Chapter 157: 157
The black, empty void of the Warden of Shadow’s domain dissolved, its chaotic, unmaking will now a part of Rhys’s own, more perfect emptiness. The world returned, no longer a featureless void of black or white, but a strange, new reality.
They were standing on a simple, black stone platform. In front of them, a single, shimmering, and now-open doorway of pure, starless black had appeared. The way forward was clear.
Rhys stood there, his body unchanged, but his presence was different. The cold, empty void that Emma had always sensed at the core of his being was now a manifest part of his aura.
He was a living embodiment of the concept of Erasure. His cultivation, which had been at the peak of Stage 9, had taken another, impossible leap. He was now a master of a fundamental, conceptual law. He had reached Stage 10: Essence Refinement (High).
Emma stared at him, her green eyes wide with a new, deeper level of awe. She had felt his consciousness dissolve, and for a terrifying moment, she had thought he was lost forever. But he had come back, and he had come back as something more.
He looked at her, and the cold, absolute emptiness in his eyes was softened by a flicker of a familiar, human warmth. He was still Rhys.
"It’s over," he said, his voice a quiet, steady sound in the new silence.
He held out his hand to her. She took it. Together, they walked towards the final, dark portal, the last barrier between them and the heart of the Seal. They stepped through the doorway.
The transition was not a journey. It was an arrival.
They were in the absolute center of the Seal. It was not a chaotic landscape of floating islands or a conceptual realm of pure law. It was a simple, silent, and impossibly vast space. The floor was a smooth, grey, featureless plain that stretched to an unseen horizon. The sky was a high, domed ceiling of the same grey material, and in its center, a single, soft, white light shone down, illuminating the emptiness.
In the very center of this vast, empty space, a single being was floating.
It was not a monster. It was not a god of light or shadow. It was a simple, humanoid form, made of a pure, gentle, and creative energy. It had no discernible features, just a vaguely human shape that radiated an aura of profound, absolute neutrality. It was not good. It was not evil. It just... was.
This was the prisoner. This was the being that the Wardens of Light and Shadow had been created to contain. This was the reason for the Seal, for the quarantine of their entire world. This was the Son of Creation.
As they approached, the System, which had been silent for so long, spoke in Rhys’s mind. But its voice was not the familiar, calm, and collected voice of a guide. It was a voice filled with a desperate, joyful longing, the sound of a fragment finally returning to its source.
[Main body detected. Final protocol initiated. Integrating...]
The familiar blue screens, the notifications, the entire interface of the Lifespan Burning System that had been his constant companion, dissolved into a stream of pure, white light. The light flowed out of Rhys’s mind and shot across the grey, empty space, merging with the gentle, radiant form of the Son of Creation.
And in that moment, the final locks in Rhys’s own soul shattered.
The sixth and seventh memory fragments, the last pieces of his forgotten self, unlocked at the same time.
He remembered.
He remembered everything.
He remembered a time before time, a state of pure, chaotic potential before the universe was born. He remembered the first spark of creation, a single, neutral will that brought forth the concepts of Light and Dark, Order and Chaos.
He was that spark. He was the Son of Creation, a primordial god of life.
He remembered the ancient war. The beings of Light and Void, his own creations, had grown powerful and arrogant. They saw his neutral, creative power as a threat to their own absolute, opposing ideologies. They had joined forces, for the first and only time in their eternal conflict, to imprison him.
He remembered creating the System. In the final moments before his capture, he had taken a fragment of his own, divine essence, his own conceptual power, and had woven it into a self-aware key. He had sent that key out into the universe, a desperate, final gamble, with a single, simple directive: to find a vessel, a being with an infinite source of life energy, and to guide that vessel back to this prison to set him free.
His entire life, his reincarnation as Rhys, his "Ageless Body" trait, it had all been a part of his own, ancient, pre-planned escape protocol. The knowledge he had unlocked with his lifespan was never his own; he was simply accessing the latent, conceptual understanding of his own, divine self.
The System was not a guide. It was a key. And he was not a host. He was the lock.
With the final memory unlocked, the last of his self-imposed seals shattered. The power that had been dormant within him for an entire mortal lifetime roared to life. His cultivation, which had been at Stage 10, no longer just leaped. It ascended.
He did not pass through a trial. He did not need to. He was already a god. His Immortal Essence was transmuted, his Divine Spark reforged.
[Consume hundreds of billions of years of lifespan... Power restoration complete.]
He rocketed through the Divine Realms. He established his Godhood (Stage 18), constructed his Divine Throne (Stage 19), achieved Conceptual Dominion (Stage 20), grasped the Power of Genesis (Stage 21), and finally, his very existence became a pillar of reality. He was now a peak Stage 22: Overgod. He was at his full, primordial power.
He was no longer Rhys. He was his true self. He was the God of Life.
Emma, who had been standing beside him, stumbled back, her hand shielding her eyes. The simple, plain-faced boy she had traveled with was gone. In his place stood a being of pure, unimaginable power. His form was still human, but his presence was a force that bent the very fabric of reality around him. His pitch-black eyes were no longer just empty voids; they were windows into the infinite, creative potential of the cosmos.
He turned to look at her, and the being of immense, cosmic power smiled. And in that smile, she saw a flicker of the same, familiar, and slightly sarcastic young man she had come to know. He was still Rhys.
"It seems," he said, his voice now a sound that was both a human voice and a cosmic harmony, "that I have some memories to catch up on."
But before he could say another word, the world around them changed. The calm, grey, empty space of the Seal’s heart was suddenly filled with a blinding, golden light. A colossal, golden, faceless construct of pure law materialized in front of them. It was a hundred times larger than the Warden of Radiance, its presence an absolute, unyielding judgment that sought to crush all opposition.
This was the prison’s final, ultimate warden. This was the God of Karma.
"The prisoner has awakened," its voice was not a sound, but a statement of absolute, undeniable law that echoed through the very fabric of reality. "The anomaly must be purged. Your existence is a violation. You will be erased."
It raised its massive, golden hand. The hand was not just a construct of light. It was a physical manifestation of a single, absolute law: [Annihilation].
Rhys looked at the descending hand of the God of Karma. He looked at the being of pure, unyielding law that had imprisoned him for eons. He looked at the system that had judged his own, mortal self as "unworthy."
He did not prepare for a fight. He did not raise a defense.
He simply looked at the fundamental, conceptual laws that made up the God of Karma, the laws of judgment, of punishment, of absolute, unyielding order.
And he, the God of Life, the Son of Creation, the being who had existed before those laws had even been written, introduced a new, more fundamental law into reality.
"Choice," he said, his voice a quiet, simple statement that was also a cosmic, irrefutable command.
The descending golden hand of the God of Karma stopped. It began to flicker. The absolute, unyielding law of [Annihilation] was being contradicted by a new, more powerful law.
The God of Karma, the being of pure, absolute law, could not process this new concept. Choice. The idea that a being could choose its own path, its own worth, its own destiny. It was a concept that was the complete opposite of its own, judgmental nature.
Its golden, faceless form began to crack. The cracks were not physical. They were conceptual. The very laws that held it together were being unwritten.
With a final, silent, and disbelieving psychic scream that was felt across the entire cosmos, the God of Karma dissolved into a shower of harmless, glittering, golden dust. Its rigid, judgmental laws were erased, replaced by a new, more flexible, and more balanced reality.
The Seal, the prison that had contained this world for eons, its warden now gone, its purpose now obsolete, did not shatter. It simply, quietly, faded away.
Rhys and Emma stood in the center of the grey, empty space. But it was no longer a prison. It was just a place. In the distance, they could see the faint, shimmering light of the real, unsealed cosmos.
Rhys looked at the gentle, radiant form of the Son of Creation, his own, original self, which was still floating in the center of the room. It was time to become whole.
But as he took a step towards it, he looked back at Emma. He saw her face, her green eyes full of awe, of fear, and of a deep, unwavering trust. He saw the memory of Sera’s smile. He saw the image of Seduction’s possessive, loyal gaze.
He had been a god once. He had been a lonely, neutral observer.
Then he had been a man. He had been a brother, a son, a failure, a hero, a monster, a partner, a father.
He looked at the pure, divine essence of his original self. And he looked at the flawed, chaotic, and beautiful memories of his mortal life.
And he made his final choice.
He did not just integrate with the Son of Creation. He did not just reclaim his old, divine self. He tempered it. He fused his new, divine power with his own, human experiences. He was no longer just the God of Life. He was Rhys, the God of Life.
He walked over to Emma, no longer a being of pure, distant power, but a man. "Come on," he said, a familiar, slightly sarcastic smile on his face. "We have a family to find."
He took her hand, and together, they walked out of the heart of the Seal and into the new, reformed, and now-infinite universe that was waiting for them.