The ridge where Hikaru and his companions stood trembled beneath their feet, the very bones of the world vibrating in anticipation. The decision to free the Architect had torn apart the balance of powers—breaking the old chains that governed the System, and in doing so, it had signaled the descent of the gods' enforcers.
Above them, the sky no longer held the gentle hues of a sunlit evening. Instead, it had shattered—cracked like an eggshell around a dying flame. Arcs of violet lightning danced through the fissures, illuminating the horizon in jagged, divine patterns.
Kaela was the first to speak.
"They're coming."
It wasn't just a whisper of fear. It was an acknowledgment. A truth she didn't want to believe but had felt deep in her magical core the moment the vault had opened.
A massive rift split open above them, revealing a tapestry of stars and machinery—metallic cities orbiting unseen realms, bridges of pure data linking celestial stations. From within that rift, they descended.
Dozens.
No—hundreds.
Each figure was towering, shaped like a humanoid, yet distinctly inhuman. Their forms were smooth, sculpted from translucent alloy that shimmered between steel and starlight. Encased in armor made of pure logic, they bore eyes of burning white and moved with no sound.
Each one carried a symbol of balance etched onto its chest: three interlocking circles—a symbol the System had once flashed whenever laws were enforced.
Kaela's breath hitched. "Lawbringers... Real ones."
Brant cracked his knuckles. "Well, I guess we pissed off the right people."
A thunderous voice echoed above them—not from a throat, but from every Lawbringer speaking in perfect unison.
"Sanction breached. Reality compromised. System Command revoked. Correction Protocol engaged."
System NotificationWarning: Origin Command Units detected.Status: Hostile.Power Level: Irreconcilable.
Survival Odds: 3.67%
Brant glanced at the floating notification and spat. "Great odds. Let's make them worse for them."
But Hikaru didn't respond. His gaze was locked on the rift above. He was watching—feeling—everything. The System inside him was no longer a simple interface. Since merging with the Architect's spark, it was as if he could perceive the very code that stitched this reality together.
He moved his fingers slowly, drawing invisible lines in the air. The glyphs responded, forming elegant shapes.
[IF enemy_class == Origin_Command] → [Initialize Script: Reality Rewrite Subdomain]
The spell unfurled. Around the trio, a dome of inverted logic pulsed into being—glowing red on the outside, calming silver within. The Lawbringers halted, recalculating the anomaly.
Kaela gasped. "You... you wrote a domain?"
"Not just a domain," Hikaru said quietly. "A refusal."
With a pulse, the dome rejected the first Lawbringer's approach. The towering enforcer stumbled back, light flaring from the cracks in its armor. It recalibrated, mechanical limbs folding into new configurations. Then it charged again, this time flanked by two others.
Brant roared. "Come on, then!"
He leapt forward, fists shrouded in golden sparks. With a single punch, he collided with the Lawbringer, knocking it off its feet. The second one responded by swinging a blade of crystallized force, barely missing Kaela, who darted back, her staff channeling unstable, wild magic.
Kaela lifted her staff skyward. "No rules. No chains."
The skies trembled again. With the System weakened, her spells now drew from raw willpower. She called forth a tempest—ravenous flames shaped like a wolf's jaw. The inferno roared to life, snapping shut on two of the Lawbringers and engulfing them in ethereal fire.
They burned silently, light pulsing, their forms cracking under the pressure.
Still, more descended.
Fifty. Then seventy. Then a hundred.
Each one moved in perfect synchronization.
"Restore the Spiral. Purge the Abnormal."
And then the sky darkened further.
A figure stepped through the rift—no, floated through. It moved with gravity-defying grace, surrounded by symbols that changed every second—geometry no mind could fully understand.
The Watcher-General.
His title reverberated in the very molecules of the world: Khelem Varn, the Enforcer of Origin Law. Cloaked in swirling runes, his face was a mask of moving algorithms. There were no eyes, no mouth, just patterns—calculations in real-time.
Kaela froze. "He's… he's rewriting the world as he steps."
The system's voice, even now, was slow to react.
System Update: Entity IdentifiedClassification: Supreme Origin LawbringerSubtype: World Architect Hunter
Warning: Do not engage.
Brant looked at Hikaru. "We're gonna engage anyway, aren't we?"
"Yeah," Hikaru said. "But not like they expect."
The Watcher-General raised a hand. The Lawbringers stopped moving immediately, freezing mid-action, like paused simulations.
"You defied the Mandate. You untethered the Architect. You tampered with the Spiral."
The voice didn't travel through air. It traveled through reality itself. Every stone, every blade of grass, heard him.
"Correction is non-negotiable."
Hikaru stepped forward. "Then let's negotiate with war."
With that, he drew a glyph—massive, jagged, vibrating with black and gold energy. He cast it forward like a spear.
[IF Supreme_Threat_Active == TRUE] → [Initialize Override Node: Domain: Sovereign of the Unwritten]
A pulse exploded outward.
Suddenly, the world within a thousand-meter radius bent to Hikaru's will. It became a pocket reality—an unrecorded zone where the System had no sway.
Khelem Varn paused, the shifting glyphs around him faltering for a moment.
Kaela grabbed Hikaru's arm, her eyes wild. "You made a Sovereign Domain. You declared yourself a rulemaker."
He nodded. "Someone has to."
Then the sky inside the domain flared. Every member of the group felt it—new power pouring into their sigils. Hikaru had opened the gates of creativity, of potential without ceilings.
"Kaela. Amplify."
Kaela shouted a phrase in the Old Tongue, and the ground responded. Giant spears of silver light burst from the cracked soil.
"Brant. Anchor the flank!"
Brant stomped once, and a quake shook the terrain. The mountain's ridge broke apart, swallowing four Lawbringers in a pit of lava.
The Watcher-General acted at last. He extended both arms, and twin beams of ancient justice tore toward Hikaru—unavoidable, absolute.
But they bent as they entered the Sovereign Domain.
They bent.
Hikaru stood firm, holding his glyphs like a war banner.
"You're not welcome here anymore."
Then, as the ground trembled again, something else happened.
A flash. A silhouette.
Another player—one Hikaru had never met before—emerged from a hidden gate, covered in battered armor and wielding a jagged greatsword wrapped in red System fire.
He grinned.
"You opened the Domain of the Unwritten?" the stranger asked.
"I did," Hikaru replied.
The man chuckled. "Then let's break every rule they ever made."