The silence that followed the Upper God's departure was not peace.
It was pressure.
Syra stood alone beneath the crackling sky where the gods once met, her palm still faintly glowing with the word he left behind. Yours. It pulsed like a heartbeat—warm, warning, waiting.
Riven emerged from the shadow thread behind her, panting. "That was... not the reunion I expected." He glanced at the still-smoking thrones, three ruined, four divided. "You know what that means, don't you?"
Syra nodded. "The gods won't wait anymore. And they're not united. We won't be able to run—we'll have to fight."
Riven shifted uneasily. "I'd rather not fight divine egos with a pocket knife."
"You won't." Syra turned, adjusting the strap across her shoulder where the Sword of Rejections rested, heavier now than before. "We hunt next."
"Hunt what?"
"The Fourth Fragment."
Riven didn't argue. He never did when her voice sounded like that—steel coated in prophecy. He just followed.
They departed the realm of the gods without a backward glance. It was no longer a place of decision—it was a battlefield awaiting its final chapter.
The map the Librarian had given her glowed in faded ink, guiding their steps through forgotten zones. Not all of them were physical.
The next fragment wasn't buried under earth or sealed in fire.
It was alive.
A living god still tethered to their divine essence, unknowingly guarding what Syra now had to claim by right of blood, pain, and authorship.
The name whispered through the void as they walked: Myriox—the God of Law and Revision, one of the surviving Four.
A god who had once erased entire bloodlines with a sentence.
A god who once attempted to write over Syra's name during the Trial of Inheritance.
And now, the Fourth Fragment pulsed beneath his heart.
Myriox's domain was not fire, not storm, not light.
It was bureaucracy.
Endless towers of white crystal, each filled with burning pages and law-anchors. Justice not as morality, but structure. No soul entered without consent. No choice was made without three witnesses.
And no war began without ten scrolls of proof.
When Syra walked into the City of Edicts, the wind itself felt processed. The sky blinked between sterile light and grey approval.
Guards—seraphs formed of citation and silver—stood at the gates. They turned to block her.
"I seek the Keeper of Edicts," she said. "Myriox."
One guard lifted his spear, which was more ledger than weapon.
"No petition has been filed."
Syra smiled coldly.
"I don't do petitions."
The sword appeared in her hand.
Not drawn.
Just there.
The guards paused—an echo of divine memory rippling through them.
Then one fell to a knee.
"You carry the Editor's name," it said.
"I carry my own," Syra replied, and stepped forward. No one stopped her.
Myriox awaited her not in a throne, but behind a desk carved from judgment itself. Every corner of the room vibrated with tension—as if the universe waited to see which word he would write next.
He didn't look up at first. "You're early," he said.
"I didn't schedule."
"You never do." He closed the book before him and met her gaze. "But we've been expecting you."
Syra remained standing. "You have something I need."
"I have many things," Myriox said. "What makes you think I'll give one?"
"Because I'm not asking."
Myriox stood. He was tall—taller than memory painted him. His body glowed with pale light, trimmed in clauses. His hands, when he raised them, shimmered with divine contracts.
"I am a god of revision, Syra Kaelion. You carry the sword of endings, but I shape beginnings. That blade will not help you here."
She stepped forward. "Then let's speak as wielders, not gods."
Myriox hesitated. "You've killed three of us."
"Three who stood in the way."
"Are you so sure I won't?"
Syra unsheathed the blade. It didn't shine. It dimmed the room around it.
"I think," she said, "you're about to decide what kind of ending you want."
The battle didn't start with a clash.
It started with a paragraph.
Myriox rewrote the space between them—walls shifting into witness stands, time stuttering backward. He tried to delete her next move before she made it.
But Syra had stopped following the outline.
She stepped outside the line.
When his ink touched her shoulder, it bled backward.
The sword of rejections countered not with force, but with refusal.
Myriox gasped as his own command twisted in midair and struck his palm.
"You're using divine law," Syra said. "But I'm not divine. I'm a draft."
She lunged.
The blade met his chest—not to kill, but to reveal.
The Fourth Fragment burned within him, hidden beneath eight layers of sealed logic and reinforced oaths.
He screamed, not from pain, but from unraveling.
"You'll break everything!" he cried.
"No," she said, "I'll rewrite it."
In the final second, he stopped resisting.
Myriox fell to his knees, eyes wide with clarity.
"I remember now… what came before the laws. Before the seals."
He looked up, terrified.
"You're not just the cipher. You're the eraser. The one that erases the editor."
Syra lowered her blade.
"I don't want to erase anyone."
"But you can," he said. "Even him. Even the Architect."
The fragment tore free from his chest. He didn't fall dead. But he didn't stand again either.
Syra held it in her hand. It pulsed like a miniature court, vibrating with unfinished justice.
She turned to Riven, who had just stepped through the threshold.
"Four."
He nodded.
"How many left?"
"Three gods. Three fragments."
She exhaled. "We're past halfway."
"No," said a new voice.
They both turned.
A silhouette stood behind them in the room—a woman, cloaked in red stars, holding a scroll that bled from its edges.
"I'm afraid you've forgotten the Eighth."
Syra froze.
"There are only Seven Keys."
The woman smiled.
"Not a key. A lock."
Outside, the towers of the City of Edicts began to shake.
Because somewhere far beyond the stars, the Fifth God had died.
Not by Syra's hand.
Not by Author's.
But by something that did not belong to the script at all.
And something was watching them now.
Not through prophecy.
But through regret.
End of Volume 2, Chapter 11