The Veil spat him out again—but this time, not into a battlefield.
There was no realm here.
No sky. No ground. No echo of time or gravity or gods.
Just... space. Blank. Infinite. Waiting.
❖ Realm Status: Nonexistent
❖ Alignment: Void-Class (Unclaimed)
❖ Alert: You are now standing at the edge of creation
❖ Initiating Subsystem: [Crucible of Collapse]
→ Commence Realm Construction Protocol
→ Core Material: [You]
The boy floated—no, anchored himself—against nothing. Not by will, but by sheer defiance. There was no law here to bind him, but there was also no law to stop him.
He extended his hand.
And the Crucible answered.
A sigil carved itself into the fabric of the void. Lines of paradox, pulses of broken time, and memories that weren't memories—just possibilities—began swirling in a gyroscopic lattice of energy.
❖ Choose Primary Domain:
War
Chaos
Null
Dominion
Fracture
Custom (Warning: Unstable)
He hovered over the choices.
War was too familiar. Chaos too wild. Dominion was what his enemies wanted. Fracture... tempting.
But it was Null that called to him.
The power of absence. Of severing. Of unmaking.
He selected it.
❖ Domain Confirmed: [Null]
❖ Realm Seed Initiated: [Abyss-Sanction]
❖ Materializing Core Environment…
A ripple echoed outward. The void screamed.
And from nothing, something terrible began to take shape.
Not a palace. Not a throne. But a floating continent of jagged obsidian, wrapped in antimatter lightning and rimmed with the bones of failed realities.
The Crucible demanded blood to form stone, so the boy offered it—cutting his palm and letting the shimmering ichor of his own rewritten existence bleed into the foundation.
❖ Warning: External Detection Imminent
❖ Outerverse Entities have sensed the forging of a new Realm
❖ Projection: 3 to 5 will arrive within 24 Hours
The boy's body tensed. He'd barely begun, and already, the sharks were circling.
He needed power.
He needed residents.
❖ Crucible Subcommand: Populate Prototype Realm
→ Sources Available:
– Rejected Timeline Echoes
– Phantom Refugees (Tier Z)
– Memory Residue Constructs
– Systemless Entities (Abandoned Players)
He chose all of them.
Suddenly, they appeared. Dozens—no, hundreds—of flickering silhouettes. Some in armor, some in rags, some not human at all. Survivors of dead timelines, lost fragments of multiversal games, players who had been erased mid-quest, echoes of lives that never had a chance to be.
And they looked to him.
Not as a king.
But as their last option.
❖ Realm Inhabitants: 453 Initialized
❖ Loyalty: Variable
❖ Fear Factor: Maximum
❖ Hope Index: Zero
→ Objective: Instill Identity
He spoke.
Not with words, but with intent—his will bleeding through the realm like wildfire.
"I am not your savior. I am not your god. I am the silence after the throne falls. The knife after the promise. This realm exists because nothing else would have you—and because I will not let what comes next decide our fate."
They listened.
And the Realm took shape around that identity.
Towering monoliths rose from the void, etched with languages from a thousand forgotten worlds. Storms brewed across the antimatter sky, feeding off the hopes and fears of the realm's fledgling denizens. Gravity, time, and death existed here—but only conditionally.
❖ Realm Level: 1 (Unstable Birthstate)
❖ Defense Protocol: Passive
❖ Apex Law: "Obedience is earned. Power is taken."
Suddenly, the Crucible pulsed with red light.
❖ Intrusion Detected
❖ Entity: [Outerverse Preceptor: Malakar of the Eleven Wills]
❖ Class: Realm Devourer
❖ Objective: Claim or Annihilate Unbound Realm Seeds
A shadow tore into reality itself.
A being forged from spirals of glowing bone and black flame stepped into Abyss-Sanction's infant form, looking unimpressed.
"Another amateur trying to forge a realm with no throne to bind it?" Malakar's voice echoed through every atom. "How quaint."
The boy answered by flinging Nullfang straight at his head.
The Realm Devourer blinked—literally—and was gone, appearing behind the boy.
"Fast. But not fast enough. I've ended fledgling godlings stronger than you with a breath."
The Crucible shrieked in defiance.
❖ Emergency Command Enabled: [Null Overdrive]
→ Sacrifice 10% of Realm Stability
→ Convert into raw destructive vector
"Then breathe this," the boy whispered.
A pulse of annihilation exploded outward. Malakar screamed—not in pain, but surprise. The edges of his incorporeal frame burned as Null Overdrive ate away at his existence—not killing him, but cutting him off from the Outerverse.
❖ Status: Malakar Severed
❖ Threat Level Decreased
❖ Realm Defense Upgraded: Anti-Outerverse Intrusion Shield Initialized
The boy fell to one knee, coughing up black fire. He hadn't realized how much the attack took until the air tasted like rust and his bones felt like unraveling timelines.
But Malakar was retreating.
"Your realm is raw chaos," the Preceptor hissed. "But I see now—you're not building a throne. You're building a weapon."
He vanished into the rip between dimensions, and the Crucible sealed behind him.
❖ Realm Rank Increased: Class D (Anomalous Fortress)
❖ Title Gained: [Crucible Architect]
❖ Outerverse Reputation: [Infant Threat – Under Observation]
The boy stood, surrounded by the hundred phantom lives he'd saved. Some were whispering. Others bowed.
Not one called him king.
And that was perfect.
He didn't need their worship.
He needed their resolve.
He looked up at the fractured sky of his realm, then down