---
> "Truth is not a weapon.
It is a wound that never heals."
---
[Location: Collapsing Temple Ruins – Forbidden Range]
The moment Kael—the Ninth Monarch—rose, the temple imploded behind him.
Stone didn't fall or break.
It ceased to have ever existed.
Jin-Soo looked behind and saw sky where a temple had once stood.
Even Yuna was shaken.
> "This is different," she said, eyes wide. "He's not like us."
Kael walked ahead of them, barefoot, each step leaving a mirror-shaped imprint in the dirt that faded seconds later.
He didn't speak.
But with each second, reality adjusted around him.
---
[System Flare – Global Impact Detected]
> [WARNING: Architect Harmony disrupted]
[WARNING: Memory Threads breaking across five global zones]
[Effect: Individuals regaining memories previously erased]
[Danger: Monarch Resonance Uncontained]
Jin-Soo's system tried to stabilize itself—
But Kael's presence was truth made flesh. Systems could only lie.
And so… they were beginning to shatter.
---
[Jin-Soo's Flashback – Or Is It?]
Suddenly, he fell to his knees.
His vision spun.
And a scene appeared—so vivid it couldn't be imagination.
> A table.
A meal.
A woman's voice. His mother? Laughing gently.
He remembered this.
But then—
> The same woman vanished, mid-sentence.
> And a new one appeared, smiling the same way. Saying the same words.
Only her face was wrong.
Jin-Soo's breath hitched.
> "This isn't real…"
---
[Kael Speaks – For the First Time in Hours]
He turned slowly.
His voice was soft, but every word vibrated in the bones:
> "You were rewritten."
> "The moment you survived the dungeon at fifteen."
> "Your system didn't find you…
It was trying to keep the original version of you buried."
Jin-Soo stood, trembling.
> "Why? What… what did they want me to forget?"
Kael's eyes glinted.
> "That you were one of us before you were ever broken."
> "You weren't given power."
> "You were made to forget that it was stolen."
---
[Flash Memory – System Lock Cracking]
A deeper layer inside Jin-Soo's interface unlocked:
> [Memory Vault: Fragment 001 Unsealed]
[Title: "The Fracture Child"]
[Date: Architect Year -3, Forbidden Record]
[Identity: Jin-Soo – Monarch Seed]
And with it—
The image of Jin-Soo as a child.
Not poor.
Not broken.
But standing in a silver room filled with Monarch sigils, crying as Architects stood around him.
One of them whispered:
> "Seal him. If he remembers, this entire lie collapses."
---
[Yuna Reacts]
Yuna's hands were trembling.
> "You were one of us… all along?"
Jin-Soo shook his head.
> "I didn't know. I swear. I was just trying to survive."
She didn't move away.
Instead, she stepped closer.
> "That's why your silence was different."
"It wasn't learned.
It was returned."
---
[System Alert: Memory Leak – Global]
Around the world, other E-Rank hunters and forgotten citizens began to remember things that shouldn't exist.
One man screamed that he used to have a daughter.
A woman in Japan fainted as she saw her husband's name return to family records.
A child in Canada drew the face of Jin-Soo and whispered:
> "He's bringing the voices back."
---
[Origin Response: Terminal Code Activated]
Inside The Atrium, panic bloomed.
Architects began shutting down system lines across continents.
> "Begin Final Harmony Protocol."
> "Prepare the Seraph Units."
> "Kael has broken concealment."
But the Supreme Architect whispered:
> "Let him speak.
We want to see if the lie… can survive a scream."
---
[Kael's Next Target – "The Garden of Frozen Thought"]
Kael stopped walking.
> "Our next step is north," he said flatly.
Jin-Soo nodded.
> "What's there?"
Kael looked skyward.
> "The garden where the first Monarch died.
Where her thoughts were frozen in time."
> "And if we reach her…"
> "We'll finally know who the Architects really are."
---
[Final Scene – Ji-Eun's Apartment, Seoul]
Jin-Soo's sister sat on her floor, reading quietly.
Suddenly, she froze.
She looked up.
And whispered:
> "Jin-Soo…"
Tears filled her eyes.
> "Why… why did I just remember the day you saved me from the fire?"
> "That didn't happen.
That… that was erased…"
She clutched her head—
> And for the first time in years, her memory rebelled.
---