The Glitch Knight

In the deepest part of the Archives—deeper than Cell #000, past even the Vault of Broken Scripts—was a file so corrupted the System had buried it beneath twelve narrative locks and a dead language no one remembered.

It pulsed once.

Then again.

And the thirteenth time, it pulsed in rhythm with the name:

Caelum.

Sylva awoke from a dream she didn't know she had.

There was no sound.

Just a single sentence etched in crimson across her vision:

"He remembers you."

Her heart hammered in her chest.

She was a swordmaster, trained in clarity and composed fury—but this was something else.

Something personal.

Caelum sat cross-legged in the reflection chamber, the glyphs in his mind flickering like faulty stars.

Across from him, Vyrien lounged on thin air like it was a throne.

"So," Vyrien said, "what will you do now?"

Caelum opened one eye. "There's no 'do.' Just wait."

Vyrien smirked. "You've changed. When you were the Author, you controlled outcomes. Now you respond to them."

"Maybe that's the point."

"Maybe that's why you failed."

The air chilled.

But Caelum didn't rise to it. "The Null Judge is watching."

Vyrien's grin sharpened. "Then let it watch."

At the outskirts of the Academy—where the forest met the glitching border of the rendered world—a figure walked out of nothing.

Not teleportation. Not summoning.

Just emergence.

His armor shimmered like shattered code, each piece held together by logic that shouldn't work. Rusted blue, crackling silver, and black streaks like torn script.

No eyes in his helmet.

No insignia.

But on his gauntlet was a single flickering tag:

[Knight-Class: REMOVED]Original Designation: L-07Alias: "The Glitch Knight"Last Seen: Before the First Rewrite

Tarn, sitting quietly under the shattered observatory dome, felt it before he saw it.

An echo in his bones.

A ripple in the thread of fate.

"…He's back," Tarn murmured, eyes widening.

Behind him, his shadow trembled—not from fear, but recognition.

The System stirred.

[Alert: Discarded Narrative Entity Re-emerging]Cross-reference: Memory RedactedName: L-07 – Knight of the Lost ArcStatus: ErasedERROR: Existence Conflict with Caelum (Anchor-Class)

The system faltered, then made a decision.

New Designation: Catalyst of CollapseObservation Protocol: Passive until Anchor Convergence

The Glitch Knight arrived at the Academy gates.No one saw him.No alarms rang.But Sylva was already standing there, sword drawn, eyes burning.

"You're not welcome."

He didn't speak.

Didn't need to.

The world itself bent slightly, as if trying to unrender him.

She took a step forward. "What are you?"

The Knight's head tilted.The metal groaned like memory.

And in a voice stitched from seven different vocal tones, he said:

"I am what your Author deleted."

Caelum arrived a moment later, stopping dead when he saw the Knight.

His breath caught.

Recognition flared.

Not from logic.

Not from System tags.

But from emotion.

"…You," he whispered. "I remember you."

Vyrien appeared beside him, slower this time. He looked the Knight up and down.

"Well, well. A revenant from the Zero Draft." He grinned. "That makes three of us."

The Knight turned his faceless helm toward Caelum again.

"You were meant to end me."

Caelum stepped forward. "I didn't. I couldn't."

"You rewrote me into nothing."

"I—"

"Because I was too loyal."

The silence that followed was colder than any judgment.

Vyrien, amused, leaned in. "Oh, this is delicious. So, tell me, Knight. Are you here for revenge?"

"No."

The answer rang solid.

"I am here… to finish what was never allowed to start."

That night, Kieran confronted Caelum.

"Who is he?"

Caelum sat in the shadows. His voice was quiet. "A knight from the Zero Draft. He was supposed to guard the Author's anchor—me. But when I lost control, the system deleted him. Erased him from every file."

"Then why is he back?"

Caelum looked her dead in the eyes.

"Because I'm becoming an Author again."

In a sealed part of the world—somewhere between story and reality—the Null Judge watched.

No movement. No interference.

Just recording.

Watching Caelum.

Watching Vyrien.

Watching L-07.

Three pieces from three versions of the world.

A triangle of instability.

And somewhere, in the core of the system, a new variable formed:

Thread Forecast: Unstable Arc Convergence – ETA: 17 ChaptersProjection: Civil Narrative CollapseSolution: Unknown

At midnight, the Glitch Knight stood beneath the dead moon tree alone.

Sylva approached, sword sheathed.

"You're not the enemy."

"No."

"But you're not an ally."

"No."

"Then what are you?"

He said nothing for a long time.

Then:

"I am proof that this story is broken."