The storm had been chasing them for three days now — not wind, not rain, but something hungrier. Every flash of light in the clouds above wasn't lightning but memory: the echoes of gods burned into the atmosphere. The world itself was glitching — day folding into night like broken code, rivers reversing course midstream, stars flickering in daylight.
Lin trudged through the ash plains with his cloak pulled tight, boots sinking in soot that whispered names. Crystal floated beside him, her eyes glowing faintly blue, scanning the horizon for threats she couldn't quite define. Her sword was dim now — the phoenix energy that once lit it had gone silent.
"System reads instability," she said softly. "The realm's divine circuit is collapsing. Every god that once powered this world is… gone."
Lin stopped walking. He didn't need the system to tell him that. He could feel it — the silence was too complete. In worlds like this, silence wasn't peace; it was aftermath.
Behind them, the others followed in grim silence — Shade, Vyrra, and the remnants of the fallen clans they'd rallied since the jungle war. What had once been rivalry had hardened into survival.
Then the sky cracked.
Not metaphorically — actually split open like glass, revealing another layer underneath. Behind the storm clouds was a city, burning upside down. A thousand metal towers turned toward them like staring eyes.
Crystal's sensors blared. "Multiverse interference. That's not a sky. It's a reflection. Something's forcing a connection."
Lin raised his hand. "Portal?"
"No. It's a mirror. Someone's watching."
The ground trembled. Out of the ash rose a figure — tall, armored, face hidden under a fractal mask. His presence was wrong, like he didn't belong to physics.
"Who dares stand in a godless realm?" the voice thundered.
Lin met the gaze, unfazed. "Someone who killed one."
The masked figure tilted his head. "Then you are the anomaly." He drew a blade made of shifting runes, each symbol rewriting itself faster than the eye could follow. "I am the Arbiter of the Lost. I balance the void."
Shade muttered, "Oh good. Another cosmic bureaucrat."
The Arbiter moved faster than sound. Crystal barely blocked the first strike — the shockwave alone turned the ash around them into molten glass. Lin's system interface flickered red: [Divine Protocol Detected: Class Ω Entity.]
He didn't hesitate. "Crystal — engage Phoenix Drive."
Her eyes flared. The sword ignited in gold fire again, wings bursting from her back, molten feathers drifting down like sparks. Lin surged forward beside her, the shadows coiling around his fists. They clashed with the Arbiter, divine heat against cold algorithm.
Each hit broke part of the sky — the mirror above them fracturing more, until glimpses of other realms bled through: the jungle, the city of glass, the void sea, even Earth for a fleeting second.
The Arbiter roared, "You cannot cross worlds freely!"
Lin smirked. "Then stop me."
The fight blurred into chaos. Time skipped, seconds repeating, reality buffering like a lagging video. Then Lin drove his hand through the Arbiter's chest — not killing him, but reaching through him, touching the code that powered his existence. The world screamed.
The Arbiter fell to one knee, voice fading. "You've awakened it… the Engine of Origins… You don't know what you've done."
And then he disintegrated, leaving only a shard of code hovering in the air — glowing with the symbol of infinity.
Crystal grabbed Lin's arm. "That's not power you can hold. It's rewriting your link to the system."
Lin's veins glowed silver. He looked up, and for the first time — the storm above looked afraid.
"Then maybe," he said quietly, "it's time they learned who writes the rules now."
The horizon split open again — this time not as reflection, but as invitation.
And the Realms began to burn anew.
— End of Chapter 46 —