The transition from the Glyph Cathedral to the Chrono-Scriptorium wasn’t teleportation—it was recalibration. Time around Kai warped like a film reel buckling in fire. The Codex Ladder trembled, each step echoing across centuries both lived and unwritten.

  He emerged in silence.

  Not the kind born from absence, but the deliberate hush of paused realities. Before him stood the Chrono-Scriptorium—a cylindrical monolith spiraling upward and downward infinitely, its outer walls engraved with timelines, each tick a heartbeat of an extinguished world.

  Inside, scribes made of porcelain and cracked glass moved in jittery loops, some rewriting events with quills made from comet spines, others deleting moments by drinking from hourglass goblets.

  Above the central archive, the Keeper watched.

  Name: Veltharn, The Chrono-Warden

  Codex Title: The One Who Deletes Guilt

  Rewrite Tier: 8.9/10

  Skill Seed: Temporal Refractor (Time/Emotion Hybrid)

  Kai stepped forward.

  “I need access to the Root Archive,” he said, his voice slowed by the ambient pressure of stalled time.

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  Veltharn descended without a word, eyes flickering through Kai’s entire lifespan with each blink.

  “You seek what should remain lost,” the Keeper rasped, her voice layered in a dozen dialects, some forgotten, some unborn. “Why?”

  Kai didn’t hesitate. “To understand why I became what I am.”

  The air stilled. A challenge.

  [Chrono Trial: Initiated]

  [Subject: Kai’s Personal Past]

  [Parameters: Cannot Intervene. Only Witness.]

  Without warning, Kai was thrown backward into memory—not memory from his own perspective, but third-person. Detached. Helpless. He saw his younger self—fragile, angry, and brilliant—burning bridges faster than he could build them. A lonely boy with too many thoughts and no one willing to listen.

  He saw his mother, erased by time through terminal illness.

  His father, not cruel—but absent, in the worst way.

  He saw the girl he once loved, choosing someone less complicated.

  And the friend who betrayed him, trading loyalty for popularity.

  Worse still were the glimpses of what could have been.

  In this chamber, time didn’t just show truth—it showed contrast. Kai’s path wasn’t inevitable. Merely chosen, moment by moment, scar by scar.

  His fists clenched as younger Kai shattered another clock, screaming at the world to slow down, to make sense.

  Veltharn’s voice returned: “Do you regret the path?”

  Kai exhaled.

  “No.”

  He turned toward the Keeper, fire in his eyes.

  “I needed to burn to illuminate the dark.”

  [Chrono Trial: Completed]

  [Memory Core: Accepted]

  [Skill Acquired: Temporal Scour] – (Allows Kai to burn away false timelines from his surroundings.)

  Veltharn nodded. “Then you are permitted ascent. But beware—editing time doesn’t undo pain. It refocuses it.”

  As Kai stepped forward, the Scriptorium folded into stasis, shrinking into a glyph embedded in his wrist.

  One more Node conquered. One step closer to the top.

  End of Chapter 73