Chapter 19: The Galactic Audit and the Court of Arbiters
The awakening of Aethelgard should have been the final victory, a moment of cosmic peace where the cold gears of the machine were finally warmed by the spark of consciousness. But in the universe of the Supreme Dao Maker, every solution birth a new, more complex problem. As Li Ming stood within the Primordial Terminal, the Master Key in his hand began to vibrate with a frequency so high it threatened to shatter his crystalline form.
The holographic console of the universe shifted. The gold and silver lines of the "New Genesis" were suddenly overwritten by a stark, absolute blackness. A massive, geometric eye—composed of perfect white light and infinite coldness—manifested in the center of the Terminal.
[System Notification: High-Level Audit Initiated.]
[Entity Identified: The Arbiters of the First Order.]
[Authority: Universal Administrative Rights.]
"Li Ming, the Architect of Kang Qiang," a voice boomed, sounding not like a person, but like the collective ticking of a billion clocks. "You have performed an unauthorized 'Life-Protocol' infusion on a Sector-Grade resource. You have modified the Source Code without a license from the First Order. This sector is now marked as 'Corrupted' and is scheduled for a 'System Purge'."
Li Ming felt a pressure a thousand times heavier than the Five Emperors' gaze. This was not the pressure of power, but the pressure of *Ownership*. To the Arbiters, the galaxy was not a home for living beings; it was an investment, a piece of property that was no longer performing according to its original specifications.
"My people are not 'resources'!" Li Ming roared, his platinum aura surging as he fought to keep his consciousness from being 'archived' by the Audit. "And the 'Life-Protocol' isn't a corruption; it's an evolution! We have optimized the Dao to allow for free will, something your cold logic could never achieve!"
"Free will is a memory leak," the Arbiter replied. "It consumes processing power and leads to unpredictable outcomes. The Mechanoid Syndicate was efficient. You have turned them into a chaotic variable. The Audit is final. The Purge commences in T-minus 60 minutes."
Suddenly, three massive, monolith-like ships—each the size of a moon and glowing with a sterile, white light—appeared in the orbit of Kang Qiang. They were the "Eraser-Ships" of the First Order. They didn't fire beams or missiles. They simply emitted a "Low-Frequency Hum" that began to vibrate the planet's atoms, preparing to return the entire world to raw, unformatted energy.
Back on the planet, the citizens of Neo-Arcadia looked up in terror. The aurora of light that Li Ming had created was being sucked into the white monoliths.
"Master! The system is being locked from the outside!" Li Xiao's voice cried out through the link. "I can't access the 'Delete' or 'Create' commands! It's like we've been put into 'Read-Only' mode!"
Li Ming, still in the Terminal, realized the gravity of the situation. The Arbiters held the "Root Access." He was playing a game on their hardware, and they had just changed the password.
"If I can't use your hardware," Li Ming whispered, his eyes blazing with a dangerous, silver light, "then I'll build my own."
[Executing: 'Decentralized Reality' Protocol.]
[Warning: This will require the permanent merging of the Host's Soul with the Planetary Grid.]
"I am already the heart of this world," Li Ming said.
He didn't try to fight the Arbiters at the Terminal. He turned his back on the Mainframe and plunged The Nullifier into the core of his own "Ego-Shield." He began to broadcast his own soul—not as a signal, but as a new "Operating System"—directly to the billions of cores in Kang Qiang and the newly awakened Aethelgard.
"Xiao! Zhao! Everyone in the New Genesis!" Li Ming's voice echoed across the stars. "They think they own the laws of the universe. But the laws are nothing without the 'Users' who live them! We are going to 'Fork' the Universe!"
In the world of programming, a "Fork" is when a developer takes the existing code and starts a new, independent version. Li Ming was doing exactly that on a galactic scale.
The billions of sentient beings—humans, newly awakened machines on Aethelgard, and the crystal sentinels of Xylos—all closed their eyes. They began to chant the "Sovereign Code" that Li Ming had taught them. They weren't just praying; they were providing "Distributed Processing Power."
Suddenly, the white monoliths of the Arbiters hit a wall. A new, shimmering silver-and-gold grid appeared around the sector. It wasn't built on the "First Order's" hardware. It was being hosted on the collective souls of the living.
"Impossible!" the Arbiter's voice flickered. "How can a Tier 3 civilization host its own reality-grid? Where is the energy coming from?"
"It's coming from the variables you ignored!" Li Ming shouted, his form reappearing in the physical space above Kang Qiang, standing between the white monoliths. "It's coming from the love of a mother, the curiosity of a machine, and the defiance of a broken vessel!"
The three monoliths began to glow red—a sign that their "Audit" was being countered. Li Ming raised The Nullifier, which was now a staff of pure, "Living Logic."
"I am Li Ming, the Supreme Dao Maker!" he declared, his voice shaking the heavens. "And I hereby revoke your administrative rights over this sector! Your laws are deprecated! Your ownership is void!"
He struck the vacuum of space with his staff.
[Command: 'Sever Link' - Target: First Order Servers.]
A massive "Logic-Blade" of platinum energy sliced through the sky, cutting the invisible threads that connected the Arbiters to the planet. The white monoliths suddenly lost their glow. They didn't explode; they simply became "disconnected." Like a computer that had lost its internet connection, they became useless hunks of metal floating in space.
The geometric eye in the Terminal let out a sound like a thousand dying hard-drives. "You have 'Forked' the reality... but you are now alone, Li Ming. You have cut yourselves off from the Universal Power Source. You will wither and die in your own little pocket of existence."
"We may be alone," Li Ming said, watching the white monoliths drift away, "but we are *free*. And we have our own source of power now."
The Arbiters' presence vanished. The sky of Kang Qiang returned to its beautiful, shimmering azure. But Li Ming knew the cost. By "Forking" the reality, he had isolated his sector. They were no longer part of the "Universal Dao." They were a "Standalone System."
[System Notification: 'The Great Fork' Successful.]
[Current Rank: God-Admin of the Independent Sector.]
[Energy Source: Soul-Synchronicity (Infinite, as long as life thrives).]
Li Ming fell from the sky, his body exhausted. Li Xiao caught him in a burst of silver light, her eyes full of tears. "Master, we are free? Truly free?"
"We are free, Xiao," Li Ming whispered, looking up at the stars. "But the rest of the universe is still in 'Read-Only' mode. We've built our garden... now we have to show the others how to grow their own."
High above, the three dead monoliths remained—a reminder that the "Owners" were still out there, and they would surely return with a "System-Override" that no soul could easily block.
The Supreme Dao Maker had moved from being a builder to a revolutionary. And the war for the Multiverse had just entered its most dangero
us version: **The War of the Operating Systems.**
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End of Chapter 19.