The city of Kairon was a place where fate was not just a concept—it was law. Etched into the very foundations of existence, the Supreme Assertion bound every soul to an unbreakable path, dictating the rise and fall of all things. The scholars of the Absolute claimed that no being, mortal or divine, had ever defied it. To resist was to invite oblivion.
Yet, one man would dare to try.
Sevrin, a warrior marked by the celestial decree, had seen his fate inscribed upon the Tablets of Inevitability—a vision of his own death at the hands of an unseen force. The vision was clear: his final breath would be stolen beneath the crimson eclipse, his body broken upon the Altar of Eternum. Most in Kairon would accept their destinies without question, but Sevrin was not most. He would not kneel to a fate he had not chosen.
His only hope lay beyond the forbidden veil of myth—the Gate of None and All, a place whispered of in ancient riddles, said to hold the power to sever the chains of destiny itself. But such knowledge came at a cost. The moment he strayed from the dictated path, the Keepers of the Absolute, enforcers of the Supreme Assertion, were unleashed. Silent shadows with eyes of burning gold, they were the law’s executioners, tasked with erasing any who dared to defy their preordained end.
Sevrin had become a paradox, an anomaly that should not exist. And so, the hunt began.
Chapter One: The Shadowborn Hunters
The night was heavy with unseen eyes. From the rooftops of Kairon, veiled figures moved like specters, their forms dissolving into the darkness as if the city itself had birthed them. The Keepers of the Absolute. Their purpose was singular: to remove the stain of Sevrin’s defiance from the fabric of existence.
He ran. His every step defied the Supreme Assertion, sending ripples through the unseen weave of fate. Each breath he took was a defiance, each heartbeat an act of rebellion. He leapt across the tiled roofs, the wind slicing past him, his fingers gripping the stone ledges of the towering sanctuaries that lined Kairon’s divine district. If he could reach the Archives of Paradox, he might find the location of the Gate.
A whisper of steel. A flicker in the air.
Sevrin twisted just in time. A blade, curved and void-black, sliced past his throat, missing by the width of a hair. His attacker materialized from the darkness—a Keeper, clad in robes woven from the threads of fate itself. Its face was a shifting void, eyes glowing with golden script that burned with unreadable prophecy.
“Your path is written,” the Keeper’s voice was neither male nor female, but an echo of reality itself. “Return to the fate that is yours.”
Sevrin answered with steel. He unsheathed his blade, The Edge of the Undone, a relic from an age when the laws of reality had not yet solidified. The sword shimmered with contradiction, existing and not existing within the same breath. With a single strike, he severed the air itself, disrupting the Keeper’s form. The entity shuddered, unraveling like a frayed thread—but it would not fall so easily.
From the alleys below, more Keepers emerged. Dozens. Hundreds. The Supreme Assertion would not be defied without consequence.
Sevrin gritted his teeth. If he were to escape, he needed to move now. The Gate of None and All was still beyond his grasp, its location buried in forgotten texts and sealed crypts. But if he could reach the Lost Codex of the First Rebellion, he would have a chance.
And a chance was all he needed.
Chapter Two: The Lost Scriptures of Paradox
The Grand Archive stood before him—a towering cathedral of knowledge, its doors sealed by time itself. No mortal had stepped inside for over a thousand years. But Sevrin was no ordinary man. His very existence had become an impossibility, a contradiction in the eyes of fate. He pressed his palm against the gate, feeling the ancient words carved into the obsidian surface shift beneath his touch.
“Inscribe your purpose,” a voice whispered from the void.
Sevrin raised his blade and carved a single word into the stone.
"Freedom."
The doors groaned open, revealing a vast expanse of floating tomes and shifting staircases. Within these walls lay the forbidden knowledge of those who had once challenged the Supreme Assertion—and failed. He needed to find what they could not. The truth behind the Gate.
A sound. A presence. He was not alone.
Stepping into the light of the Archive, a figure stood before him—clad in robes that shimmered with reality itself. Their gaze was neither hostile nor kind. The Herald of Fate. The highest arbiter of the Supreme Assertion.
“You seek the impossible,” the Herald spoke, their voice the whisper of countless lifetimes. “Do you truly believe you can escape what is written?”
Sevrin tightened his grip on his sword. “I believe,” he said, “that fate should be mine to decide.”
And with that, the battle for existence itself began.
---END OF PART 1---
