CHAPTER 20: THE WHITE VOID AND THE WEAVER'S RECKONING
The transition from the Star-Cluster to the "White Void" was not a movement through space, but a shattering of the final conceptual barrier. Li Xiao and his four Void Apostles stepped out of the black rift into a realm that was the antithesis of everything they had known. There was no sky, no stars, and no shadows. Everything was an endless, blinding expanse of absolute white—the primordial canvas upon which the multiverse was sketched.
At the center of this infinite emptiness sat a figure behind a loom made of translucent, vibrating strings. This was the 'Primordial Weaver', the entity that had existed before the first "Ding" of any system, the one who had woven the Five Simulations into the fabric of Li Xiao's soul.
[ Warning: Beyond the Reach of the System. ]
[ Current Reality: The Origin. ]
[ Status: Absolute Convergence. ]
Li Xiao stood before the Weaver, his ten wings of obsidian shadow casting the only darkness in this pristine realm. The white soul of his teacher hovered beside him, her light pulsing in rhythm with his Primordial Heart. Behind him, Lin Yue, General Wei, Han Xue, and Yan Feng stood as statues of living void, their divine forms straining against the pure "Order" of the White Void.
"You have come further than the previous versions of you, Devourer," the Weaver spoke. His voice was not a sound, but a direct manipulation of the laws of existence. He didn't look at Li Xiao with fear, but with the weary disappointment of a craftsman looking at a broken tool. "Five thousand years of simulations, four lives of perfect sacrifice... and yet, you chose to return to the hunger."
Li Xiao took a step forward, and the white floor beneath his feet cracked into black fissures. "The simulations were not meant to 'fix' me, Weaver. They were meant to distract you. You thought that by giving me a 'System' and a 'Path of Redemption', I would be too busy playing the hero to notice the strings you were pulling."
"I gave you the chance to be loved," the Weaver countered, his fingers dancing across the strings of the loom. "I gave you an Empress who would die for you, a General who would guard you, and a Saintess who would pray for you. I gave you the humanity you never possessed."
"You gave me a cage of gold and called it a gift!" Li Xiao roared, his voice causing the White Void to tremble. "You used my teacher's soul as the bait! You made me live through five thousand years of agony just to see if you could turn a 'Calamity' into a 'Servant'. But look at me now... does this look like a servant to you?"
Li Xiao raised his hand, and the obsidian wings behind him transformed into a colossal spear of pure 'Nihility'. "Lin Yue, Wei, Han Xue, Yan Feng! The Weaver thinks your love for me was his creation. Show him that the 'Regret' he planted has grown into something he can no longer control!"
The four Apostles lunged forward. They weren't just fighting a god; they were fighting the very 'Source' of their own destinies. Lin Yue's blade sliced through the white threads of the loom, her every strike fueled by the five hundred years of regret that had become her new Dao. General Wei's obsidian shield blocked the Weaver's attempts to 'Erase' their existence. Han Xue and Yan Feng worked in tandem, one dissolving the Weaver's light while the other refined it into dark energy for Li Xiao.
The Weaver sighed, and with a flick of his wrist, the White Void erupted into a storm of 'First Laws'. It was a battle of pure concepts. The Weaver tried to 'Rewrite' the Apostles into dust, but Li Xiao's presence acted as an anchor of nothingness that even the Creator could not overwrite.
"You are a mistake that refuses to be corrected," the Weaver said, his presence expanding until he filled the entire horizon. "If I cannot weave you into the story, I will simply burn the loom."
The Weaver began to pull the strings of the multiverse, intending to collapse all realities into a single point of annihilation. The stars of a trillion galaxies began to blink out.
But Li Xiao only smiled—a cold, terrifying expression of ultimate victory. "You still don't understand, Weaver. I didn't come here to destroy your loom. I came here to become it."
Li Xiao's body began to dissolve into a black mist that didn't just occupy space, but replaced it. He lunged at the Weaver, not to kill him, but to 'Consume' him. As his obsidian shadows entwined with the Weaver's white light, the two primal forces of the universe began to merge.
[ Ding! Initiating Final Synthesis. ]
[ Devourer + Creator = The Architect of the New Origin. ]
[ The Five Simulations are being integrated as the Foundation of the New Universe. ]
Lin Yue and the others watched in awe and terror as the White Void turned into a swirling vortex of violet, black, and gold. The Weaver's scream was lost in the roar of the new creation. Li Xiao was no longer just the Devourer or the Architect; he had become the very fabric of existence itself.
In the final moments of the synthesis, Li Xiao's voice echoed one last time in the minds of his loyal shadows. "Lin Yue... Wei... Han Xue... Yan Feng... the debt is paid. The cage is gone. In the new world I am weaving, you will not be 'Heroes' or 'Sacrifices'. You will be the masters of your own stars."
The White Void exploded in a flash of absolute transcendence.
When the light faded, a new multiverse had been born. In this new reality, there were no 'Systems' and no 'Predetermined Fates'. There was only a vast, infinite ocean of stars, and at the center of it all, a silent, masked figure sitting behind a loom of obsidian starlight, watching over the souls he had once died for—not as a victim, but as their God.
The simulation was over. The real world had finally begun. And for the first time in eternity, th
e Architect was no longer hungry. He was home.