MTLNOVEL Chapter 31: Chapter 28: A Name They Cannot Read
The first attempt was made in the dead of night.
A junior Seer within the Evernight Church, acting under orders, lit a candle in a darkened chamber.
Before them lay an ancient parchment—one imbued with the divine authority of Evernight herself.
Their hands trembled as they dipped a quill into black ink.
Their task was simple: write the name of the anomaly.
The quill hovered over the parchment.
Then, slowly, they began to inscribe—
"Y—"
The ink bled.
Not across the page, not into the fibers of the parchment—but out of reality itself.
The moment the first letter was written, the air tore apart.
A heavy, oppressive silence filled the room.
The candle's flame flickered without wind.
The ink evaporated into nothingness.
Not erased. Not smudged.
Gone.
The junior Seer gasped, their breath stolen by the void that had briefly encroached upon them.
The parchment remained pristine—as if no name had ever been attempted.
And deep in the recesses of their mind, something whispered:
"You cannot write what does not belong."
The Seer collapsed.
---
The Boundaries of Language
It was not just one attempt.
In the following days, various scholars, priests, and mystics across the world tried to inscribe the anomaly's name.
Some attempted with ink, others with carvings in stone.
Some tried to whisper it into the wind, to embed it into the threads of fate through divination.
But all attempts ended the same way.
The ink would vanish.
The stone would crack.
The air itself would refuse to carry the name forward.
The world rejected Yeaia's existence.
Not actively. Not as a conscious effort.
But as if it simply did not have the space to define them.
A story cannot be written if the language to tell it does not exist.
---
The Fool's Revelation
Klein(?) sat within the gray fog, the Book of Secrets open before him.
His gaze was calm, but his thoughts churned.
He had seen it happen. He had felt the rejections ripple through reality.
Not as an attack. Not as a punishment.
But as a truth.
Yeaia was something the world had no script for.
Even fate, which could weave the most complex of destinies, found itself without the right thread to tie them into the loom.
That made them unpredictable.
It made them dangerous.
It made them free.
And that terrified the ones who built the game.
Klein exhaled. He was already beyond fate himself—but he was still acknowledged by it.
He was still recorded, even if that record had been shattered and rewritten.
But Yeaia?
They weren't just outside the Book.
They were never supposed to be in it to begin with.
A god's worst nightmare.
---
Yeaia's Amusement
On the rooftops of Backlund, Yeaia hummed as they spun a silver coin between their fingers.
They could feel it happening. The failed attempts. The frustration of the scholars. The uneasy silence of the diviners.
It was funny.
A thousand gods and scholars could bend the rules, rewrite history, shape destiny itself—
And yet none of them could do something as simple as say their name.
"I really do break everything, huh?" they mused.
A shadow shifted beside them.
Klein appeared, hands tucked into his coat.
"They're going to keep trying," he stated.
Yeaia smirked.
"And they're going to keep failing."
Klein studied them, searching for something in their mismatched eyes.
Then he sighed.
"They're going to want to kill you, Yeaia."
Yeaia shrugged. "Not the first time. Probably won't be the last."
They flipped the coin one last time, then caught it.
"But they can't kill what they can't define."
A breeze rolled across the city.
And somewhere, far beyond the understanding of men—
The first true panic of the gods began.
---
End of Chapter 28
---