the back hatch, and slipped into the dust.
He needed time.
Time to think.
Time to understand.
Time to test the Mark.
That night, he drew chalk circles across the stone floor — crude mimicry of Church contracts.
He etched names into bone slivers. Lit candles. Recited invocation rites he'd heard whispered by drunk preachers.
Then he cast a binding oath onto himself.
It failed.
Instantly.
The magic cracked like glass and vanished.
Arther stared at the faint smoke curling above his wrist.
A slow smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
It worked.
He was free.
Truly, completely free.
No brand could hold him.
No law of fate could bind him.
No system could write his name.
That meant one thing: he could take anything.
He just had to be patient.
Meanwhile…
Back in the Tower of Chronos, the automaton finished its record.
The page was empty.
But the quill moved.
It wrote:
Epochless Detected.
Classification: Forbidden.
Thread Absence Confirmed.
Watcher Unit 9-17 Deployed.
Track anomaly. Erase deviation.
And then, for the first time in a century…
A Watcher was sent down from the heavens.
A silver figure.
Faceless. Silent.
Built to detect what the world had forgotten — and remove it before it spread.
Arther didn't know yet.
He didn't know what he had touched.
He didn't know how deep the roots of the Church went.
But he felt it.
Something had shifted.
He had made a move…
And now, something else was moving back.
⚙️ [System Update: You Have Been Detected]
A Level 1 System Watcher has been dispatched
You may not be seen by fate, but now fate is looking for you
Hiding is no longer enough
Deception protocols unlocked