The oath did not come as words.
It came as pressure.
Erynd stood alone at the edge of Tirn-Ael, the dead city stretching beneath a sky that no longer promised anything. His wrist burned, the half-sigil pulsing like a second heart.
He understood it now.
Oaths were not chains.
They were weights—and only those strong enough to carry them should ever take one.
Behind him, Lyra watched in silence. She did not interrupt. This was a choice no one else could share.
Erynd inhaled.
Slow.
Deliberate.
And spoke.
"I swear…"
The world leaned in.
"…not to rule."
The pressure shifted—confused.
"Not to decide for others."
The scar flared.
"But to stand where choice breaks—"
Reality trembled.
"—and ensure the breaking does not become slavery."
The oath did not lock.
It breathed.
[LIVING OATH REGISTERED]
Type: Conditional / Self-Limiting
Authority Source: Volitional Renewal
Failure State: Immediate Collapse
The Watcher froze.
This had not existed before.
An oath that punished its bearer first.
Pain ripped through Erynd.
Not as punishment—but calibration.
The scar spread from his wrist to his chest, branching like fractured glass. His vision filled with possibilities—not ranked, not filtered.
He could see where choice would fail.
Where fear would turn freedom into tyranny.
But he could not act unless invited.
Power, caged by consent.
Erynd fell to one knee, gasping.
Lyra caught him.
"You're bleeding reality," she whispered.
He laughed weakly. "Good. It means it's real."
Far away, the Covenant Devourer shrieked.
The food source had changed.
Oaths no longer rotted.
They adapted.
Chains rusted mid-air.
The Devourer turned its hunger elsewhere.
Toward something older.
Something that remembered when choice did not exist.
Caelis felt the oath like a thunderclap.
He dropped his sword.
"That idiot," he breathed. "He did it."
For the first time, Caelis smiled without certainty.
Above all things, the Watcher failed to update.
No resolution appeared.
No correction followed.
For the first time since existence began—
A constant encountered something it could not summarize.
Erynd stood again, shakier—but whole in a new way.
He was no god.
No system.
No savior.
He was a threshold.
And the world would soon learn how often it stood at one.