The walls of Nyameji’s Skyborne Keep shook with each blast of corrupted light. The once-holy glyphs etched into its marble bones flickered like dying stars, their patterns scrambled by unseen interference. Smoke hung in the air like a curtain drawn over history. The Code Knights were all that remained—six warriors of unmatched discipline, surrounding a steel-etched doorway carved with protection runes older than the Kaisulane Empire itself.

  Behind that door: a nursery.

  Inside: the last two heirs of Nyameji.

  “Hold the line,” barked Sir Kalven, blood slick on his armor, one eye swollen shut. “They cannot breach this door.”

  “You can feel that, right?” muttered the youngest knight, lowering his sword. “He’s coming.”

  A distant hum trembled through the ground. Then—footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Echoing with cruel confidence. The shadows parted, and he emerged.

  The Sulan-Kai of Kaisulane. Wreathed in a cloak of shifting beast plates, his head bore no crown—only a jagged smile stretched too wide. On his right hand, he held it: a device of nightmare design.

  A thick, mechanical gauntlet fused with etched crystal, its center pulsed with impossible energy—like a heartbeat made of broken code. Its surface shimmered with a swirling pattern of blackened Nyameji glyphs, forcibly inverted, corrupted, glitched.

  “This,” the King said, lifting the weapon with mock reverence, “cost thirteen years. A once-in-a-lifetime harvest. The core of a dead god’s altar. Threads from the code vein of a fallen dragon. And a promise broken by your queen herself.”

  He took a step forward. “This" he motioned around the crumbling hall and relishing in the screams coming from the city "This—is the end of your divine lie.”

  A thunderclap of magic erupted as the device activated. The glyphs on the Knights' armor distorted started to vanish in places.

  Only Sir Kalven stood, shaking, sword lowered but eyes bright with fury. Behind him, the nursery door cracked and broke open. A nurse screamed within. Tiny sobs echoed from inside.

  The King motioned a soldier who dragged a bloodied body forward—the crown prince, just fifteen, a boy of noble fire.

  “I believe this one was yours,” he said, and dropped his body and his severed head at Kalven’s feet.

  Kalven didn’t move. He stared, trembling, until his knees buckled—but he stood again. Fighting the urge to retch. That meant that the first retinue failed, and the future Queen was behind him. He and his men could not fail.

  The King raised the device, and with a cold flick of his wrist, it pulsed once—like a dark heart skipping a beat.

  Across the front line, the Knights flinched as the Royal Code shimmered violently around them, patterns breaking, command lines corrupting in midair.

  Sir Jahro, the flame-calligrapher, roared first.

  His sword traced blazing characters through the air — “IGNITE,” “CONSUME,” “SEVER.”

  But as the glyphs flared, they snapped mid-sequence, letters glitching into nonsense. His sword exploded into embers.

  He charged anyway, fists aflame.

  The King gestured.

  A wave of black-coded air hit Jahro like a wall.

  He flew back, spine cracking against the wall with a sickening thud.

  Lady Amira, the Soundblade, shifted her stance.

  Twin scythes whirled, leaving sonic glyphs in their wake.

  “Shatter,” “Pulse,” “Resonance”—her art could rupture bone from the inside out.

  She dove low, letting her sound rings explode outward—

  But they collapsed, the device absorbing the code like a vacuum.

  Her own resonance turned inward—she screamed once, then fell, blood leaking from ears and nose.

  Knight Borsan, shield-mage, roared and planted his gauntlet.

  He channeled Fortress Code — thick hex-patterned walls rising in front of the nursery door.

  They held—for one breath. Two.

  Then the King's device pulsed again.

  The hexes inverted, turning transparent. A bolt of corrupted energy slammed into Borsan’s shield and in response the defensive power of it, weakened as fragile as Glass. But still he stood his massive body behind it. Swelling as large as he could to absorb as much of the energy blows as possible.

  The King snapped his fingers.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  It shattered—along with Borsan’s chest.

  Sister Eilora, the Mindspinner, stepped forward, hands glowing with recursive code—she was mid-chant, trying to reroute the corruption.

  Her code reached toward the device—

  The device reached back.

  She staggered, choking on her own breath.

  “It's... it's reading me,” she whispered—before her eyes rolled back and she collapsed in a twitching heap.

  That left only Sir Kalven and Tariq, the Blade Scribe.

  Tariq raised his weapon—etched with ever-changing runes.

  “Together?” Kalven asked, sword trembling in his grip.

  Tariq smiled sadly. “Until the final variable.”

  They charged.

  Kalven swung high. Tariq low. They were a blur—reality recompiled with each clash. For one brief moment, their blades cut through the interference. The King stepped back, cloak flickering as if even he felt danger.

  Then—

  The device pulsed one final time.

  Tariq's blade froze mid-air. His arm seized and then twisted backward. He screamed and stepped back attempting to switch hands to strike at the king.

  Code lines on his skin crawled upward—scrambling.

  “No,” he whispered.

  The King’s guards surrounded them. Sir Kalven barely deflected the blow that sent Tariq sprawling. His own sword piercing him in the head in a fatal blow.

  Now alone, bloodied, Kalven stood.

  The King leveled the device at him.

  “This is your final loop, knight. Unless you come and be bound to me. Convert and live.”

  "Never. I would never betray my future Queen."

  "But your king is dead. You would follow a toddler queen? She cannot rule. And from what I heard neither of the two children in that room can manifest the Royal Code. Stunted at birth. How unfortunate for your kingdom. Is that what you wish for what is left of your people?"

  "I pledged my undying loyalty to this family." Sir Kalven stood in a protective battle stance. "I will not break my oath."

  "Then I will break you."

  And with that, Kalven was blasted backward—into the nursery.

  The room filled with smoke from the hall. It was now mixed with the scent of ash and fragrant lavender, flickering with star-lit glyphs on the ceiling—still active, for now. Two children huddled in the far corner, a girl with silver-threaded curls tangled around her baby brother crying in her arms. She held on tightly as she could her purple eyes staring into the King's . Their nurse stood between them and the monster, sobbing in silence.

  Kalven dragged himself to one knee and bowed to them.

  “My—my little royals. Please forgive your servant. I have failed you… but not yet.”

  Sir Kalven turned back, looked up, and coughed, blood bubbling from his lips.

  "One trade," he whispered. "My life... for theirs. And your promise. An unbreakable one."

  The King’s eyes narrowed. “Why? What does that give me from an already dying Knight? You would bind me to an oath of the old world?”

  Kalven straightened. Blood poured down his armor, but his eyes burned like dying stars.

  “If you know of me, then you know what this sword is. Whosoever wields it, wields the power of the One God. It cannot be corrupted. Not even by your blasphemous tool.”

  He raised the sword, and for a moment, the runes on its edge shimmered in divine gold.

  “Swear it. That no hand of Kaisulane will take their lives before your twelfth generation ends. Swear it... or be cursed.”

  There was silence.

  And then — laughter.

  “Fine,” the King said, smug. “I swear, by blade, breath, and blood, that I will not kill the children, to my 12th generation.”

  And Kalven smiled and for the last time knelt before the Princess and Prince. Ilyari's eyes never left his face even though the tears streamed from them and her chest heaved with sobs.

  "I am sorry my little queen, Ilyari. My prince, Tazien. Your knight falls with dignity, preserving your name and honor."

  He stood, removed his battered armor. Drew his sword. And with the last of his Royal Code, etched a final command into the blade.

  He turned. Holding the blade up to his neck, with one clean arc—severed the gauntlet-hand of the King, breaking the gauntlet into splinters and cleaving the King's hand in two up to the forearm. His hand would be rendered useless the rest of his life.

  As the Kaisulane spear guards pierced him in response, but Sir Kalven did not fall.

  He surged forward on borrowed strength, his blood trailing like ribbons in the air. With one final cry — more defiant than dying — he drove his sword into the nursery floor, glyphs blazing down the blade like divine script.

  The moment steel met stone, the curse activated.

  A brilliant, howling shockwave of energy erupted outward, shattering glass, rupturing code wards, and forcing the King and his guards to stagger back. One of the soldiers burst into flame. The others dropped their weapons, screaming as glitch-runes etched across their skin in glowing agony.

  The King clutched his severed wrist, howling, his expression twisted with fury. “You fool! You bound me!”

  The sword pulsed once—bright enough to paint the nursery in lavender-blue fire—and then the glyphs on its surface locked into place.

  The magic was final.

  The curse was complete.

  Kalven collapsed at the base of his blade.

  But the sword didn’t fall with him.

  Instead, the stone warped, softening like clay around the blade, drawing it downward until the hilt was the only thing visible—buried in a code-forged seal, glitching slightly every few seconds like a system still running underground.

  No one could move it. No one dared.

  Even the King paused, his fury dulled by fear. "Kill them all!"

  The King staggered, face twisted in rage. One of the guards approached the children—sword raised.

  The nurse threw herself forward.

  The blade fell. Her arm dropped with it.

  But it could not touch the children.

  The air shimmered. The blade reversed—slamming back into the attacker with full force. The guard died, impaled by his own strike.

  The unbreakable promise held.

  The King, breath ragged, snarled. “Take them. Strip them of name, title, memory if you must. Send them to the Lower Zone. Let them rot as ghosts of a dead world.”

  The children were carried out, silent and wide-eyed.

  And in the nursery, the glyphs finally went dark.

  And as the children were dragged away into the rain and ash from the only place that had ever protected them, the sword remained.

  As the children were carried away, the storm outside broke into a cold, unnatural silence.

  In the ruins of the nursery, Kalven's sword still pulsed faintly—half-buried in stone, its final glyph glowing dimly in the darkness. Just before the light died, the runes shifted one last time:

  // If found by blood, awaken the Code. // FALLEN

  Then it went dark.

  Thrown far below, in the filth and shadows of the Lower Zone of the Low Array, the siblings lie clutched by the remaining arm of their maid beneath threadbare blankets. No titles. No crowns. Only the flicker of strange glyphs dancing faintly in the whites of their eyes.

  Waiting. Watching. Bound by blood.