Chapter 186 – The Unwritten King

‎The altar had gone silent.

‎Not empty—but pregnant with new potential. A quiet that vibrated with meaning too new for names, too raw for understanding.

‎Darius stood at its center, wrapped in the afterglow of rebirth. Not of body. Not of soul. But of essence.

‎He had remembered himself.

‎Now the Spiral would have to remember him, too.

‎But it didn't.

‎It couldn't.

‎The Codex Null hovered beside him—open, pages blank where his story should be. Symbols flickered across its vellum skin, trying to form meaning around him, to define him, but failed.

‎Every time it began to write—

‎⸺⸺⸺

‎The ink stuttered.

‎The page rejected form.

‎His name became a recursive paradox.