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### **Chapter 11: The Author of Existence**
Reality quieted wherever Lazaro walked.
Stories themselves seemed to pause — as if waiting for permission to continue.
Without speaking, he reached into the silence.
And the **narratives of everything** — worlds, beings, laws, even the smallest fragments of existence —
began to rewrite themselves around him.
It wasn't a technique.
It wasn't a spell.
It was **instinct.**
A passive rewriting of all things, as natural to him as breathing.
Every entity, every object, every form of existence carried a "story" —
a sequence that defined what it was, what it could be, and what it meant to exist.
Lazaro's presence **overrode** that foundation.
Their stories no longer belonged to themselves; they aligned automatically to his will.
Even things without stories —
fragments of void, forgotten echoes, or ideas that had never been written —
found themselves **given** a story,
only to be rewritten the instant they appeared.
In his presence, *reality became narrative,*
and narrative became *obedience.*
He was not a participant within the world.
He was the pen that the world unknowingly belonged to.
Lazaro lowered his gaze, eyes calm, tone almost absent:
> "Everything writes itself through me — even what was never meant to exist."
---
Time no longer flowed near Lazaro.
It listened.
Where others saw past and future as unchangeable paths,
he saw only pages — blank, waiting to be rewritten.
The ability did not activate by choice.
It was **automatic**, woven into his very existence.
Every moment near him was vulnerable to revision.
The **past** could be rewritten —
events reshaped, erased, or inverted without warning.
What once happened might never have occurred;
what never existed could suddenly have always been.
The **future** bent the same way —
every potential outcome rearranged in silent obedience to his will.
Destinies shifted before they were born;
consequences unraveled before causes took shape.
To Lazaro, there was no timeline —
only a canvas stretched across infinity,
constantly correcting itself around his presence.
Even if he did nothing, reality adjusted itself,
rewriting both what *was* and what *will be*
to match the logic of his existence.
He glanced upward, the faintest motion of thought rippling through the fabric of time itself.
> "Past or future… both are just drafts.
---
Around Lazaro, existence bent — not violently, but with quiet surrender.
There was no visible aura, no glow of power.
Yet an unseen **field** surrounded him, stretching across all dimensions and beyond them.
This was not a shield, nor defense in the ordinary sense.
It was the **nullification of meaning itself.**
Any force that approached — whether born from **concept**, **law**, or **story** —
simply ceased to be.
Rules that defined destruction, equations that governed energy,
principles that dictated cause and effect —
all unraveled as they entered the field.
It was always active.
Unbreakable.
Unstoppable.
Even Lazaro could not disable it, for it was part of what he *was.*
To those who tried to strike him, their own powers betrayed them —
vanishing before impact, reduced to silence and nothingness.
Not erased, not destroyed — simply rendered **irrelevant.**
Lazaro stood motionless amid the stillness he created.
The air did not move.
Time did not count.
Even reality itself refused to interfere.
He whispered softly, almost as if to himself:
> "You cannot harm what no longer recognizes the idea of harm."
---
The academy announced a simple test —
a long-distance run meant to measure endurance and control.
Students gathered, their powers humming,
each one confident in their own mastery of speed and space.
Lazaro stood among them, silent as always.
When the signal sounded, he began to move.
To the others, it looked like he hadn't moved at all.
But in that instant, he had already crossed the track —
not once, but **an infinite number of times.**
The path itself stretched without end,
its length designed to measure beyond mortal limits.
Yet Lazaro completed it in **one second.**
He didn't just run forward.
He ran **through time.**
Past, present, and future became blurred streaks beneath his step.
Each stride carried him across ages, through moments that hadn't happened yet.
When he stopped, the air around him still shimmered.
The momentum — if such a thing could even be called that —
refused to fade.
His *inertia* continued moving, dragging his presence **backward in time.**
The world flickered.
The race hadn't begun yet.
But Lazaro was already at the finish line, standing in silence,
a faint trace of energy looping endlessly between what *was* and what *had been.*
Students stared, unable to understand.
The instructors stood frozen — their instruments failed to record anything.
Lazaro simply looked at the empty path behind him and said quietly:
> "Even time can't keep up."
Many had tried to end him.
Some with weapons forged from laws,
others with powers that erased existence itself.
Yet each attempt failed for one reason —
**Lazaro could not die.**
It wasn't because of immortality.
It wasn't regeneration, nor resistance, nor divine protection.
It was something far more absolute.
He was **linked** to something — a presence, a principle,
a force so far beyond comprehension that no being had ever perceived it.
It had no form, no definition, no origin.
And because it could not be defined,
it could not be touched, erased, or denied.
This connection was not energy, not fate, not causality.
It existed *outside* all systems that allowed "existence" to be measured.
Through it, Lazaro remained constant —
even if his body, his story, or his concept were destroyed.
No rule could break the link.
No ability could override it.
Even if all realities were erased,
the connection would persist in the space where "nothing" itself ended.
Lazaro once described it only once, in a whisper few ever heard:
> "I am tied to something that cannot be understood —
> and because it cannot be denied, neither can I."
That Cannot Be Denied**
There came a moment when even reality believed it had finally ended him.
His body was gone.
His concept erased.
The story of his existence—unwritten, unwoven, undone.
Yet, from the silence that followed,
**he returned.**
It wasn't revival.
It wasn't rebirth.
It was simply **continuation.**
Lazaro possessed no limit to this return.
He could revive an infinite number of times,
even in worlds where the **concept of resurrection itself had never existed.**
Even when the rules forbade revival,
even when the logic of existence refused to allow it,
he came back—inevitably, naturally, effortlessly.
His revival did not depend on permission or condition.
It was **fundamental**, a truth deeper than law or reality.
And because it did not *belong* to the system of creation,
it could not be denied by that system.
No force could cancel it.
No power could erase it.
Even void itself had no say in his return.
To him, death was not an obstacle—
it was merely a pause between states that could not end.
When he opened his eyes once more,
the world around him trembled, rewriting itself to acknowledge his presence again.
Lazaro whispered softly, almost as though explaining something simple:
> "Even without resurrection… I remain."