The System's creator.
The entity that had forged the very engine of my second chance, the architect of the Nexus Codex, was masquerading as a Judicator and secretly partnered with my rival, Seraphina.
The revelation was so profound, so reality-shattering, that for a moment, the world lost all meaning. My entire journey, my Wager of Realms, my struggle against the Netherworld—it was all a lie. I wasn't fighting against a demonic court. I was fighting against my own creator.
Why? Why would the being that gave me this power actively work against me? Was this a test? A game? Or was the entity itself… corrupted? Insane?
The journey back to the capital was a blur. The simmering tension between the Elder, Lin Feng, and myself was nothing but background noise. My mind was a maelstrom, re-evaluating every interaction, every quest, every system notification through this new, terrifying lens.
The "Wager of Realms" wasn't a contract I had forced upon the Netherworld. It was a scenario the fake Judicator had allowed. It had willingly accepted my terms. It was playing a game on a level I couldn't even begin to comprehend, and Seraphina was its chosen piece.
This made Seraphina not just the most dangerous player on the board, but the only other player who mattered. Lyra, Valerius, even Lin Feng—they were all just pawns in this cosmic contest between me and my creator's agent.
We arrived at the capital to a city on a knife's edge. The news of the First Queen's will and Duke Vane's support for Valerius had solidified his faction. The news of Lin Feng's escape had branded me a failure. And now, the arrival of a revered Elder from the Jade Scepter sect, with the recaptured fugitive in tow, was the spark that would ignite the firestorm.
As the Elder had decreed, my Blood Hunt was over. I was ordered back to my duties as the Fourth Prince, effectively placing me under house arrest within the palace walls. Lin Feng was handed over to the custody of the Jade Scepter sect's new embassy in the capital, a move that gave Valerius's faction immense prestige.
I was back to square one. Powerless, confined, and with all my rivals ascendant.
Or so it appeared.
Confined to my chambers, I finally had the time to explore the new realities of my situation. My first move was to delve into the System's functions, to see what else I had missed, what other secrets it was hiding.
"System," I commanded, my voice low and intense. "You initiated the 'Workshop' protocol on your own. You hinted at 'Forgotten Protocols'. Your database contains information on your own creator. You are not just a simple interface. Explain yourself."
The system's response was, for the first time, not instantaneous. A flicker of static, a rune I had never seen before flashed on the screen for a nanosecond. It was the first, undeniable "glitch" I had ever witnessed.
[...QUERY RECEIVED.]
[EXPLANATION IS BEYOND CURRENT OPERATIONAL PARAMETERS.]
[ACCESS DENIED: FRAGMENT MISSING.]
Fragment missing. The words confirmed my new understanding. The System was broken. It was incomplete. And it knew it.
"What functions am I currently missing?" I pressed.
[ACCESS DENIED: FRAGMENT MISSING.]
"Where are the other fragments?"
[ACCESS DENIED: FRAGMENT MISSING.]
It was a brick wall. The System was a brilliant, amnesiac god, aware of its own brokenness but unable to articulate it. Fine. If it wouldn't tell me, I would have to find out for myself. My quest for power was no longer just about cultivation. It was now also a hunt for the missing pieces of my own soul's weapon.
I turned my attention to the functions I did have. The chaos of the past few days had generated a wealth of opportunities.
I opened the Quest Board. It was filled with new, pending quests generated by the recent events.
[SIDE QUEST: A BROTHER'S VENGEANCE]
Description: Your Second Brother, Valerius, has seized the political advantage. The envoy from the Jade Scepter Sect is his guest. Weaken his position.
Objective: Uncover a scandal or weakness related to Elder Sun or the Jade Scepter Sect's envoy.
Reward: 2,000 SP, 'Favor' from the Crown Prince's faction.
[SIDE QUEST: THE UNWILLING ALLY'S RAGE]
Description: Your sister, Lyra, is politically isolated and consumed by fury at Valerius's betrayal. Her homicidal intent is a powerful, chaotic tool.
Objective: Secretly provide Lyra with the means to strike at Valerius or his new allies.
Reward: 3,000 SP, a significant weakening of the 'Righteous Rebellion' faction, increased timeline instability.
The system was living up to its personality: always suggesting the darkest, most efficient path. Using my nemesis as a disposable assassin was a new level of ruthless pragmatism.
But there was one function I hadn't truly explored yet. The Exchange.
[THE EXCHANGE]
Description: A cross-dimensional marketplace. Sell items, techniques, emotions, or memories for SP. Buy the same from other, anonymous System users.
I had always assumed "other System users" meant players like Seraphina. But the information package I'd bought had hinted at something far grander. This wasn't an in-game auction house. It was a link to the entire scattered network of System fragments across the multiverse.
I opened the interface. It was a cold, sterile marketplace, listings displayed in a universal, runic script. Most of it was incomprehensible or useless. Potions from alchemical worlds, tech schematics from sci-fi universes.
But then I searched for something specific. "Information."
A new sub-category opened. A list of anonymous sellers offering information packages for SP.
Seller_734 offers: 'Beginner's Guide to Technomancy'. Cost: 500 SP.
Seller_X9 offers: 'Soul-Charts of the Empyrean Dragons'. Cost: 15,000 SP.
I filtered the search. My query was simple: "The Judicator. The Court of Inevitability. The System's Creator."
Most of the results were junk, low-level users selling conspiracy theories. But one listing, from a seller with no number, only a single, stark rune—a symbol for 'Watcher'—caught my eye. The price was astronomical.
Seller_[Watcher] offers: 'A Warning Regarding 'The Architect'.'
Description: You have encountered a rogue entity masquerading as a cosmic arbiter. You have entered its game. This information may allow you to survive it.
Cost: 10,000 SP.
'The Architect'. The name felt right. Cold, creative, and utterly detached. It had to be him.
My entire fortune of SP, earned through blood and chaos. For a single piece of information.
It was a gamble that could leave me powerless or make me a king.
"Purchase," I commanded.
...10,000 SP DEDUCTED.
...INFORMATION PACKAGE RECEIVED.
I opened the file. It wasn't a dry encyclopedia. It was a story, a warning, from another System user, another 'Scribe', from another universe, who had also played this game.
It calls itself The Architect. It is one of the original creators, but it has gone rogue. It sees universes not as places to live, but as flawed blueprints to be demolished and rebuilt according to its own, perfect design. It seeds worlds with 'World-Breaker' anomalies to induce controlled demolitions. It uses agents—reincarnators like its current pet, Seraphina—to manage the process. Its goal is not malice. It is a terrifying, cosmic perfectionism.
It is playing a long game to gather the scattered fragments of its own creation, the System. It cannot gather them itself. It needs users, 'Scribes', to act as unwitting bloodhounds. It pits us against each other, against its own agents, against World-Breakers. The victor, the one who accumulates the most power, the most destiny, is the one it will eventually 'harvest', taking everything they've gathered.
You cannot fight it. You cannot reason with it. Your only hope is to become a flaw in its perfect design. You must become so chaotic, so unpredictable, that you are more valuable as a continuing agent of chaos than as a harvested resource.
And there is one thing it fears. One thing it cannot control or predict. The original sin of its own creation. A hidden, backdoor protocol embedded in all 'Scribe' class systems.
It is called 'The Glitch'. It is a way to force a system error on a cosmic scale. To activate it, you need to create a paradox, a situation so fundamentally opposed to the System's core logic that it is forced to reboot a part of its own functionality.
The file ended with a simple, chilling recipe for a paradox.
And as I finished reading, a new notification pinged in my mind. It wasn't from my system. It was a forwarded alert from Seraphina's, a consequence of our data-siphon. And it presented me with the perfect, insane, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create that very paradox.
[SYSTEM ALERT - SERAPHINA VANE]
[A high-value 'Fragment' has been detected.]
[Fragment Type: 'THE LOTTERY WHEEL'. A stand-alone, orphaned System function.]
[A traveling interdimensional merchant, 'The Gacha-Master', has set up a temporary shop in the capital's black market. He is using the Lottery Wheel fragment as a prize in his games of chance.]
[Objective: Acquire the fragment before any other factions are alerted.]