Time did not flow in the Null-Zone.
It evaporated.
For Wei Yuan, ten million years was not a duration so much as a measure of dust accumulation—if dust were permitted to exist in a perfect vacuum.
[Notification: Silent Mode has expired.]
[Status: Awakening.]
[Current Ripple Value: 0.0000000000001.]
[Total Stillness Essence: 999,999,999,999+ (Value Capped).]
Wei Yuan opened his eyes.
The motion was so gradual that it took three full days for his eyelids to finish retracting.
His body was no longer jade.
No longer light.
No longer matter.
He was conceptual.
A stationary thought.
A definition without an object.
A fixed point inside non-existence.
The wooden hut had changed with him.
Each grain of wood now carried the mass-density of a collapsed star. The lone spirit tree outside had grown into a Cosmic Pillar, its trunk rooted in nothingness, its silver leaves humming softly with the laws of Wei Yuan's private universe.
Ten million years, he reflected.
Good. I hope everyone I ever knew is not only dead, but thoroughly forgotten.
If I see one more person named Lin, I might actually have to sigh.
He extended his consciousness beyond the ten-meter boundary of his sanctuary.
The Null-Zone should have been silent.
It wasn't.
Something pulsed in the dark—slow, rhythmic vibrations, like the echo of a drum beating behind the walls of reality.
System, Wei Yuan thought.
Report on the state of the Primordial Chaos.
[Scanning…]
[Current Era: Age of Convergence.]
[Update 1:]
The Citadel of Eternal Sovereigns was destroyed 4.2 million years ago.
Cause: The Great Ego-Shattering War.
[Update 2:]
The Will of the Multiverse has determined that individual Transcendents are "inefficient."
[Directive:]
Merge all universes into a single Unified Reality.
[Phenomenon Detected:]
Primordial Gravity — pulling all existence, including Null-Zones, toward a central Singularity of Fate.
Wei Yuan's conceptual brow furrowed.
"A Singularity of Fate," he murmured.
"That's just a protagonist magnet with better branding."
If all worlds merged, then all karma merged.
If all karma merged—
Then silence would become impossible.
[Warning:]
You are being drawn toward the Great Convergence.
Velocity: 1 light-year per second.
[Probability of Detection upon Arrival: 100%.]
The system presented its options.
[Option 1:]
Allow convergence.
Fuse with the Singularity and rewrite reality using maxed Stillness Essence.
Reward:One True God.
Shockwave Cost: 999 quadrillion.
(Universal extinction of privacy.)
[Option 2:]
Reverse personal gravity and resist.
Reward: 10,000 Primordial Motes.
Shockwave Cost: 50,000.
(Attracts Janitors of Convergence.)
[Option 3:]
Perform Permanent Decoupling.
Convert the Null-Zone into a Non-Euclidean Paradox.
Exist behind the Singularity in zero-causality space.
Reward:The Final Shadow.
Shockwave Cost: 0.000000001.
Wei Yuan did not hesitate.
"Option three," he said calmly.
"I don't want to be the One True God."
"I don't even want to be the One True Janitor."
"I want to be the One True Neighbor Who Doesn't Exist."
As the system initiated Permanent Decoupling, Wei Yuan observed the multiverse.
The sight was obscene.
Trillions of universes collided.
Stars fused.
Pantheons screamed as their laws were overwritten.
He saw heroes meeting for the first time—
A Sword Sovereign clashing with a God-Emperor of Technology.
A billion descendants of the Lin bloodline—now a multiversal clan—charging toward the Singularity, claiming it as their ancestral homeland.
"The noise," Wei Yuan muttered.
"It's nauseating."
He tightened the Paradox around his hut.
Then—
A familiar sensation.
The Echo of the Void pulsed.
A Destiny Seed.
Not from above.
From below.
A battered escape pod drifted past his hidden sanctuary, wrapped in fading Ancestral Protection. Inside lay a single infant, crying softly. The blanket bore a crest Wei Yuan recognized instantly.
[Identification:]
Lin Mei.
Designation: Last Spark of the Lin Bloodline.
[Status:]
Her universe was the first consumed.
[Trait:]
Carrier of the Seed of Rebirth.
Only stabilizing factor for the Singularity.
Wei Yuan stiffened.
"Ignore it," he told himself firmly.
"She's a Lin. If I interfere, this becomes a Foster Parent Arc."
"Three million years minimum. Absolutely not."
Then—
[Warning:]
Janitors of Convergence have detected the Seed of Rebirth.
Intent: Harvest.
Result: Infant deletion.
[Secondary Effect:]
Causality vacuum will destabilize your Paradox.
Your sanctuary will implode into the Singularity.
Wei Yuan froze.
"Wait," he said slowly.
"If they delete her… my house breaks?"
[Confirmed.]
He exhaled.
"The universe has a sick sense of humor."
Wei Yuan did not rise.
He did not open his door.
He extended one Independent Law finger.
Instead of attacking the Janitors, he altered trajectory.
Using 100,000 Stillness Essence, he layered the pod with Unimportance.
To the Janitors, it became meaningless debris.
At the same time, he fabricated a Fake Seed of Rebirth a billion miles away.
The Janitors—vast, faceless geometries of gold—immediately redirected.
The infant's pod drifted safely into stable orbit around the forming Singularity.
[Karmic Action: Subversive Preservation.]
[Ripple Value: 0.001 (Temporary).]
[Reward Gained:]
Blind Spot of God.
Your existence is now excluded from Universal Will calculations.
Wei Yuan watched as the pod descended toward a peaceful, newly formed planet.
Go, he thought.
Be a hero. Save the world.
Just don't look up.
The Great Convergence finished.
All bubbles became one infinite continent.
A new era began: The Age of Unity.
Wei Yuan checked his Paradox.
Stable.
He was now a ghost in the attic of a very loud house.
System, he thought.
How much for a Privacy Screen? I don't want to watch them rebuild sects.
[Cost: 5,000,000 Essence.]
"Purchase. And set an alarm for another hundred million years."
Celebration erupted across the newborn reality.
Legends were born.
Wei Yuan did not attend.
He closed his eyes.
Silver leaves fell from the spirit tree, never touching the ground.
"Finally," he whispered.
"A new era. And I still wasn't invited."
He slept.
Far below, on a quiet planet, the infant Lin Mei opened her eyes.
They were not brown.
They were not blue.
They were silver.
The exact colour of Wei Yuan's long-forgotten Nascent Soul.
She smiled at the sky.
The Seed of Rebirth has been touched by Stillness.
The Grand Law is already deviating.
Wei Yuan is the only one
Who doesn't know-
He has accidentally become a Progenitor.