The world did not explode.That was the first sign something had gone terribly, fundamentally wrong.When Adrian Kane bound himself to Earth, reality did not shatter under divine overload. Instead, it held—as if the planet itself had been waiting for permission to breathe again.Across continents, pressure vanished.Storms weakened.Fault lines stilled.Weapons systems malfunctioned and shut down without explanation.And everywhere, in the bones of humanity, something ancient stirred.War had gained a keeper.THE MOMENT OF BINDINGDeep beneath Nova Imperium University, the buried battlefield screamed—not in agony, but in release.Adrian’s arm vanished into the core of the seal, light and memory consuming him from the shoulder down. Power surged upward through his body, rewriting the chains that had bound him moments before.These were not Origin’s chains.These were his.The echoes of the fallen gods circled him like a storm of ghosts.“You will not leave,” one said quietly.“I know,”

The world held its breath.Not metaphorically.Literally.Across Earth, lungs stalled mid-inhale. Oceans stilled between waves. Satellites drifted without correction as if time itself had forgotten which direction to move.Origin’s declaration echoed through every layer of existence.PREPARE FOR RESTRUCTURINGAdrian stood at the center of the ruined campus, blood running down his arm, the ground still warm from the Avatar’s destruction.Lucy was slipping away.He could feel it.That thin thread connecting them—once stubborn, once human—was unraveling into something colder, cleaner, correct.“No,” Adrian said again, his voice hoarse. “I don’t accept this.”Origin did not respond.It didn’t need to.THE NODE AWAKENSLucy floated in a white void.There was no pain anymore.That was the first thing she noticed.The second was the silence.Not the absence of sound—but the absence of noise. Fear. Doubt. The constant chaos of being human had been gently peeled away, layer by layer, until onl

The lattice did not descend gently.It asserted itself.Light folded into geometry. Geometry became law. Law pressed downward with the weight of inevitability, and the sky screamed—not audibly, but conceptually—as the Containment Structure locked into phase above Nova Imperium University.Students collapsed.Glass shattered inward.Every digital device within ten kilometers shut down simultaneously.Sera dropped to one knee, clutching her head as symbols burned behind her eyes.“Adrian—!” she cried.He didn’t turn.Because he could feel it now.The cage was not meant to trap him.It was meant to define him.CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL: WAR ASSETSTATUS: ACTIVEPOWER RANGE: SEALEDANOMALY TOLERANCE: ZEROAdrian inhaled slowly.“So this is confirmation,” he said.The seven Envoys hovered in perfect formation, their presence stabilizing the structure. Each one was a node—an anchor preventing the cage from collapsing under the strain of holding something it was never meant to.The central Envoy

Reentry did not feel like birth.It felt like collision.Adrian Kane tore back into existence like a blade driven through glass.Reality screamed.The lattice above Nova Imperium University detonated outward—not exploding, but unraveling, its perfect geometry collapsing into meaningless fragments of abandoned law. Light inverted. Gravity hiccupped. The sky fractured into layered afterimages, each one trying and failing to decide which version of events was correct.Students were thrown to the ground.Buildings buckled.And at the epicenter of it all—Adrian arrived.He stood where the void had opened, boots planted on stone that should not have survived his return. The plaza beneath him had been crushed into a shallow crater, cracks radiating outward like a spiderweb around his feet.He did not glow.He did not flare with divine spectacle.He simply was.And the system recoiled.ERRORENTITY RECOGNITION FAILEDCLASSIFICATION: UNKNOWNOrigin’s voice stuttered—not audibly, but structura

The final chain did not snap.It unraveled.Not as metal breaking, not as a seal failing—but as a rule being withdrawn.Adrian Kane felt it happen across every layer of his existence at once.There was no surge of power.No explosion.No divine spectacle.Instead—Silence.Perfect, terrifying silence.The kind that follows a decision the universe cannot undo.The singularity above Nova Imperium University collapsed inward, its spiraling mass of law folding neatly into itself, compressing faster and faster until—It vanished.Gone.No backlash.No detonation.Just absence.And with it—Origin’s last restraint disappeared.THE MOMENT THE WORLD FLINCHEDThe foundational presence reacted instantly.The sky peeled back farther than before, revealing the impossible lattice beneath reality—the bones of creation itself, vast and cold and indifferent.“FUNCTION BREACH CONFIRMED.”The voice was no longer layered.No longer patient.It was sharp now.Alarmed.Adrian stood beneath it, shoulders r