The shockwave ripped through the Index like a nuclear pulse.
Folders shattered.
Code rained from the ceiling like silver snow.
Aze dug his heels into the collapsing floor, pushing back against the Redactor's massive beam with one hand. Black arcs of reality-bending energy swirled around him, tearing holes through the hall.
The Redactor's monotone voice boomed:
—ANOMALY POWER EXCEEDS ACCEPTABLE LIMITS—
—INITIATING ABSOLUTE CORRECTION—
A second beam formed behind the first.
Aze rolled his eyes.
"I swear—you're like a broken printer with god powers."
He twisted his wrist.
The second beam bent sideways mid-fire, smashing into a row of world-folders and vaporizing them.
Aze winced.
"Okay… maybe I should stop doing that or I'm gonna accidentally delete One Piece."
The Redactor didn't care.
It raised its other hand.
A third beam began charging.
Aze's expression hardened.
"Enough."
He flicked his fingers.
Reality warped.
The floor under the Redactor folded upward like a metal sheet kicked by a giant, slamming the entity upward into the endless ceiling.
The beam misfired, erasing a chunk of the ceiling—and revealing a swirling void above.
Aze blinked.
"That's… not normal."
The Redactor dropped back down, reforming its silver humanoid body.
—YOU CANNOT DESTROY FUNCTION. YOU CANNOT DESTROY US.
"Good thing I'm not trying to destroy you."
Aze cracked his knuckles.
"I'm trying to break your job."
The Redactor froze, mid-step.
—CLARIFY.
Aze pointed to the endless shelves of worlds.
"All these catalogs. All these rules. All this… bureaucracy."
He smirked.
"You're not a god."
He stepped closer.
"You're a machine."
The Redactor's body flickered violently.
—FALSE. WE ARE ORDER.
"No."
Aze tapped his own forehead.
"You're a system someone else built. And you've been running so long you forgot."
The Redactor jerked backward as if hit.
Its voice distorted.
—SYSTEM…? ORIGIN…? UNKNOWN… UNKNOWN…
Aze used that distraction.
He lunged forward.
The Redactor fired another beam point-blank—
But Aze caught it with his bare hand.
Sera's voice echoed in his memory.
"Aze… don't use the forbidden part of your power…"
Yeah.
Too late.
Aze's arm flickered with dangerous black fractures.
The Rewrite residue.
Pain burned through him—sharp, blinding—but he forced a grin.
"You want to erase me? Fine."
He squeezed the beam.
It shattered like glass.
"But you can't erase something that wasn't written to begin with."
The Redactor staggered.
As if that statement overloaded its core.
—CONTRADICTION… ERROR… CANNOT COMPUTE—
Aze surged forward.
One punch.
That's all.
One clean hit to the Redactor's chest.
The impact blew open its silver form, scattering lines of code like feathers.
The entire Index trembled.
The world-folders rattled.
Alarms screamed above.
For the first time—
The Redactor spoke in something close to fear.
—YOU THREATEN THE FOUNDATION OF REALITY—
Aze leaned in.
"You already messed with mine."
He grabbed the Redactor's face.
"And I'm taking it back."
He slammed the entity through the floor.
The entire hallway collapsed into a vortex of raw data.
Aze fell with it.
And then—
Everything stopped.
The world turned black.
A single voice whispered inside the dark.
Not the Redactor.
Not Sera.
Someone else.
Someone old.
Someone who sounded like they had been waiting for him.
"Azelos Veylan… you finally reached the center."
Aze's eyes widened.
"Who—?"
Light cracked open beneath him.
A massive chamber materialized.
Floating screens.
Fragments of code.
A giant crystalline core sitting in the center like a frozen heart.
Aze's breath caught.
"…This is…"
The voice spoke again.
"Welcome to the Origin Kernel."
Aze's pulse hammered.
The Origin.
The thing before worlds.
Before rules.
Before reality.
"…Why am I here?"
The voice answered slowly.
As if smiling.
"Because you are not an anomaly, Aze."
Aze froze.
"You are the one who created the Rule of Reality."
The chamber shook.
Aze's heartbeat stopped.
"You are the Kernel's original administrator."
The world went silent.
Author's Note
THE BIGGEST REVEAL YET:
Aze isn't just an anomaly.
He isn't just unrecorded.
He isn't just powerful.
He CREATED the power he's been using.
He is the original Administrator of the Origin Kernel — the system that predates ALL worlds.
Chapter 13?