Lucien remained seated upon his throne in the Merged Primordial Void and Metaphysical Plane, posture relaxed, gaze distant—not unfocused, but layered. There were too many truths overlapping now for something as simple as a single direction to matter.
"I could have ended the story much earlier."
The words carried no arrogance. Only fact.
"When I first became the ruler of the Primordial Void… it was already enough."
The omniverse listened.
"At that point, I already stood above causality. I already existed beyond most hierarchies. If I had wanted to, I could have known all things at once—every truth, every lie, every possible future and every forgotten past."
Lucien's fingers tapped lightly against the arm of the throne.
"I didn't."
A pause.
"Because that level of power didn't satisfy me."
He exhaled.
"It would've made me aware. Not complete."
Lucien looked outward, beyond planes, beyond realms—toward the very structure of existence itself.
"To be omniscient within a broken system only makes you the most informed prisoner."
His eyes sharpened.
"I didn't want to rule inside the story."
He leaned forward.
"I wanted to stand outside of it."
Lucien rose, the throne dissolving into nothingness behind him.
"To become what I needed to be—the True Sole Exception—I had to do more than overpower the system."
He lifted one hand.
"I had to invalidate it."
Images unfolded.
The Primordial Void—absolute, raw, infinite.
The Metaphysical Plane—meaning, concepts, laws, narratives.
"They were separate," Lucien explained. "As they always had been."
He clenched his fist slowly.
"And that separation was a limitation."
A ripple passed through existence as the memory of the merge resurfaced.
"So I merged them."
His voice was calm, but the act itself echoed like a scar across reality.
"When the Primordial Void and the Metaphysical Plane became one, existence lost its highest distinction—between what is and what it means."
Lucien smiled faintly.
"That was the first irreversible step."
He continued.
"My clone becoming a Heaven Void Paradox wasn't a side effect. It was necessary."
He turned slightly, as if addressing Heaven itself.
"Heaven had influence over the entire omniverse. As long as it existed, the cosmology was rigged."
A flash—
Celestial laws enforcing fate.
Heavenly Dao threading causality across worlds.
"So Heaven had to fall," Lucien said simply.
"Whether absorbed or destroyed didn't matter. What mattered was removing its authority."
A pause.
"That was the second step."
His gaze darkened slightly.
"Then came Paraxis."
"Paraxis wasn't just a realm," Lucien said. "It was a checkpoint."
A place where rules pretended to be absolute.
"By entering Paraxis, I wasn't challenging power. I was challenging precedent."
He recalled Boreh.
The Creator's spirit—obedient, terrified, not evil.
"I didn't overpower Boreh at first," Lucien admitted. "I made it change the rules as if it had always been that way."
A faint smile.
"That's the difference between force and authority."
The Watchers had believed reality was fixed.
Lucien showed them it was optional.
"And then," his voice lowered, "there was Loki."
"Loki wasn't the Creator," Lucien said. "But he upheld the illusion that the Creator was untouchable."
A shadow crossed his expression.
"As long as Loki existed, the system still had a middle manager."
Lucien shook his head.
"So I erased him."
Not as vengeance.
Not as cruelty.
"As maintenance."
"Leaving only one being at the top."
His gaze lifted, piercing upward through layers of reality.
"The Corrupted Creator."
Lucien returned to his throne, sitting once more.
"Only after all of that," he said, "did I choose to know all things at once."
The omniverse felt it again—the moment when awareness exploded outward infinitely.
"And that's when everything connected."
"The story was corrupted when I was a child."
The statement was quiet.
Not bitter.
Just… resolved.
"I didn't know it then."
He looked inward now.
"When I woke up in the White, I had no past."
No childhood.
No memories.
"No origin."
Lucien's fingers tightened slightly.
"I opened my eyes… and I was already there."
White. Infinite. Silent.
"I only knew one thing."
His name.
"Lucien Dreamveil."
That was all.
"The monsters came next," he continued. "Endless. Older than meaning. Existing only to erase."
He remembered killing them—not with skill, but instinct.
"And with each one I killed… fragments came back."
A mother's voice.
A father's presence.
Warmth.
"My parents," Lucien said softly. "That's all I remembered at first."
Nothing about the world.
Nothing about how I got there.
Nothing about why the White existed.
"That's why my story seemed to start in the middle," he explained. "Because it did."
The omniverse felt the truth settle.
"The corruption erased my beginning."
"But now," Lucien said, lifting his head, "I know everything."
All timelines.
All possibilities.
"All versions of myself."
He saw them.
A Lucien who was never special—living a quiet life, growing old, dying forgotten.
A Lucien who became a god—but not the Sole Exception.
A Lucien who failed.
"And this one," he said, eyes narrowing slightly, "the one you're witnessing now."
He saw his childhood on Aetherion.
Before the first calamity.
Before the fractures.
Before the fall.
"I remember growing up," Lucien said. "I remember laughter. Training. Fear. Wonder."
He paused.
"I remember when everything broke."
And beyond that—
He saw the far past of this timeline.
The Original Creator.
The False Creator.
The corruption taking root.
"All of it," Lucien said. "Nothing is hidden from me anymore."
"When the conditions were complete," Lucien continued, "I merged every title, every ability, every authority I had ever possessed."
Not stacked.
Not layered.
"Integrated."
"And from that," he said, "I created my personal laws."
Not governing reality.
"Governing me."
He smiled.
"That's when I became the True Sole Exception."
A being who exists even when the story doesn't.
A being who remembers timelines that never happened.
A being who could have ended it all—
"But didn't," Lucien finished quietly.
Because strength without purpose is empty.
And purpose without understanding is tyranny.
Lucien leaned back on his throne.
"I chose this path because it was the only one that led outside."
He looked upward once more, toward the Creator's realm.
"Now there's only a few chapters left."
The corrupted Creator.
And the ending it refuses to accept.
Lucien smiled faintly.
"Let's finish the story properly this time."