CHAPTER 90.

Chapter 90 – The Outcast and the End

The fabric of reality folded inward.

Jean felt no resistance as she passed through the boundaries of mortal space, guided by the pull of the Codex within her soul. The Word of Unmaking opened the way—carving a path not across the world, but between truths.

She found herself in a place without light or shadow, where stars flickered like candle embers inside an ocean of ink.

There, suspended on nothing, sat a being made of half-glimpsed things: shapes that did not exist, thoughts never fully formed. A presence so immense it could only be known in fragments. Eyes that did not blink—only stared with the weight of dreaming eternity.

Aza Roth. The One Who Dreams in Ink.

He spoke not with voice, but with understanding, each word etched directly into the walls of her mind.

> "You have come, Wordbearer."

Jean stood calmly. Eclipsion and Solstice were silent at her side.

"I seek knowledge," she said. "Of the Seven Pillars. Of you."

A pause, long and unfathomable.

> "Then listen."

And the Dreamer began to tell.

> "The universe does not rest on gods. Not on dragons. Not on men. It rests on truths so absolute they cannot be defied, only danced around. They are the Pillars of Existence—each a facet of the primordial design, each a contradiction of the other."

> "The First is Ordius, the Architect of Order. Law, reason, permanence."

> "The Second is Arishma, the Source of Magic. Possibility, mutation, expression."

Jean flinched. Arishma—the name inscribed within the Codex.

> "The Third is Khaos, the Ever-Shifting. Entropy, madness, revolution."

> "The Fourth has no true name. We call it the Temporal Nexus—the Being of Space and Time. It sees all timelines, but walks none."

> "The Fifth is Spirit Sovereign, the Flow of Life and Death. Souls belong to it—yet even it does not know their destination."

> "The Sixth is the Eternal One, the Radiance, the Light that Sees All and Judges Nothing."

> "The Seventh is the Abyss, the Shadow That Learns. It feeds on knowledge, and from it, birthes darkness."

Jean's breath caught as the last name approached.

> "And then… there is me. The Outcast. The Eighth. The Dreamer. The END."

Aza Roth's form flickered. The ink of reality rippled.

> "I was not made like the others. I became."

> "I am Oblivion. Not the destroyer—but the silent understanding that everything will end. Even them."

Jean's heart pounded. "Why tell me this?"

> "Because you bear the Word. The Codex remembers me. And because they will come for you."

She raised her chin. "Who?"

> "The Pillars. They do not like change. They fear what was stolen. They will test you."

Jean's grip tightened. "Even gods can bleed."

Aza Roth chuckled—though it was not a sound, but the ceasing of all sound around her.

> "Child, they are not gods. They are worse. They are the script to which reality bends."

> "And yet… even a script can be rewritten. That is why they left me out."

> "Why I was cast into the ink."

He leaned closer, and for the briefest moment, Jean saw a shape—human and not, torn by visions, stitched by forgotten truths.

> "You must learn their names not to fear them… but to understand how to defy them."

Jean felt the Codex stir. Words scrawled themselves across her soul in runes no language could hold.

"Then teach me," she said, her voice unshaken.

> "Good."

> "Then let the Dream begin."

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