Devourer: Echoes of the unwritten

Scene: Unknown Sector — Glitched Ruin, 1:24 A.M.]

Lian couldn't breathe.

Not because of fear—but because the air had stopped existing for a moment.

The sky above flickered.

Not lightning. Not magic.

System bleed.

"This place is becoming… unstable."

The shattered projection of Kaito dimmed, like a hologram sinking into static. But before it vanished, the ghost of a voice lingered in Lian's mind:

"You were never supposed to remember."

Then everything snapped.

The world crashed back into place like glass re-forging — jagged, wrong, and humming with code. Lian's vision blurred as the system forced itself into clarity.

[SYSTEM OVERRIDE: ERROR]

[NEW TRAIT DETECTED]

[UNWRITTEN PRESENCE — STAGE 0]

Trait Type: UNKNOWN

Threat Level: REDACTED

Host Integrity: 22%

"W-What the hell…" Lian gasped, watching his interface rewrite itself.

"This isn't a skill… it's a glitch."

No — not a glitch.

A presence.

Something in the dark noticed him.

He turned toward the shattered relic… and saw footsteps burned into the floor. Charred like a fire had walked there. They weren't there before.

"Who… else was here?"

Lian's hands trembled as he grabbed the relic core and shoved it into his bag.

Suddenly—

A wave of static hissed through his ears. Sharp. Metallic. Personal.

And then:

💬 [Unwritten Process: Child Detected.]

💬 [Memory Slot Reinstated.]

💬 [Do you remember your name, Lian Asher?]

He froze.

"Of course I—"

He stopped.

Did he?

He thought he did. But the moment he tried to picture his parents… a birthday… anything before scavenger work…

Blank.

Just static.

Just silence.

"No no no—this isn't real," he whispered.

"I know who I am. I'm me. I'm real."

But the silence whispered back.

💬 [Then prove it.]

The air behind him bent.

A figure stepped out — no footsteps, no sound. Tall. Skin cracked like data stone. Eyes hollow.

A Hollowed — a being erased mid-rewrite.

It opened its mouth… but no sound came out. Only white noise.

Lian backed up. No weapon. No class abilities. His Soulgrid was still fractured.

"Run."

His body obeyed before his mind did.

[Scene Shift – Lian: Escaping the Unwritten Zone]

He sprinted through broken buildings, the Hollowed dragging corrupted light behind it like afterimages. The city glitched with every step.

Signs blinked languages he didn't know. Time slowed and twisted.

"Not real. Not real. Not real—"

He dove into an underground tube.

Darkness.

Silence.

Finally—

His interface beeped, stabilizing for just a moment.

[You have exited Unwritten Zone.]

[UNAUTHORIZED MEMORY SCAN DETECTED.]

[Beginning Soulgrid Repair…]

"What the hell is happening to this world…"

Lian sat in the dark, clutching the relic like a lifeline. His body shook, not from fear—but from recognition.

"I've been here before…"

"But this place doesn't exist anymore."

Suddenly, a soft chime echoed from his bag.

The relic activated on its own.

And Kaito's voice returned, faint, tired… almost human:

"If you're hearing this, then the system is dying."

"Not from bugs. Not from monsters."

"From the thing it erased to protect itself…"

Interlude II – The Fragment That Refused to Fade

(Kaito Ryu – Somewhere Below the Grid)

The world hadn't had sound for a long time.

Not here.

Not where he was.

Kaito Ryu stood in a void made of what he used to be.

Memories drifted through him like dead feathers. Some he recognized — Lorelei's laugh, Reina's fire-breath threats, his own scream the day he rewrote a god's fate.

Others…

Others he didn't know at all.

He knelt, fingers tracing the glowing symbols stitched into the void floor.

They weren't system code.

They weren't human script.

They were remnants — burned into the foundation of the world when the original system collapsed. The ones even the Soulgrid refused to store.

"Why is his name here?"

The boy from the relay — Lian Asher.

A name Kaito had never heard… until today.

But now it pulsed under his fingertips like an open wound.

"I never wrote this name."

And yet it responded to him.

Like an echo waiting for its match.

Like a mistake the rewrite missed.

Kaito stood.

His body had no temperature anymore. No hunger. No fatigue.

Only weight.

The weight of a system that had once tried to kill him. Then feared him. Then begged him to stay.

"I left for a reason…"

"So why is something trying to pull me back?"

He looked toward the breach — the fracture in the grid where he'd left his final backup echo.

"If you're hearing this… then the system is dying."

He had recorded that message with full certainty.

But now?

Now there were zones detaching. Memories skipping. Names disappearing like corrupted files.

And a boy — a nobody scavenger — had awakened something not even Kaito had understood:

The Unwritten.

"He's not ready."

"But neither was I."

Kaito's image glitched — half-shadow, half-data.

Then, from deep inside the memory void… a voice spoke.

A voice he hadn't heard since the final rewrite.

A child's voice.

Familiar. Flat. Ancient.

💬 "You devoured what was broken."

💬 "But you left what was erased."

💬 "Now the erased is hungry."

Kaito's fists clenched.

He didn't fear death.

But he feared something worse —

Oblivion.

He stared into the dark and said only three words:

"Lian… don't forget."