Ash still hung in the air.

  The cathedral lay in ruins, reduced to charred bones beneath a sky that bled crimson. In the aftermath of the Harbinger’s attack, silence reigned—but it was not peace. It was the quiet that follows revelation, the kind that forces even gods to look away.

  Ascheritt stood in the rubble, his clothes torn, hands trembling—not from weakness, but from something far older.

  Power.

  It stirred now, no longer dormant. The moment Lyria sacrificed herself, something unspoken cracked within him. The world had tried to erase her—and failed. Not because it lacked the strength, but because she chose to die believing in him.

  That belief rewrote a rule. Even if only for a second.

  And that second was enough.

  In his hand, he held what the Harbinger left behind: a fragment of Deicripture—living scripture forged from divine law, typically wielded only by godspawn. It pulsed faintly in his palm, bleeding liquid text that faded before it could be read.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  He had no idea how he was still alive.

  But the truth was sinking in.

  He wasn't just outside law anymore.

  He was beginning to overwrite it.

  The Watcher returned as night fell.

  It said nothing at first, only observed as Ascheritt lit the last of Lyria’s memory candles—rituals she once performed to keep the Forgotten at bay. His hands mimicked her movements exactly, as if memory had stitched itself into his muscles.

  Then the Watcher finally spoke.

  “You’ve made enemies you can’t yet comprehend.”

  Ascheritt didn’t look up.

  “I had no choice.”

  The Watcher's silver eye glinted. “You did. And you chose grief. That makes you dangerous.”

  A pause.

  “What was that thing?”

  “A Harbinger. One of the Living Law’s oldest weapons. But its presence here means something else.”

  “Which is?”

  The Watcher stepped forward. The ground beneath it wilted into ink.

  “The gods are no longer observing.”

  Ascheritt’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning they’ve stopped watching?”

  “Meaning they’ve started acting.”

  Later that night, Ascheritt sat at the base of a broken obelisk. The stars overhead looked less like lights and more like scars—open wounds across the heavens. He stared at the Deicripture in his hand, wondering what it would cost to keep going.

  Then a breeze passed by.

  Soft. Familiar.

  And he swore he heard her voice, like a fading refrain in the music she once played:

  "Keep walking. Write louder than they can erase."