(Lawless Arc: Part XL)
The codex did not float like the others.
It hovered with intention.
A tome bound in void-hide, ink darker than the absence between stars. Its cover carried no title, no rune, no mark of ownership — only a single sigil shaped like a closed eye. No glow. No hum. No presence leaking from it.
Because its presence leaked into the one who read it.
Je felt the pull before his hand moved.
Not hunger.
Not curiosity.
A third sensation older than both.
Recognition without memory.
[SYSTEM RESIDUE: CAUTIONARY MODE]
[TEXT CLASSIFICATION: PRE-LAW SCRIPT]
[THREAT: SEMANTIC, NOT PHYSICAL]
Je narrowed his eyes.
"So it reads me back."
The sigil on the tome opened.
A cold interface unfolded, archaic in design, brutal in clarity:
[User observed: Je Veyron.]
[Mandate: Unwritten.]
[Classification: Paradox-borne, unregistered, unruled.]
Je exhaled.
"You can classify me, but you can't define me."
The codex responded not with words, but by rewriting the air above itself, etching sentences into existence like someone carving fate into bedrock:
"A name is a cage only if you accept bars."
"A codex is a leash only if you fear pages."
"The void did not crown you."
"It archived you."
Je's breath caught.
"Archived me from what?"
The tome paused —
a delay measured in heartbeats, not time.
Then the interface updated, ancient voice returning, colder now, heavier, deliberate:
[ERROR: Question exceeds permitted curiosity.]
[NOTE: Curiosity is not a stat here. It is a summoning condition.]
The corridors bent slightly.
Not in attack.
In warning.
Je leaned closer.
"Then tell me what happens if I open you."
The codex closed its interface instantly.
The sealed eye on the cover shut again, refusing to meet Je's gaze directly — because eye contact was no longer necessary.
The codex whispered into the back of his thoughts, bypassing sound itself:
"You will not read the truth."
"The truth will read you."
Je smirked.
Not bravado.
Not arrogance.
Grim inevitability.
"Good. Then read carefully."
He pressed his palm to the tome.
The moment contact was made, the tome did not explode — it executed:
[ANCIENT FUNCTION UNSEALED: "Reader's Weight."]
[Effect: Je perceives the cost of every step he almost took.]
Je's mind spasmed.
Not pain.
Buried consequence.
He saw visions — not of himself devouring worlds, but of himself almost choosing to:
The moment he almost devoured Sera's fragment instead of protecting it
The second he almost became Vorath willingly
The timeline where he didn't hesitate at the Mirror
The one where the Throne bowed first
Je staggered, breath shaking.
"…So many endings."
The codex answered simply, anciently:
"Yes."
Je clenched his teeth.
"You showed me this to break me."
"No," the codex replied.
"I showed you this to test if you could stand after seeing what you didn't commit."
Je stood slowly, trembling hand lowering.
"And did I pass?"
The codex returned a single line, the darkest so far:
[PASSING STATUS: UNIMPORTANT.]
[RELEVANT STATUS: YOU DID NOT BREAK WHEN READ.]
Je laughed softly, bitter but steady.
"So the codex doesn't fear me."
The System residue flickered faintly in the background:
[Correction.]
[The codex does not fear you.]
[It fears the chapter where you finally understand you were never the anomaly.]
[You were the filter that caught worse ones.]
Je froze.
"…Filter?"
[End of vetting.]
The tome closed itself.
Je walked past it.
Not devouring.
Not rejecting.
Continuing organically.
Because now Je understood a truth even darker than his reconstructed name:
He was not the most dangerous being.
He was the checkpoint preventing more dangerous ones from slipping through unnoticed.