Chapter 14: The Devourer Descends
A tremor ran through the Ruined Paths. The very air shuddered, as if the world itself sensed what was coming.
Elara's ears twitched. "Something's wrong."
Lorien was already gripping his staff. "No. Something's here."
Rheon felt it before he saw it—a presence so vast and overwhelming that it made his skin crawl. It was neither a creature nor a force of nature.
It was correction incarnate.
A void in reality itself.
Then, the sky split apart.
A wave of black nothingness spilled from the heavens, twisting, writhing, a formless abyss that devoured light and space.
And from within the churning dark, it descended.
The Devourer.
---
The System's Final Weapon
The being that emerged from the void had no fixed form. One moment, it was a mass of shifting shadows; the next, it solidified into something vaguely humanoid—towering, faceless, with limbs that bled into existence before dissolving once more.
Its presence alone was wrong. The ground beneath it crumbled into nothingness. The ruined structures around it ceased to exist as if they had never been.
It did not walk. It did not move.
It simply was.
A voice, not spoken but felt, resonated through the air.
"ANOMALY DETECTED."
The temperature plunged.
Rheon gripped the Forbidden Fragment tighter. The whispers in his mind were screaming.
Lorien's face paled. "It's here to erase us."
Hadric cracked his knuckles. "Then let's give it something to fight."
Rheon exhaled, stepping forward. His spear ignited with golden light.
And the battle for their very existence began.
---
The First Strike
The Devourer did not attack.
It unmade.
A wave of void energy rushed forward, swallowing everything in its path. The very laws of magic twisted and bent, as if rejecting its existence.
Rheon didn't hesitate. He slammed his spear into the ground, unleashing a barrier of pure willpower. The void crashed against it, consuming the air itself—but his shield held.
Hadric roared, leaping into the fray. His war hammer flared with red runes as he swung at the shifting form of the Devourer.
The moment his weapon connected—
It passed through nothing.
Hadric landed hard, rolling away just in time as the Devourer's shifting limbs descended upon him.
Elara moved like a shadow, throwing enchanted daggers—only to watch them vanish the moment they touched the Devourer's form.
"Damn it!" she cursed. "Physical attacks don't work!"
Lorien clenched his staff, chanting a powerful incantation. A spear of pure mana erupted toward the Devourer—
Only for it to stop mid-air.
The energy flickered—then was absorbed.
Lorien's breath hitched. "It's eating magic too?"
Rheon gritted his teeth. "Then we don't fight it with magic or weapons."
He looked at the fragment in his hand.
This wasn't a weapon. It was knowledge.
And knowledge was the one thing the System feared.
He raised the fragment high, letting its energy flow into him.
The whispers in his mind became words.
And then—
He spoke.
---
The Words That Shouldn't Exist
The moment the ancient language left Rheon's lips, the world reacted.
The Devourer stopped moving.
The void around them shuddered.
Elara gasped. "What… what did you just say?"
Rheon didn't know. The words had come from the fragment itself, flowing through him like a memory long buried.
But the effect was undeniable.
The Devourer's form flickered. For the first time… it hesitated.
Lorien's eyes widened. "It's reacting. That means—"
"It can be stopped," Rheon finished.
The fragment glowed brighter.
And with it, Rheon spoke again.
The ancient words tore through reality itself.
And the Devourer screamed.
The Unraveling of Fate
The Devourer's scream was not a sound. It was a wound in existence itself—a rippling distortion that made the air tremble, the ground fracture, and reality bend.
Rheon's body burned as the ancient words continued to pour from his lips, not as speech, but as command.
The Forbidden Fragment in his hand pulsed with raw knowledge, flooding his mind with truths long buried, truths the System had erased.
And with every word, the Devourer weakened.
Its formless body shuddered, flickering between states of existence. The overwhelming void it exuded began to retract, its essence recoiling as if something deep within it recognized the words.
Lorien's breath hitched. "It's… rejecting them?"
Elara narrowed her eyes. "Or it's afraid."
Hadric grinned, gripping his hammer. "Then let's keep pushing."
But then—
The Devourer changed.
Its flickering body solidified, taking on a humanoid form for the first time. Its faceless head tilted, as if observing Rheon.
And then, in a voice layered with a thousand echoes, it spoke.
"YOU SHOULD NOT KNOW THESE WORDS."
The sky darkened.
And the System itself reacted.
---
The System Intervenes
Far beyond the battlefield, in the endless void where the System's will resided, alarms blared.
Anomaly Escalation: Level 5.
Reality Distortion Detected.
Initiating Contingency Protocol: Overwrite.
The System had watched countless eras rise and fall. It had rewritten worlds, reshaped history, and removed those who sought to defy its rule.
But never before had a mortal spoken the Words of Unraveling.
This was no longer a correction.
It was a crisis.
And the System would do whatever was necessary to erase it.
A new command was issued.
"Deploy the Overwrite."
---
The Overwrite Begins
Back at the ruined temple, Rheon's vision blurred.
A deep, gut-wrenching sensation of wrongness spread through the air, as if the very fabric of reality was being rewritten.
Lorien's eyes widened in terror. "No—NO! The System is trying to erase this moment!"
The walls of the temple began to dissolve. The ground beneath their feet blurred, as if existence itself was being undone.
Elara swore. "It's trying to make it so none of this ever happened!"
Hadric slammed his foot into the ground. "Then how do we stop it?"
Rheon tightened his grip on the fragment.
There was only one way.
The System was trying to erase his knowledge.
But what if he made it permanent?
His heart pounded.
And then, he did something reckless.
He let the Forbidden Fragment's power flow through him—fully, completely, without restraint.
His veins burned with energy beyond mortal comprehension. His soul screamed as knowledge poured into him at an overwhelming speed.
And then—
He spoke the Words of Unraveling again.
But this time, he wasn't just speaking.
He was rewriting reality.
---
Breaking the System's Chains
The moment the final word left Rheon's lips, a shockwave of golden energy erupted outward.
The air stabilized. The temple's walls stopped dissolving.
And the Overwrite… failed.
For the first time, the System's will was denied.
The Devourer's form froze.
The void that had consumed all things stilled.
And then, as if something deep within it had shattered—
The Devourer collapsed.
The sky returned to normal.
The overwhelming sense of erasure faded.
For the first time in its existence, the System had been countered.
And Rheon stood at the center of it all—a man who had defied fate itself.
But then—
A notification appeared before his eyes.
A message from the System.
And its words made his blood run cold.
---
System Notification
WARNING: ANOMALY ESCALATION REACHED MAXIMUM LEVEL.
OVERWRITE FAILURE RECORDED.
DEPLOYING THE SYSTEM'S FINAL PROTOCOL.
INITIATING… SYSTEM RESET.
The world shook.
And everything turned white.