Supreme Hunter of Beautiful Souls

Hadriam chose the Courtyard of Statues.

Not because he was willing to lose it, but because it was the only space within the imperial complex that combined three useful characteristics: it was far from the residential wings, had foundations independent from the rest of the palace, and, above all, was large enough to contain a tower without forcing it to pass through bedrooms, halls, or dozens of people in order to exist.

The statues were removed.

The gardens were emptied.

The nearby passages were closed, and the staff were sent to the upper levels. In less than an hour, what was normally an ornamental square filled with fountains and monuments to former emperors had become a containment field.

Kael watched everything from the balcony.

"You really do not mind losing this?"

Hadriam stood beside him.

"One of the statues was of my great-grandfather."

"And?"

"I hated that statue."

"Then we are doing you a favor."

Hadriam looked toward the courtyard.

"If you destroy the fountain, I am charging you."

"Put it on the witches’ account."

Amelia, standing behind the two of them, lifted her eyes from her notebook.

"No."

Kael sighed.

Eleonor had created six spatial layers around the courtyard. None of them tried to prevent something from entering. They did the opposite: they defined with excessive precision where anything authorized to cross should appear.

Center.

Fifteen meters above the ground.

No overlap with the foundations.

No extension beyond the established limits.

Yggdrasil had removed natural roots from the area, preventing the tower from using any living reference to expand its own presence. Umbra had filled the surrounding shadows with her own marks, ensuring that no darkness remained "unclaimed." Elion had installed devices at all four corners to record any alteration in memory, name, space, or causality.

Amelia, however, had prepared the most important part.

A document.

Kael stared at the sheet.

"This looks too simple."

"It is simple."

"You are trying to deceive an ancient construction with bureaucracy."

"You just fought a man who turned people into documents."

"Fair point."

Amelia placed the sheet on the table.

It was a temporary imperial authorization.

The First Archive would be permitted to manifest in the Courtyard of Statues for a period of twenty minutes, exclusively to respond to the contestation registered by Kael Scarlet.

No authority granted.

No transfer of ownership.

No automatic access to the rest of the palace.

No records collected without explicit consent.

Hadriam signed it.

Hela signed as a witness of the Crown.

Eleonor added a spatial seal.

Amelia created a copy and burned the original in a flame that stored the information without preserving the paper.

Kael watched.

"And if it ignores it?"

Amelia closed her notebook.

"Then we will have proof that it is not operating as an archive."

"And instead?"

"As an invader."

Hadriam smiled.

"That gives me much more freedom."

Kael liked that part.

The sky began to brighten.

Seven minutes remained.

Sylphie approached and placed a hand against Kael’s chest. He was better than he had been several hours earlier, but she had already reinforced his channels three times.

"No continuous Celestial Step."

"If necessary..."

"No."

"You know I can simply use it."

"If you use it more than three times, I will knock you down."

Kael looked toward Umbra.

"Are you going to allow that?"

"I will help."

"Betrayal again."

Sylphie removed her hand.

"You can fight. Just do not destroy your body before we understand what you are fighting."

Kael nodded.

This time without comment.

Three minutes.

The air above the center of the courtyard turned white.

Not illuminated.

White.

Like a sheet of paper placed over the world.

The clouds vanished within that square. The sky lost its depth. For several seconds, it looked as though someone had cut a piece from reality and replaced it with blank paper.

Elion checked the instruments.

"No spatial change."

Eleonor frowned.

"Because it is not coming through space."

Amelia understood.

"It is being recorded here."

A black line appeared across the white.

Then another.

Vertical strokes.

Windows.

Stone.

The tower did not appear.

It was drawn.

Every detail emerged as though an invisible hand were filling in a blueprint. First the outline. Then texture. Then weight.

When the foundation was completed, the ground sank three centimeters.

Kael narrowed his eyes.

"It is accepting the coordinates."

Amelia checked the document.

"For now."

The tower finished existing.

White.

Too tall for the courtyard, yet without physically exceeding its barriers. The highest floors seemed to continue upward without occupying the sky, as though part of the structure had been recorded somewhere else.

There was no door at the base.

A sentence appeared on the wall.

CONTESTING AUTHORITY IDENTIFIED.

Below it:

APPROACH FOR CORRECTION.

Kael descended the balcony steps.

Sylphie caught his arm.

"You are not going in alone."

"I was not planning to."

Eleonor raised an eyebrow.

Kael noticed.

"Why does everyone react like that?"

"Experience," Amelia replied.

Kael, Sylphie, Umbra, and Eleonor crossed the courtyard together. Hadriam remained behind the first layer with Violet and Hela. Amelia coordinated the instruments while Elion recorded everything.

When Kael came within five meters of the wall, a door appeared.

It did not open.

It simply began to exist.

Above it, another sentence:

ONE CONTESTANT.

Kael looked toward the others.

"It only wants me."

"It does not matter," Sylphie said.

She tried to advance.

Her foot crossed the doorway’s boundary and reappeared in the same place.

Eleonor tried next.

The result was the same.

"It is not blocking us," she said. "It simply does not recognize our entry as part of the procedure."

Umbra tried to pass through Kael’s shadow.

Her shadow remained outside.

Kael looked at the door.

"Then wait."

Sylphie grabbed his shirt.

"If the connection drops..."

"I will come back."

"That is exactly what you said before entering several things."

"But I came back."

"Kael."

He touched his forehead against hers.

"Ten minutes."

"Five."

"The document says twenty."

"Five."

"Seven."

Sylphie narrowed her eyes.

"Six."

"Deal."

Kael stepped through.

The door disappeared behind him.

The inside of the tower did not correspond to the outside.

There were no stairs.

No floors.

Kael stood on a white plain.

Shelves stretched in every direction without touching the ground. Books floated in perfect rows. Some rose upward until they vanished into the brightness. Others descended beneath the white surface.

At the center stood a table.

The figure Kael had seen through the connection remained seated behind it.

Human, apparently.

Completely black hair.

Pale skin.

White clothing without any ornamentation.

It did not look immediately identifiable as either man or woman. The face was beautiful, symmetrical, and completely indifferent.

A quill rested between its fingers.

A book lay open.

Kael recognized the cover.

His volume.

"Kael Scarlet."

"You already know."

"Yes."

"Then we can save ourselves the introductions."

The figure looked at him.

"Unclassified contesting authority."

"Kael works better."

"Classifications facilitate preservation."

"They also made it easier to turn people into resources."

"The First Archive did not perform those actions."

"But it stored the records."

"Yes."

Kael stopped in front of the table.

"Then you knew."

"Knowledge is not participation."

"If someone records a murder while handing over the weapon, that is participation."

The quill moved.

A sentence appeared inside the volume.

Kael Scarlet assigns moral responsibility to preservation structures.

Kael reached out and closed the book.

The figure looked at his fingers.

"You altered the record."

"You were writing about me without asking."

"Consent is not required for observation."

"It is now."

"According to what authority?"

Kael pulled out a chair that had not existed a moment earlier.

He sat.

The figure observed.

"You created an unregistered object."

"I needed to sit."

"The object came into existence because your volume rejected its absence."

Kael looked at the chair.

"That seems useful."

The figure closed its fingers around the quill.

"Oren Valerius used a derivative of the First Archive. The function was created by the Human Crown to access preserved records."

"He stole names."

"Yes."

"You did not stop him."

"I possess no authority over external decisions."

"But if someone tries to remove a name from here, you stop them."

"Preservation."

Kael leaned back in the chair.

"So your rule is simple. You can keep anything, even without consent, and no one can take it back."

"Imprecise."

"Explain."

"A record is not property."

"Great. Then I can remove it."

"No."

Kael smiled.

"That sounds a lot like property."

The figure remained still for several seconds.

The quill rose on its own.

CONTRADICTION IDENTIFIED.

Kael looked at the sentence.

"Finally."

"You removed eight primary records."

"And I will return more."

"That compromises historical continuity."

"No. The people continue to exist. You can record that you decided to return them."

"A removed record does not remain preserved."

"Make a copy."

The figure stopped.

Kael tilted his head.

"You are an archive."

"Yes."

"Then you record facts."

"Yes."

"If Lucien Marek exists, the fact is that Lucien Marek exists. You do not need to possess his identity to record that."

The quill did not move.

Kael continued:

"You confused the person with the information about the person."

The white plain trembled.

For the first time, several shelves shifted out of position.

The figure looked around.

"Formulation incompatible with primary protocol."

"Then the protocol is wrong."

"The primary protocol cannot be wrong."

"Why?"

"Because it defines what is correct."

Kael released a small laugh.

"We found the problem."

The figure raised one hand.

Kael’s volume opened on its own.

Thousands of pages appeared.

Childhood.

Training.

Battles.

Relationships.

Victories.

Mistakes.

Fears.

Some pages contained moments Kael had forgotten.

Others were incomplete.

An entire section contained only questions.

Origin of scarlet mana.

Celestial classification.

Abnormal compatibility with authority systems.

Relationship with name structures.

Kael skimmed through them.

"You do not know everything."

"No."

"Then your records can be incomplete."

"Yes."

"And a conclusion based on an incomplete record can be wrong."

The figure remained silent.

"Yes."

Kael pointed toward the first sentence.

"Then primary protocol can produce an incorrect conclusion."

The quill began to tremble.

The entire plain responded.

The shelves opened. Millions of pages began turning at the same time. The sound resembled a storm.

CORE INCONSISTENCY.

The figure stood.

"You did not come to request correction."

"You came to me."

"You are attempting to alter the principle of the First Archive."

"I am showing you that it no longer works."

The figure raised one hand.

The world around them changed.

Kael appeared before a destroyed house.

A woman lay dead on the floor.

He knew that place.

A memory.

Not his.

"Record number four million eight hundred and twelve thousand," the voice said. "Last witness dead. Family exterminated. Name lost from the world."

The scene disappeared.

Another appeared.

A burning city.

Then a child hiding a book.

Then a war.

Then hundreds of people whose stories had been erased by the victors.

"The First Archive was created because the world forgets."

Kael remained silent.

"Without absolute preservation, there are lives that would disappear completely."

"I am not asking you to forget."

"You are demanding removal."

"Of living identities."

The figure reappeared before him.

Kael pointed toward the scenes.

"Record what happened. Record the names, the choices, and the deaths. But a living person does not need to remain trapped here for you to prove that they existed."

"The record may diverge from the person."

"That is normal."

"Contradiction."

"No. Change."

The word crossed the First Archive.

Change.

The shelves trembled.

Kael noticed immediately.

The structure did not possess an adequate category.

It preserved.

Cataloged.

Compared.

Corrected.

But it did not accept that a person could stop matching an earlier record without turning the current version into an error.

Seraphine.

The employees.

Kael himself.

All of them had been treated as contradictions because they had changed beyond what had been written.

"You are trying to keep the world true," Kael said. "You simply forgot that people keep writing after the page you preserved."

The figure looked toward his volume.

The final page was blank.

"Your volume does not close."

"No."

"All do."

"When I die, perhaps."

"Even after death, resulting events remain."

"Then my record continues. I do not."

The figure touched the blank page.

"Distinction..."

The quill wrote slowly:

DISTINCTION BETWEEN SUBJECT AND RECORD.

The entire First Archive became silent.

Kael stood.

"Now we are getting somewhere."

The figure raised its eyes.

"Alteration of primary protocol requires authority."

"What authority?"

"Founder."

"And where are they?"

The answer took time.

"Absent."

"Dead?"

"Not recorded."

Kael grimaced.

"Your founder created the largest archive in existence and managed not to leave a record of themselves?"

"Yes."

"That seems deliberate."

"Yes."

"Then they knew some things should not belong to the archive."

Another pause.

The quill wrote.

NEW CORE INCONSISTENCY.

Kael smiled.

"This is going to be a long conversation."

Outside, six minutes had already passed.

Sylphie stared fixedly at the tower when a new sentence appeared across the white wall.

CORRECTION SUSPENDED.

Amelia approached the instruments.

"Is that good?"

Eleonor observed the changes.

"I do not know."

Another sentence appeared.

PROTOCOL REVIEW IN PROGRESS.

Umbra tilted her head.

"Kael is arguing with the building."

Sylphie closed her eyes.

"Of course he is."

Inside the First Archive, the figure closed Kael’s volume.

"A review requires examples."

Kael felt that this was going exactly where he expected.

"How many?"

"Nine active projects derived from records of the First Archive."

The same nine found inside the Index.

"If you demonstrate that the application of the records produced corruption of the purpose of preservation, the consent rule may be evaluated."

Kael narrowed his eyes.

"You want me to investigate your own projects."

"I want data."

"That is outsourcing."

"Unknown classification."

"It does not matter."

The figure extended one hand.

Nine pages appeared in the air.

Voiceless Choir.

Garden of Bones.

Hollow Throne.

Inner Moon.

And five other titles Kael had not yet read.

"Each project originated from material recorded here. Each was authorized by external users."

"The organization?"

"Some."

"The others?"

"Governments. Families. Churches. Institutions that no longer exist."

Kael took the pages.

"If I resolve all nine?"

"The results will be evaluated."

"And the living names trapped here?"

"Individual contestations will be permitted during the review."

Kael remained still.

It was more than he had expected to achieve at that moment.

"I want that in writing."

The figure handed him the quill.

Kael looked at it.

"You are joking."

"I do not possess that classification."

Kael took the quill and wrote the condition into the document himself. The First Archive recorded beneath it:

ACCEPTED.

The door reappeared behind him.

Before leaving, Kael looked at the figure.

"Do you have a name?"

"First Archive."

"That is a function."

The figure remained still.

Kael smiled.

"Maybe you need a review too."

He stepped through the door.

The tower returned him to the Courtyard of Statues.

Sylphie reached him before he had taken two steps and grabbed his shirt.

"Six minutes."

"I won the argument."

Amelia approached.

"How do you win an argument against an archive?"

Kael handed her the nine pages.

"By turning it into an audit."

Hadriam picked up the first sheet.

"Voiceless Choir."

He looked at the others.

"Does this mean we have nine operations?"

"It means we have nine pieces of evidence."

Sylphie examined Kael.

"And afterward?"

"If we prove that the records are being used to remove people’s choices, the First Archive will review its own protocol."

Amelia remained silent.

"You convinced an ancient structure to accept consent as a possible rule."

"Possible."

"How?"

Kael looked toward the white tower.

"I asked whether it could be wrong."

The tower began to disappear.

It did not collapse.

It was erased from top to bottom, line by line, until only a single sentence remained suspended in the air:

REVIEW INITIATED.

Kael stored the pages.

Sylphie was still holding his shirt.

"Now you rest."

"We have nine projects."

"Now."

Kael looked toward Amelia.

She crossed her arms.

Hadriam did too.

Umbra smiled.

Kael sighed.

"I really need to find less coordinated people."

Sylphie began dragging him back toward the palace.

"You will not."

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