Cosmic Ruler

Chapter 610: Arena XLIX

Beneath the Garden’s canopy, the tension crackled like lightning caught in a net of vines.

Not all resistance was voiced. Some was held close—clenched in fists, pressed behind tight lips, whispered along private channels of thought. The Blank Sky Pact had fought monsters, gods, and paradoxes. But what now stood before them—a treaty with the Unwritten—was harder to aim at.

Harder to strike.

Harder to survive.

Kael remained unmoved at the edge of the circle. His fingers brushed the hilt of his blade, but he did not draw. His silence spoke louder than any accusation. Saphrel, flanked by the Pale Witnesses she had once led into the Mouth of Silence, circled the page as if guarding it from both threat and corruption.

Elowen turned to Aiden, her voice quiet.

“They trust you. But they don’t trust this.”

“I don’t blame them,” Aiden said.

He gazed down at the child still seated on the throne of chain and memory. Not quite boy. Not quite symbol. A nascent narrative—one that might still diverge into blessing or catastrophe.

A story asking not to be feared.

Only to be heard.

And yet even now, the Garden was reacting strangely.

Its roots twitched beneath the soil. Its branches curled not in joy, but in wariness. The living memory that formed its foundation recoiled at some unseen pressure.

The page… trembled.

Not with fear.

With strain.

Because something else was coming.