Ash fell like snow.
The Flamebound Citadel loomed ahead—its gates blackened, its towers scorched into skeletal silhouettes. Once the capital of the Demon King's empire, it now stood silent, ruled only by ghosts of unfinished stories.
As Yui stepped through the archway, her system pulsed with a chilling message.
---
System Alert
> 📖 Entering: "The City of Forgotten Ink"
Description: Fragmented memory zone. Constructed from discarded drafts, rewritten scenes, and removed characters.
⚠️ Warning: Logic and identity may be unstable.
Author's Note: These are the words you tried to forget.
---
Fragmented Streets
The group moved cautiously. Everything here was almost real—half-rendered walls, streets that faded into sentences, lamp-posts that blinked like cursors.
Yui paused.
> "I know this place…"
She touched a building—and it shifted, flickering into a cozy bookshop she once described in an abandoned draft. The sign read:
> "The Inkblot Café – Where endings never come."
Inside, a girl waited at a dusty table, sipping black tea.
She looked exactly like Yui—but older, colder. Her hair was shorter, her eyes full of exhaustion.
> "So you finally made it," said the mirror-Yui. "I was wondering when you'd come clean up your mess."
---
Confrontation: The Author Who Stayed
> "Who are you?" Yui asked, her voice trembling.
The other girl smiled bitterly.
> "The version of you that never died. The one who stayed trapped here, in the story you abandoned."
> "I didn't abandon it…"
> "Didn't you? You left us. You wrote us into pain—and when it got hard, you stopped."
The false Yui stood.
> "Now the world's falling apart, and you think you can come back and rewrite the ending?"
Azarion stepped forward, but Yui held out a hand.
> "Let me."
She stepped closer to her echo-self.
> "I'm not here to overwrite you. I'm here to remember why I wrote you in the first place."
The city pulsed—walls glowing softly, buildings finishing themselves.
---
System Syncing...
> 📘 Author Fragment Integrated: "The Girl Who Stayed"
Trait Gained: Inkbound Resilience – Immune to illusion-based corruption within story realms.
Memory Gained: Original Draft Ending – Locked (87% Corruption)
---
The two Yuis touched hands, and the mirror one faded like smoke—leaving behind a single white quill.
Yui picked it up. The quill pulsed with quiet power.
> "We're close," she whispered. "The Throne is ahead."
> "And the Echo King?" Azarion asked.
Thunder rolled above.
> "Already here," said Elion grimly, looking toward the skies.
Lightning split the heavens, revealing a floating platform of obsidian and echoes—upon which the Echo King descended, cloaked in memory, crowned in grief.
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