“Words rot. When repeated without weight, they become weapons that kill thought.”

  Kai entered Node 11 and immediately heard… everything.

  Not sounds. Not voices. But echoes. Sentences long since severed from their speakers. Phrases that had been spoken, reposted, weaponized, softened, dulled. They circled the atmosphere like vultures.

  

“Everything happens for a reason.”

  

“Time heals all wounds.”

  

“It is what it is.”

  Each one was hollow.

  Each one stung like a lie.

  Rynera recoiled behind him. “What is this place?”

  Kai’s eyes narrowed.

  

“It’s the graveyard of language.”

  At the entry gate, a gigantic decaying sculpture loomed: The Mouth of Babel—choked with severed tongues, rotted pens, and fractured quotes. When Kai stepped forward, it roared a question:

  

“Can you speak without cliché?”

  The ground trembled.

  A wall of classic quotes rose before him. Motivational. Poetic. Familiar.

  

“Speak now, or be reduced to retweets,” it warned.

  Kai didn’t flinch. He inhaled, slow and sharp.

  

“The only truth I have is carved from my mistakes. Every breath I take is stitched from sins I refuse to repeat.”

  Silence.

  Then a shiver.

  The sculpture bowed.

  

[Authenticity Detected.]

  

[Entry Granted.]

  Beyond the gate was an open desert of floating punctuation marks. Commas swirled like dust storms. Apostrophes struck like lightning. Paragraph marks fell like meteors.

  At the center sat a man on a cracked throne made from quotation marks, bound in loops.

  He was old. Ageless. His mouth never stopped moving—he was constantly reciting, even as he sat still.

  

“Are you the Node Keeper?” Kai asked.

  The man blinked, once.

  

“I am the Architect of Empty Words,” he said, smiling as if it were a curse. “I once spoke with meaning. Now I am every overused phrase the world refused to retire.”

  He gestured toward the sky, where holographic tweets and hollow apologies spun.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  

“I used to be a philosopher. But they repeated me until I died.”

  The Architect’s eyes locked onto Kai.

  

“You seek ascent, yet every step you climb demands not power—but clarity. Can you still speak like a god when your voice has been stolen a thousand times by others?”

  He snapped his fingers.

  Reality shattered into a courtroom.

  Kai stood trial—accused by echoes of himself.

  

“You’ve said these words before. You’ve spoken of trauma, pain, rebellion. Prove you’re not recycling yourself.”

  Kai didn’t panic.

  He answered by not speaking.

  Instead, he began rewriting his past in silence—through gesture, through memory, through reconstructed feeling.

  He showed himself in the orphanage. Alone. He showed the rage, not in monologue, but in raw, recreated events. He didn’t tell. He bled.

  The court went silent.

  

[Verdict: Original Intent Confirmed]

  

[Echoes Muted: 81%]

  The Architect leaned forward, intrigued.

  The Architect summoned a false sun—made entirely of platitudes.

  It burned softly. Warmly. Harmlessly.

  

“Here lies the Lie of Optimism,” he explained. “Comforting. Repeating. Numbing.”

  Kai stepped beneath it.

  Immediately, his thoughts slowed.

  

“It’ll be okay.”

  

“Just keep going.”

  

“You’re stronger than you think.”

  His muscles relaxed. His anger dulled.

  His mind threatened to surrender.

  Until he heard his mother’s voice—the real one, from Earth:

  

“You’re only strong because no one saved you. That’s not strength. That’s neglect wearing a cape.”

  Kai screamed.

  

“Get out of my head!”

  He shattered the sun with his bare hand.

  The illusion bled gold.

  The Architect smiled—his lips cracked like paper.

  

“You passed what most fail. You didn’t just reject false words. You found your own.”

  He stood, and his throne disassembled into millions of floating, unused words—virgin syllables never yet spoken.

  

“Take them. Fuse them. Create your own weapon.”

  Kai extended his hand.

  From the cloud, a new sword formed—one built from original terms, unsaid thoughts, unspoken horrors. A blade born not from inspiration—but invention.

  

[Skill Acquired: Echobreaker]

  

A reality-cutting weapon that loses power if used with plagiarized thoughts or mimicry. Gains exponential strength with originality and lived experience.

  Kai bowed his head slightly.

  

“Thanks.”

  

“No,” the Architect whispered. “Thank you. You reminded me I still exist.”

  And with that, the Architect faded—his body dissolving into the very first word ever spoken: “Why?”

  Rynera looked shaken.

  

“This was different. That… wasn’t just a challenge. That was a warning.”

  Kai looked back at the dissolved throne, the battlefield of burned quotes, and the silent sands now littered with potential.

  

“Words can build. But only if we learn how to stop repeating what broke us.”

  The Node faded.

  The Ladder rose.

  They ascended.

  End of Chapter 79