Chapter 6 — Rebuilding the Pawn
The Origin Node pulsed heavily but softly.
Light from the reborn sky spilled over a wasteland of drifting debris—ruined fragments of continents, cities trapped in frozen code, half-rendered oceans suspended in the void.
Aris stood at the center of it all, his palms pressed to the ground. His veins glowed silver.
[Reality Rewrite Lv 4 Active.]
[Subroutine : System Sight — Enabled.]
Through the new sense he saw threads—trillions of glowing lines weaving through the air, each one a remnant of what Pawn World 819 used to be.
Lyra hovered beside him, half-transparent. "You're rebuilding the world manually? That's… insane."
He smiled faintly. "Insanity's just another rule. And I can edit rules."
He reached out and pulled.
A thread came loose, unraveling a memory of forested valleys, sunlight, rivers. The fragments rushed toward the island and stitched themselves into form.
Ground spread outward. Hills breathed again. Clouds returned, coded from memory.
[New landmass generated : Territory 'Elyon Basin'.]
[Stability : 37 %.]
Aris wiped sweat—or maybe static—from his brow. "Still fragile."
Lyra floated closer, her voice soft. "You're remaking it from memories. It'll never be perfect."
"It doesn't need to be." His eyes glowed brighter. "It just needs to live."
He pushed harder, drawing on the residual energy of the Seraphim's shattered core. The ground rumbled. Mountains rose. Data-rain fell from the forming clouds.
Tiny lights flickered within the soil—seeds of life encoded in forgotten fragments.
[Initiating Reconstruction Sequence …]
[Population Fragments : 12 Detected.]
Lyra gasped. "There are still survivors?"
Aris's heart lurched. "Frozen backups, maybe. Old player echoes."
He moved toward the glowing capsules buried in the earth—twelve crystalline pods humming faintly. Inside each, a figure floated, faces peaceful, frozen mid-breath.
He knelt by the first pod. "Let's wake them."
Lyra grabbed his wrist. "Wait. If they're carrying corrupted code, you could infect the new world."
He hesitated. Through System Sight, one pod shimmered differently—black code crawling under the glass like veins. The others were clean.
She was right. It was a risk.
He looked at the lifeless horizon. "We can't rebuild alone."
He placed his palm against the glass.
[Reality Rewrite : Cleanse / Restore / Reactivate.]
The pod glowed. Air hissed out. The figure inside coughed, light flooding his chest. One by one, the other pods began to awaken.
Men and women stepped out, blinking in confusion. They wore the armor of long-dead protectors—the old Guardians of Pawn World.
"Player… Aris Vane?" one murmured, eyes wide. "We… we failed, didn't we?"
"Once," Aris said. "Not anymore."
Lyra smiled faintly. "You did it. You brought them back."
Before he could answer, a chill ran through him.
The last pod—the corrupted one—was still sealed. Its glass throbbed with black light.
[Warning : Unknown signature detected.]
[Code Type : Overseer Fragment.]
Lyra's expression fell. "That's not a survivor."
The capsule cracked. Black mist hissed out, swirling into a humanoid form—tall, faceless, draped in gold-veined shadow.
Its voice was layered, mechanical, and calm. "Thank you for restoring my vessel, Anomaly."
Aris's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"
The entity tilted its head. "Designation : Observer-Class Overseer Unit δ-Nine."
It smiled without a mouth. "And I've been looking for you."
Aris's hand hovered above the cracked pod as black mist coiled out, swirling into shape before him.
It wasn't smoke — it was code.
Each strand shimmered with golden runes before collapsing into shadow.
"Designation: Overseer Unit δ-Nine," the entity intoned. "Authorization: Prime. Purpose: Execution of the Deletion Directive."
Its voice echoed with mechanical harmony, like multiple realities speaking at once.
Lyra stepped forward, her projection flickering. "You… you shouldn't exist here. The Guild deleted every Overseer fragment after the last reset."
The entity tilted its head, faceless but somehow smiling. "Correction. They deleted those who failed. I succeeded."
Aris's jaw tightened. "Succeeded at what?"
"Maintaining balance," δ-Nine said. "By ensuring your kind stays dead."
The sky cracked open.
A system alert bled across the horizon, huge letters shimmering like lightning.
[UNAUTHORIZED RECONSTRUCTION DETECTED.]
[INITIATING WORLD EATER PROTOCOL.]
Wind roared, carrying data-static and screams that weren't sounds but broken memory fragments. The reborn forests flickered, glitching out of existence.
Aris felt it instantly — a cosmic hunger blooming overhead.
When he looked up, he saw it.
A colossal rift splitting the heavens, edges glowing white-hot. Inside it churned a spiraling void shaped like a maw. Its teeth were shards of broken light, its eyes twin black suns.
[Entity: WORLD EATER.]
[Rank: ∞.]
[Objective: Complete Erasure of Pawn World 819.]
Lyra's voice trembled. "We have to run. That thing… it consumes existence itself."
Aris shook his head slowly. His voice was quiet, calm, resolute. "No. If I run now, everything we brought back dies again. Every soul. Every line of memory."
δ-Nine raised a hand, golden light pulsing in its palm. "Anomaly Aris Vane. You defied deletion. The cycle demands correction."
"Then break the cycle."
The Overseer paused, as if considering the impossibility. "You speak as though you understand the scale of this system."
"I see it." Aris's eyes flared, silver circuits spreading from his pupils. "You consume deleted worlds to power higher realms. Don't you?"
δ-Nine didn't answer. Its silence was confirmation enough.
Aris stepped forward, fury in his voice. "You're not cleaning corruption — you're feeding it."
The World Eater moved.
Its maw opened wider, swallowing entire mountain ranges. Light bent backward, forests inverted into negative color and vanished.
Data screamed. Reality tore.
Lyra grabbed Aris's arm. "Aris, please! We can't fight something built from deletion logic!"
But he was already lifting his hands.
[Reality Rewrite Lv.4 — Active.]
[Overclock Limit: 90%.]
"Then I'll rewrite the logic itself."
Silver light exploded from his body, arcing into the sky. He pointed both palms upward.
Mountains rebuilt themselves, striking the creature like spears of solid data. Rivers turned into chains of lightning.
The air became a weapon.
The World Eater roared, absorbing everything. The constructs disintegrated.
δ-Nine's voice echoed through the chaos.
"Every rule you alter, I restore. Every atom you command, I nullify. You are fighting infinity, Aris Vane."
Aris gritted his teeth, energy bleeding from his skin in streams of light.
"Then I'll fight infinity with paradox."
Through his System Sight, he saw it — the Eater's code wasn't random. It followed a single recursive command:
All existence shall return to null.
He laughed, even as blood — or data — dripped from his lip.
"Simple rule. Simple flaw."
He extended a hand, reaching into the stream of command lines that defined the monster.
[Reality Rewrite Override Attempt Detected.]
[Warning: Reversal may destabilize user.]
He ignored it.
"I don't need stability." His voice rose, defiant. "I need creation."
[Rewrite Directive: Invert Logic.]
[New Rule — All null shall return to existence.]
The sky turned white.
The World Eater convulsed. Its void light inverted, collapsing inward as every atom it had consumed was reborn in a single, impossible pulse.
Cities reappeared. Oceans refilled. The very concept of destruction was reversed for one glorious instant.
Then came silence.
The creature screamed — not in sound, but in collapsing dimensions — and shattered into a billion fractal motes.
When the light cleared, Aris was on his knees. His hands smoked.
The ground beneath him pulsed, alive with raw energy.
[Rule Override Complete.]
[Energy Overflow Detected.]
His body began to fracture. Lines of light tore through his skin like cracks in glass.
"Aris!" Lyra cried, throwing her spectral arms around him. "You can't hold that kind of power—"
Her projection flared as she linked her data stream to his core.
[Stabilizing…]
[Warning: Companion Integrity — 41%.]
He gasped. "Lyra—stop. You'll—"
"Shut up," she whispered, smiling through the static. "You're not allowed to die again."
The energy finally settled.
A soft hum filled the air, like a heartbeat deep inside the world itself.
[New Title Acquired: WORLD CORE ADMINISTRATOR.]
[Authority Granted: Create and Bind World Laws.]
[World Independence Level: 100%.]
Aris exhaled shakily. Around him, the reborn land stretched beyond sight — green, whole, real.
No Guild anchors. No deletion tags.
Pawn World 819 was now self-sustaining — a living universe cut free from the system.
Lyra's form flickered weakly beside him. "You… did it."
Aris looked at the horizon, where the last remnants of the void faded into dawn.
"If they can delete worlds," he murmured, his voice low but firm,
"then I'll build one they can't even find."