Reality reassembled like shattered glass reforming in reverse. The dark liquid, the mechanical eye, the cathedral-like chamber—all exactly as they had been before my visions. I materialized precisely where I had stood when activating the Terminus Protocol, the cold stone floor solid beneath my feet.
But I wasn't alone.
A figure stood across the vast chamber, tall and imposing in obsidian robes that seemed to drink the dim light. Unlike the Administrator's clinical detachment, this presence radiated raw authority—the unmistakable aura of absolute power.
"At last," the figure said, voice resonating with depth that made my chest vibrate. "The convergence point."
I wasn’t in a vision anymore. Recognition flooded my mind. It was Emperor Zarthus in person. The legend whose decisions shape the course of history.
My heart hammered against my ribs as temporal distortion rippled outward from Zarthus's position. The air between us shimmered like heat waves over desert sand.
[TRAIT EVOLUTION CALCULATED]
[DOMAIN ENGINE CURSED HAS EVOLVED TO-
"HALT dimensions WITHIN chamber EXCEPT self," Zarthus spoke, his words carving themselves into the fabric of existence.
Reality stopped.
The message suspended mid-notification, pixels crystallized in perfect stasis. The world around me became an immutable tableau—a perfect three-dimensional photograph capturing a single moment in time.
I remained aware but utterly immobilized, my consciousness trapped within frozen flesh. My thoughts raced, but my body belonged to the frozen dimension. The complexity of what Zarthus had just done was staggering—beyond anything I had ever witnessed.
Zarthus moved with liquid grace, crossing the chamber with unnatural speed. In his hand appeared a rod of perfect darkness—not merely black but a void that actively consumed surrounding light, bending it inward like a black hole condensed into physical form.
"Your achievement was impressive," Zarthus said, studying me with eyes reflecting ancient wisdom and terrible resolve. "Defeating a D-class entity while still in E-tier. You don’t realize how happy I was the moment I sensed it. In that moment I knew you were the key."
The Emperor circled me like a predator, the dark weapon humming with entropic energy. With each step, I felt a crushing sense of betrayal that transcended my physical paralysis—a spiritual wound deeper than any physical pain.
"The Terminus Protocol has specific requirements," Zarthus continued, his voice carrying no malice, only the cold certainty of absolute conviction. "You don't realize how many times I've tried to set people up, to stack everything in their favor, only to watch them fail time and time again. It had to be done as a low-tier because the higher you go, the worse it gets. But it seemed impossible—no matter how many resources I spent on promising candidates, they all died. The defeat of an entity one tier above oneself is extraordinarily rare; doing it to a PINNACLE entity... I thought it was hopeless. When you accomplished it, You can’t possible imagine how relieved I was.
Zarthus stopped directly before me, close enough that I could see flecks of starlight swimming in his irises.
"For centuries, I've protected humanity against the rifts. I've grown in power, reached the pinnacle of what's possible—and then stagnated. The power ceiling has been my prison." His voice softened with what might have been genuine regret. "But the Terminus Protocol changes everything. It unlocks SS-tier rifts, creating new pathways to power previously unimaginable."
With surgical precision, Zarthus plunged the dark rod—the Doomgrave Spike—directly into my heart.
Pain exploded through my consciousness—not merely physical agony but existential torment that reverberated through every fiber of my being. My paralyzed lungs couldn't scream. My frozen tears couldn't fall.
[-ERROR-]
[TRANSCENDENTAL WEAPON DOOMGRAVE SPIKE INTERFERENCE DETECTED]
"Your sacrifice will not be in vain, Volt. Few understand the burden of leadership—the weight of choices that decide the fate of our entire species."
[NEMESIS EVOLUTION TRANSFERANCE INITIATED]
"The DOOMGRAVE SPIKE is ancient—older than Earth itself. It doesn't merely kill; it harvests potential, transferring evolutionary energy from one vessel to another. A cruel tool, perhaps, but necessary."
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--------------------TERMINUS PROTOCOL DETECTED
"Can you feel it? Your power flowing into me? This is what separates leaders from the rest—the willingness to become the monster that saves everyone else. Your evolution would have been wasted on you fighting minor threats while humanity crumbles. We don’t have time to waste."
--------------------IMMUTABLE VARIABLE
"There it is. The Terminus Protocol activates. Even now, across every settlement, across every colony, F-tier rifts are collapsing while SS-tier rifts bloom into existence. The weak will suffer, yes—but humanity needs this crucible."
--------------------REALITY MATRIX SYSTEM OVERRIDE
"With the SS-tier rifts," Zarthus continued, oblivious to the quantum mechanics unfolding, "I will finally break through my limitations.
--------------------INITIATE QUANTUM FATE-SYNC
"No hesitation, no second-guessing. Just like leadership should be. Decisive. Final. In my hands, this power will reclaim Earth. Our birthright. Our true home. The rift-trash that infests our planet will learn what happens when humanity brings its full power to bear. I am not sorry." Zarthus said, twisting the spike deeper as energy cascaded between us. “Goodbye Volt."
Zarthus watched with grim satisfaction as my body disintegrated completely, leaving only the DOOMGRAVE SPIKE hovering in empty space, pulsing with stolen power.
My awareness fragmented as my body began disintegrating at the quantum level. The DOOMGRAVE SPIKE didn't merely destroy tissue—it unmade my very existence, erasing me from reality's equation. Each moment stretched into eternity as I felt myself being unmade, my consciousness struggling against complete dissolution.
[QUANTUM FATE-SYNC SUCCESFUL]
My vision fractured into prismatic shards as my body collapsed toward quantum dissolution. Something profound was happening at the boundary between existence and non-existence—a phenomenon beyond death, beyond pain, beyond understanding.
As the DOOMGRAVE SPIKE created a microscopic singularity at its impact point, I felt the fabric of reality split along quantum fault lines. The weapon's infinite energy density forced a decoherence cascade—splitting the universe into two branches. In one, I died. In the other, a possibility existed.
The attack twisted spacetime around itself, creating a relativistic frame-dragging effect. As my consciousness approached the event horizon of this localized singularity, the fundamental laws of physics began working in my favor. The holographic principle engaged—my three-dimensional information projecting onto the two-dimensional surface of the singularity.
Like data preserved in radiation, my entire being became encoded on this boundary between realities.
The singularity's extreme conditions created a bridge—a wormhole connecting to another point in the multiverse. My holographically preserved consciousness tunneled through this bridge, adhering to the principle of quantum immortality. My awareness, stored in the boundary layer of the singularity, projected through the wormhole into another branch of reality then that reality collapsed and merged with the one I had just been killed in.
* * *
Consciousness returned like a thunderclap.
I jolted upright, gasping for air, my hands clutching at my chest where phantom pain echoed through my nervous system. No wound remained, but the memory of the spike piercing my heart felt more real than the room around me.
My vision flickered with two-dimensional artifacts—holographic remnants of my quantum reconstitution. My inner ear struggled to reconcile with rotated spacetime, causing waves of nausea that threatened to overwhelm me.
Disoriented, I scanned my surroundings. Gone was the cathedral-like chamber of Central Stability. Instead, I found myself in a cramped, dilapidated apartment—peeling wallpaper, flickering lights, the distant sound of hovercrafts rumbling outside.
My old home. From before everything—before the rifts, before the tiers, before the Void Reject. When I was just a blank.
[STATUS RECALIBRATING...]
[TIER: F]
[TRAIT: REALITY MATRIX(TAINTED)]
[WARNING: QUANTUM INSTABILITY DETECTED]
F-tier. I'd been reset—worse than reset. Everything stripped away. My power, my progress, my purpose—all stolen by the Emperor's betrayal.
I staggered to the cracked mirror hanging on the wall, studying my reflection with growing horror. My eyes now held a strange quality—a flickering emptiness, as if parts of me existed in dimensions beyond normal perception.
I could feel the REALITY MATRIX trait pulsing within me—a corrupted shadow of what the Emperor had stolen. TAINTED, but still there. It felt different from DOMAIN ENGINE, yet somehow connected to it. A fragment of something greater. Something that shouldn’t exit.
Zarthus had miscalculated. The Status System restored balance and rejected his interference. The quantum singularity created by the DOOMGRAVE SPIKE had allowed my consciousness to survive through multiversal tunneling then the System merged the entire dimension with my original reality. The Emperor believed he had destroyed me completely, absorbing all my power—but instead, he'd created something new.
I placed my palm against the mirror, watching as reality rippled slightly around my fingers. Tainted my trait felt unbound, it hummed with power and something sinister.
"I understand now," I whispered, my voice hoarse with emotion. "Reality isn't just malleable—it's fractured. Always has been."
The betrayal crystallized something within me—a purpose transcending mere revenge. The Emperor had activated the Terminus Protocol to unlock SS-tier rifts, sacrificing the safety of humanity's weakest members for his own ambition. All while believing himself humanity's savior...
My fingers curled into a fist against the mirror, cracking the glass along quantum fault lines that shouldn't exist.
"I will rebuild," I promised my shattered reflection, each word edged with cold determination. "From F-tier to SS. I will master this tainted matrix."
The mirror fragments began floating, suspended in air as reality bent around my growing resolve.
"And when I return, I won't just kill you, Zarthus. I will shatter reality itself and rebuild it without you. Ten thousand times over if necessary."
The floating shards collapsed to the floor as my control faltered. But for that brief moment, I had glimpsed my potential—the shadow of what I could become.
Outside my window, lightning split the sky over Lighthouse City. A storm was coming.
And so was I.
END OF BOOK ONE
