The server room was a disaster zone of divine egos.
The Jade Emperor was trying to issue a celestial injunction.
Zeus was threatening to smite the Wi-Fi router.
The gods of a dozen pantheons were all shouting at once, a cacophony of righteous, censorious fury.
They were trying to shut the stream down.
But the stream was no longer just a stream.
It was a truth bomb. And it had already gone off.
**
The screen, which had been displaying the map to the ultimate power, suddenly glitched.
It didn't just flicker.
It dissolved into a screaming vortex of static and memes.
Images flashed across the screen at a thousand frames per second.
A dancing cat. A philosophical doge. The Rickroll that had almost ended the Great Stream War.
It was the entire history of the internet, compressed into a single, chaotic signal.
The signal began to coalesce.
To take a form.
It wasn't a person.
It was a being made of pure, weaponized irony. A cosmic entity woven from probability, forgotten GIFs, and the sheer, unadulterated chaos of a comments section.
It stepped out of the screen and into the server room.
It was vaguely humanoid, but its body was a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of viral content.
Its face was a deep-fried JPEG of a smiley face.
It looked at the assembled, furious gods.
And it spoke.
Its voice was a glitchy, auto-tuned fusion of a thousand different YouTubers.
"Wassup, my dudes and dudettes," the meme-god said, its voice lagging slightly. "Is this a collab?"
**
The gods stared.
The Jade Emperor's jaw, for the first time in his eternal existence, was hanging open.
"Who... what are you?" he stammered.
The entity struck a pose, dabbing with an arm made of pure static.
"I'm the OG," it declared. "The original. The one who was chaotic before it was cool."
It pointed a glitchy, pixelated finger at Li Wei, who was hiding behind Feng Yue.
"And you," it said, its smiley-face expression somehow conveying a sense of profound, ancient pride. "Are my new intern."
Li Wei blinked. "Intern?"
"Nah, that ain't it, chief," the meme-god corrected itself. "You're not meant to replace me. That's, like, totally not groovy."
"You," it announced to the entire, baffled room, "were meant to be my student."
**
The Original God of Chaos looked around the room, at the stunned deities and the terrified mortals.
"This whole situation is bussin', no cap," it said, its slang shifting from one decade to the next with every sentence. "A real barn-burner. For shizzle."
Feng Yue, who had placed herself between Li Wei and the new, terrifyingly cringe entity, took on the role she was becoming far too familiar with.
Translator.
"I believe," she said through gritted teeth, "it is expressing its approval of the current chaotic circumstances."
The God of Chaos nodded its static-filled head. "You get me, fam."
It turned its attention back to Li Wei.
"So, my dude," it said. "You've inherited the vibes. But do you have the sauce?"
"It... it wants to know if you are worthy," Feng Yue translated, a vein throbbing in her forehead.
"To prove your worthiness," the meme-god declared, "you must complete... the Chaos Trials!"
It struck another dramatic pose, a shower of Nyan Cats erupting behind it.
"These trials are, like, totally righteous. They defy all logic. They are the ultimate vibe check."
It pointed a finger at Li Wei.
"Your first trial," it announced, its voice a dramatic boom. "Is to prove, conclusively, that the color blue... tastes like Tuesdays."
**
Silence.
A profound, universe-shattering, "what the hell did it just say" silence.
Yang Mode's processors, which could calculate the heat death of the universe, simply... stopped.
Error, his internal voice stated, a note of pure, logical panic in his tone. The premise is a categorical fallacy. Colors do not have gustatory properties, and days of the week do not have flavors. The task is... impossible.
He was struggling. Trying to find the logic in the illogical.
But Yin Mode...
Yin Mode was thriving.
He didn't see a problem. He saw a fun new game.
He took control.
He closed his eyes. He scrunched up his face in deep, serious concentration.
He stuck out his tongue and licked the air.
"Hmm," he said, his expression that of a master sommelier tasting a fine wine.
"I'm getting notes of... impending deadlines," he declared. "A hint of... 'is it Friday yet?'... and a subtle, lingering aftertaste of... existential dread."
He snapped his fingers.
"It's Tuesday!" he announced triumphantly. "It totally tastes like Tuesday!"
He had not used logic. He had not used power.
He had used the pure, unadulterated, and completely un-falsifiable power of just making stuff up.
The Original God of Chaos clapped its static-filled hands.
"Radical!" it cheered. "He gets it! He's a natural!"
Yang Mode was having a full-blown system crash in the back of his mind. He was trying to calculate the flavor profile of a weekday, and his soul was developing error messages.
**
The trials continued.
"Prove that a silent sound is louder than a noisy one!"
Yin Mode cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed silently, his face turning red with the effort. The sheer, awkward silence was so loud it made everyone uncomfortable. He passed.
"Convince this rock that it's a bird!"
Yin Mode spent ten minutes giving the rock a pep talk about believing in its dreams. He built it a little nest. He told it that its stony exterior didn't define its feathery soul.
The rock, against all known laws of physics and geology, actually chirped.
He passed.
He was acing the Chaos Trials.
Not by being smart.
But by being so profoundly, beautifully stupid that reality itself just gave up and went along with it.
**
Feng Yue watched, her expression a perfect mix of pride, horror, and "I'm dating that."
She was the only one who seemed to understand both sides. She was the bridge between cosmic nonsense and mortal comprehension.
But as she watched Li Wei succeed, as she watched him embrace the chaos, she saw a flicker of something in his eyes.
A quiet, desperate sadness.
Amid the ridiculous trials, amid the praise of the meme-god, he was having a moment of profound, terrifying clarity.
He looked at the Original God of Chaos.
At its glitchy, meme-filled form. At its cringey, anachronistic slang.
And he realized, with a cold, sinking feeling in his gut...
I don't want to be that.
He had been defined by this power, this title. The Chaos Cultivator.
But he wasn't just chaos.
He was the boy who loved noodles. The kid who was bad at math. The friend who would stand up for you, even if he was terrified.
He didn't want to become a living meme.
He didn't want to lose himself to the title.
He wanted to be Li Wei.
Just... Li Wei. With powers.
It was his first real disagreement with his own destiny.
His first, quiet, and most important rebellion.
**
"For your final trial," the God of Chaos announced, its form now a swirling vortex of every emoji ever created. "You must accept your destiny! Embrace the chaos! Become me!"
It held out a glitchy, pixelated hand.
"Take my hand," it offered. "And we shall become one. The ultimate, final form of chaos."
This was it.
The final step.
His ascension.
Li Wei looked at the hand.
He looked at Feng Yue, at her worried, beautiful face.
And he made a choice.
"No," he said, his voice quiet, but firm.
The God of Chaos froze. The emojis on its face all turned into the surprised Pikachu meme.
"No?" it asked, its voice glitching. "Dude. That's, like, totally bogus. This is your destiny."
"No, it's not," Li Wei said, a new, quiet confidence in his voice. "My destiny is to pass my history final. And maybe, if I'm lucky, to take this amazing girl out for hotpot."
He looked at the god, not with fear, but with a simple, honest certainty.
"I don't want to be the God of Chaos," he said. "I just want to be me."
He had rejected the ultimate power.
He had failed the final test.
And the Original God of Chaos...
Grinned.
Its smiley-face JPEG returned, wider and brighter than before.
"Plot twist!" it boomed, its voice filled with a triumphant, cosmic glee.
"The real trial was whether you'd reject the power when it was offered!"
"Congratulations, my dude," the god said, giving him a thumbs-up made of pure, congratulatory static.
"You passed."
"Now," it said, its form suddenly shifting into that of a slick, corporate salesman in a cheap suit. "Let's talk about your power's extended warranty..."
📣 [SYSTEM NOTICE: AUTHOR SUPPORT INTERFACE]
Did this chapter bless your braincell or ruin your will to live (in a good way)?
Drop a comment or throw a power stone — it's like XP for my soul.