The Council of ArchitectsThe pristine white void of the Nexus Core, usually so sterile and bright, dissolved into something far older and infinitely more terrifying.
This was the Chamber of Origin, a boardroom located in the gaps between realities. The walls were made of petrified starlight, and the table in the center was a swirling nebula of trapped galaxies.
Sitting at the head of this table was The Arbiter of the Nexus Seven.
But he was no longer the geometric shape or the voice of a system administrator. Here, amongst his peers, he wore his True Form.
He sat upon a throne of woven code and bone. The right side of his body was blindingly beautiful—a cascade of six seraphic wings made of pure, white feathers and eyes that wept liquid gold. The left side was a nightmare of charred obsidian skin, exposed muscle, and a leathery, bat-like wing that dripped black ichor.
But it was his face that was truly unsettling. It was a smooth, porcelain mask that split down the middle, revealing a mouth that stretched far too wide—a fixed, unmoving grin filled with too many teeth, resembling the frozen expression of a corpse in a horror movie.
"You are late, Malak," a voice rumbled like grinding tectonic plates.
The speaker was the Arbiter of the Titan Sector. He was a colossal mass of steaming muscle and bone, barely contained within a humanoid shape. "Your sector... it leaks. It smells of chaos."
"It smells of progress," Malak (our Arbiter) replied, his voice a discordant harmony of a choir and a scream. His smile didn't twitch. "My Anomalies are performing beyond expectation."
Around the table, other entities shifted uncomfortably.
There was the Arbiter of the Hero Sector (resembling a sterile, golden superhero statue), who looked disgusted. "Progress? You call that progress? Yesterday, a bald man from your simulation punched a hole through the spiritual membrane of Sector 8. My spirits are traumatized. They refuse to haunt anyone."
Next to him was the Arbiter of the Saiyan Sector (a being of crackling, golden electricity). "And my sector is vibrating! My strongest warriors are sensing a 'Desire for Battle' that doesn't belong to them! It's causing unauthorized power spikes! If one of them breaks containment, Malak, it will be on your head."
Malak leaned back, his seraphic wings rustling softly while his demonic wing twitched. "A little cross-contamination is healthy. It builds character. Your sectors are stagnant. Boring. My Nexus Seven... they are evolving."
"They are a virus!" screeched the Arbiter of the Isekai Sector (a swirling cloud of generic fantasy tropes). "One of your subjects—the Thief—has corrupted the economy of World 412! He stole the 'Core Directive' of a Demon King! That wasn't a quest item! That was load-bearing code!"
The room erupted into a cacophony of accusations.
"The Sorcerer vandalized my physics engine!"
"The Shadow Monarch scared my Death Gods into retirement!"
"The Depressed Author negated my entire magic system!"
Malak simply sat there, his horrific smile fixed, tapping a clawed finger on the nebula table. He enjoyed their fear. It tasted like fine wine.
Suddenly, the room went absolute zero.
The heavy doors of the Chamber swung open silently. A presence entered that made even the monstrous Malak straighten his posture.
It was The Matriarch. The Supreme Architect.
She did not look like a monster. She appeared as a human woman of indescribable beauty, wearing a simple gown of weaving starlight. Her aura was perfectly composed, terrifyingly calm, and absolute. She was the Order to their Chaos.
She glided to the head of the table. The other Arbiters bowed their heads—even the Titan. Malak merely inclined his split face.
"Malak," The Matriarch said. Her voice was soft, but it echoed in their very cores. "Your experiment 'The Reset Game' has been flagged for critical instability."
She waved a hand, and a holographic display of the multiverse appeared. It was riddled with cracks.
"Rifts in the Titan Universe. Frequency jams in the Hero Universe. Economy crashes in the Isekai Sector. And now... a massive buildup of kinetic energy in the Dragon Ball Sector. Your 'Nexus Seven' are not just overlapping; they are tearing the walls down."
She fixed her eyes—galaxies swirling within irises—on Malak.
"What is your plan? Do not give me riddles. Why have you bound these seven contradictions together? Why do you allow them to break the laws we wrote?"
The room held its breath.
Malak stood up. His angelic side glowed, and his demonic side smoked. He spread his arms wide.
"My plan, Great Matriarch... is to fix everything."
The Matriarch narrowed her eyes. "Elaborate."
Malak's smile seemed to stretch even wider, the skin around his mouth tearing slightly. "You say the walls are breaking. I say the walls were a mistake. These universes... they are isolated. Stagnant. They repeat the same loops. The Hero punches. The Saiyan screams. The Sorcerer wins. It is entropy."
He pointed a claw at the holographic map.
"I do not intend to patch the leaks. I intend to weaponize them. I have a foolproof plan to merge the protocols. Not just one... but all of them."
Silence. Absolute, horrified silence.
"You... you want to merge the genres?" the Titan Arbiter whispered, horrified.
"I want to create a Super-Structure," Malak corrected. "A single, unified reality where the laws of physics, magic, and spirit are forced to compromise. And the Nexus Seven... they are not the prisoners. They are the Architects of this new world. They are the beta testers for the end of separation."
"That is insanity!" the Hero Arbiter shouted. "The logic collapse alone would wipe out existence!"
"Or," Malak whispered, leaning over the table, "it would create something finally worth watching."
The room erupted into chaos. Arbiters were shouting, summoning weapons, and demanding Malak's erasure. The Matriarch sat perfectly still, staring at Malak with an unreadable expression.
Malak turned to the camera—to us—and winked with his weeping golden eye.
"Now... if you'll excuse me. I have a tutorial to finish."