A cold, mechanical silence settled over the battlefield.
Ethan stood amidst the wreckage, his body radiating raw power—but he could feel it.
Something was coming.
The air rippled, and for the first time, Ethan experienced true fear.
> [ALERT: ADMINISTRATOR PRESENCE DETECTED]
[WARNING: SYSTEM OVERRIDE IN PROGRESS]
---
The Gods of the System
The world froze.
Not slowed. Not stopped. Just ceased to function.
The wind that had been howling a second ago vanished. The rubble mid-collapse remained suspended in the air, stuck between past and future.
And then—they arrived.
A golden tear split through the sky, and figures emerged.
Not faceless like the Enforcers. Not monstrous like the System Beasts.
No—these were something else entirely.
They looked human.
But Ethan could tell instantly—they were anything but.
Their eyes glowed like stars, their movements effortless, as if gravity itself obeyed them.
They descended slowly, their forms untouched by the broken world around them.
> "Anomaly detected. Termination authorized."
The voice wasn't mechanical. It was perfect, neither male nor female, yet carrying an authority that made the entire world tremble.
Ethan clenched his fists. "So… you're the gods of this System, huh?"
One of them tilted its head, as if amused.
> "Gods? No. We are Administrators. The System exists because we allow it."
Ethan's eyes narrowed. "And what happens if I refuse to be erased?"
The lead Administrator raised a single hand—
And the entire city crumbled into dust.
---
The System's True Power
Ethan barely had time to react.
One second, he was standing on solid ground.
The next—everything was gone.
The city. The sky. The very concept of existence.
Ethan felt himself drifting in an empty void, his senses struggling to comprehend what had just happened.
> [ERROR: REALITY ANCHOR LOST]
[WARNING: UNSTABLE EXISTENCE DETECTED]
He forced himself to move—and realized he couldn't.
His body was trapped, bound by invisible laws stronger than anything he had ever faced.
The Administrators floated before him, untouched by the collapse of reality itself.
One of them raised a hand, reaching for him.
> "Reset. Commencing total erasure."
Ethan's heartbeat thundered.
No. Not like this.
He had fought too hard. Come too far. He wasn't going to let them—
---
Defying the Reset
A spark.
Deep within him, something shifted.
Something the System couldn't control.
Ethan gritted his teeth, and for the first time—he rejected reality itself.
> [WARNING: SYSTEM RESET FAILURE]
[ERROR: ADMINISTRATOR OVERRIDE REJECTED]
The void around him shattered.
The Administrators' expressions—usually blank and unfeeling—shifted slightly.
Surprise.
> "Impossible."
Ethan forced himself forward, his body burning with power he didn't understand.
And then—he struck.
His fist collided with the lead Administrator's chest—
And the impossible happened.
The Administrator staggered.
The world snapped back into existence.
The other Administrators moved, their eyes glowing with something dangerous.
Ethan smirked, his body surrounded by swirling chaos.
> "Guess what? I make my own rules now."
And with that, the real war began.
---
Breaking the Chains of Fate
A storm of raw power surged around Ethan.
The Administrators—the so-called rulers of the System—stood before him, their perfect, untouchable forms now marked by the impossible: one of them had staggered.
It wasn't much.
Just a slight imbalance, a misstep that lasted for less than a fraction of a second.
But to Ethan, it was proof.
> They could be hurt.
They could be beaten.
The lead Administrator slowly straightened itself, its glowing eyes locked onto Ethan.
> "Anomaly growth rate exceeding all projections."
"Threat Level: Absolute."
The air rippled—no, the very fabric of reality trembled, as if the System itself was preparing to unleash something that had never been used before.
Ethan grinned.
He wasn't afraid.
Not anymore.
---
Unleashing the Forbidden Code
The Administrators didn't speak again. They acted.
One second, they were standing in the ruined battlefield.
The next, Ethan was surrounded.
> [WARNING: MULTIPLE REALITY LOCKS DETECTED]
[ERROR: MOVEMENT DENIED]
Chains of pure concept wrapped around him. Not metal, not energy—but rules themselves.
A law that declared: "You cannot move."
A law that commanded: "You cannot resist."
A law that sentenced: "You must be erased."
Ethan snarled, struggling, but his body refused to respond.
It wasn't physical. It wasn't even magical.
This was System Law at its peak.
And it was dragging him toward erasure.
---
Defying the Impossible
Ethan's mind raced. He couldn't fight this power with brute strength alone.
If the System was binding him with laws…
Then he needed to break them.
> [Activating Personal Override…]
[WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED SYSTEM REWRITE ATTEMPT DETECTED]
His eyes blazed as something deep within him responded.
He could feel it—the source of the System's laws, the very code that dictated reality itself.
And just like he had rewritten his own existence before—
He reached into the chains that bound him and rewrote the rule.
> [New Law Created: "I Cannot Be Controlled."]
CRACK.
The chains shattered.
The Administrators flinched—a reaction they had never shown before.
Ethan lunged forward, his fist coated in pure defiance.
And then he struck.
---
The First Administrator Falls
The air boomed as his punch collided with the lead Administrator's chest.
This time, it wasn't just a misstep.
The Administrator was sent flying.
The perfect, untouchable beings—for the first time in history—were losing.
> [ERROR: ADMINISTRATOR UNIT DAMAGED]
[WARNING: SYSTEM STABILITY AT RISK]
Ethan landed on the ground, breathing hard. He could feel it. Something was changing.
The System was breaking.
The other Administrators remained still, their glowing eyes locked on Ethan.
For the first time, there was something in their expressions.
Something dangerously close to fear.
> "Unacceptable. Activating the Final Protocol."
The sky split apart.
And from the void beyond the stars—something else was coming.
The Final Protocol Unleashed
The sky was no longer a sky.
It was a shattered abyss, splitting apart like fragile glass.
From the void beyond, something stirred.
Something older than the System itself.
The Administrators—once cold and untouchable—stepped back.
Not out of strategy. Not out of calculation.
But out of fear.
> [Final Protocol Activated.]
[Initializing: The Origin Core.]
A black sun began to emerge from the rupture. It wasn't made of fire or light—it was an abyss, a gravitational force so strong that even concepts struggled to exist near it.
Reality itself was collapsing under its pull.
And it was awakening.
---
The Truth Behind the System
Ethan gritted his teeth, his body trembling—not in fear, but in response to the sheer weight of what was happening.
The System had always felt… too structured. Too precise.
Now, he understood why.
> "The System wasn't created to rule."
"It was created to keep this thing sealed."
The Administrators turned toward Ethan, their perfect faces finally showing cracks—expressions that were neither human nor machine.
> "You… You have ruined everything."
Ethan laughed, his energy crackling around him.
> "Good. I like breaking things."
One of the Administrators stepped forward, its body trembling slightly.
> "You do not understand. That thing—"
The black sun pulsed.
And everything changed.
---
The Origin Core Awakens
A voice—ancient, endless, and filled with the weight of a thousand dead worlds—spoke.
> "WHO DARES UNCHAIN ME?"
The words weren't sound. They were law.
Ethan's vision blurred, his very existence struggling to hold itself together under the sheer force of the presence before him.
The Administrators collapsed to their knees, their bodies flickering as if they were being erased from history.
And then—the Core turned its gaze to Ethan.
A single moment.
A single glance.
> [WARNING: EXISTENCE COMPROMISED]
[DANGER: REALITY THREADS BREAKING]
Ethan's heart stopped.
He could feel himself unraveling.
Not dying.
Just… ceasing to be.
> "YOU ARE UNBOUND."
The words hit him like an earthquake. His System interface shattered.
His stats, his abilities, his very connection to the System—gone.
But—
Something else took its place.
---
Becoming the True Anomaly
Ethan's body was still disintegrating, but his will refused.
His mind burned with one thought:
> "I refuse to disappear."
And in that instant—he redefined himself.
Where the System had once dictated his limits, now there was only Ethan.
A new force. A new rule.
> [ERROR: SYSTEM RECOGNITION FAILED]
[WARNING: NEW ENTITY DETECTED]
[DESIGNATION: ANOMALY PRIME]
Ethan stood.
The black sun paused.
For the first time in its existence, the Origin Core felt something it had never experienced before.
Opposition.
Ethan clenched his fist, his entire being surging with a power even he didn't understand.
> "You want to erase me?"
He smirked.
> "Then you better be ready to fight."
And with that—the war to reshape existence began.