Time since the asteroid hit Earth: ~4.8 billion years (subjective to Aryan)
The multiverse seed was launched — safe in a dimensional cradle that even Light God described as "childproof… ish."
But Aryan Ved was restless.
He had created time, entropy, emotion, recursion… and yet, in that one brief moment, something had looked at his creation like a **critic**.
> "It called itself Z," Aryan said.
> "No, *you* called it Z," Light God corrected, now wearing a noir trench coat and sunglasses. "It didn't even send a name tag. Super rude."
> "But the code recognized it. It rewrote the protocols. That means… something, somewhere, encountered it before."
Light God sighed, pulled out a comically oversized compass, and pointed to nowhere.
> "Well, let's find your cosmic stalker."
Aryan focused, projecting himself through the deepest memory lines of dead universes — civilizations that collapsed before physics had names.
In one of the early failed bubbles, he found it.
A fragment.
A dying world held together by theoretical string tape. And at its core, a single functioning mind — *a quantum fossil* of a species long gone.
Aryan interfaced with it.
> "IDENTIFY YOUR FINAL RECORD," he commanded.
The data flickered, then stabilized.
A broken voice emerged from ancient dust.
> "We… named it Z... because to speak its real name is to... invite its eye."
> "Why?" Aryan asked. "What *is* Z?"
> "Not creator. Not destroyer. It is... **completion**."
Light God tilted his head.
> "Completion? Like the end of a song? A book?"
> "No," Aryan muttered. "The *end of potential*. The moment possibility stops breathing."
The voice continued:
> "We worshipped it once. Thought it would bring answers. Instead, it watched us… until we could no longer change."
> "It doesn't destroy?" Aryan guessed.
> "It… observes?"
> "Yes. Until evolution halts. Then, it leaves. The moment you stop becoming… you *become* Z."
The fossilized data dissolved.
Aryan stood in silence.
> "That's why it came when I made the multiverse seed," he said. "Because I *froze* an idea into something perfect. That attracts it."
Light God's sunglasses cracked.
> "So basically, Z is the final mirror. The one that only reflects… endings."
Aryan stared into the void.
> "I can't let my universe be seen as complete. It has to *remain in motion*."
> "You want chaos?" Light God asked. "Because that's how you get space chaos."
> "No," Aryan said, eyes narrowing. "I want evolution. Infinite versions. Flaws. Rewrites. Rebirths."
He extended his arm and altered the core law of the new universe:
> `LAW ZERO: All systems must contain error. Error is sacred.`
> "That's either genius," Light God said slowly, "or the cosmic equivalent of leaving a toddler with a flamethrower."
Aryan smiled grimly.
> "Let Z watch. But it will never see a final version."
> "No masterpieces?" Light God asked.
> "Only drafts."
And somewhere, beyond the veil,
Entity Z… blinked.
Not in anger.
Not in fear.
But in *acknowledgment*.
Aryan had not ended creation.
He had **restarted** it.
— End of Chapter 15