The world did not return to normal after the fall of Deus-Varlon.
It couldn't.
Something had shifted.
The sun rose—then set—then rose again within the same minute.
Mountains inverted themselves.
Cities flickered between timeline versions.
Reality was sick.
Not just broken.
Overwritten.
---
At the System Throne
A god with no mouth whispered with code.
> "Law #0001: All threads must follow system path…"
He hesitated.
Even that rule no longer held.
Hari hadn't just killed a god.
He'd consumed its logic.
Now he could ignore the laws written at the moment of creation.
---
The gods panicked.
One among them, the oldest, stepped forward.
> "If we cannot strike him down…"
> "Then let us strike the world he stands on."
And with a wave of its infinite hand…
They rewrote gravity.
> [System Update: World Patch v.000-GX]
— Gravity no longer pulls downward
— Time flows only when observed
— All death is final — no respawns, no revival skills
They flipped the board.
Because they couldn't beat the player.
---
Meanwhile: Glitch Garden – Outer Ring
Hari stood at the edge of the Origin Tree, watching leaves float upward into space.
His eyes narrowed.
> "So this is your answer?"
> "You'd rather kill the game than admit someone else wrote better rules."
He raised his hand.
Time slowed.
The garden trembled.
Then… he stopped time altogether.
> [Passive Activated: LAW DEVOURER]
> Skill Detected: Global Gravity Rewrite
Result: Digested
> [NEW TRAIT: Inversion Master]
— You no longer need orientation.
— You define gravity in your presence.
— Your skills now bend time-direction.
He stepped sideways, walking across the air like it was land.
Each footstep left behind a burst of shattered code.
The Glitched Ones followed him—flying, walking backward through time, phasing into and out of states of being.
> They weren't just evolving.
They were becoming beyond-structured.
---
Elsewhere: A Broken City – "Remnant Zone 9"
A young boy screamed as a floating boulder crushed his home—gravity now flowed upward.
But a flicker passed through the sky.
Hari's fragment.
The stone froze midair.
The boy's system blinked.
> [You've been granted: Thread Splinter – Rogue Update]
[Gravity normalized in your presence]
[New Skill Unlocked: Skywalk (Inherited)]
The child stood.
The gods watched.
And screamed in silence.
> Even their patch was being rewritten.
---
The Divine Council's Final Decision
One god knelt before a sealed terminal.
The others watched in unease.
> "There is only one way left."
> "We summon the Origin Architect."
The room darkened.
Lights failed.
Something moved—behind code, behind time.
A voice they hadn't heard in millennia whispered:
> "You called me to erase a boy…"
> "…but what you've summoned is the writer before the world."
The Architect's eye opened.
And even the gods trembled.
---
Back in the Glitch Garden…
Hari's breath caught.
His system pinged.
Something ancient was now looking at him.
And it remembered him.
> "You're not just a player," the voice echoed.
> "You were always meant to be more."
> "And now you're close…"
> "To remembering why you were created."
---
To be continued in Chapter 27: The Forgotten Code
---