Chapter 7: The Truecaller
The Central Core was not a place of machinery; it was a cathedral of absolute silence where the laws of physics went to die. Fajin stood at the epicenter, his presence a dark stain against the blinding white data-drifts. Behind him, Kale Ju Xu hung suspended in the silver logic-tethers, his massive frame twitching rhythmically.
Fajin wasn't just holding Kale; he was using the warrior's biological nervous system as a high-frequency antenna. By routing the Core's raw energy through Kale's Rank 6 meridians, Fajin had turned his pawn into a "Truecaller"—a metaphysical caller ID that could identify the hidden frequency of every soul connected to the Great Archive.
"The greatest mistake of the Stage 8 Sovereigns," Fajin whispered, his fingers dancing across a holographic interface of shifting equations, "was believing that privacy exists within a system they designed. They built a world of masks. I am going to unmask the Universe."
The Grand Design: The "Total Identity" Liquidation
Fajin's scheme was no longer about gold, buildings, or even political power. It was a Conceptual Coup. To reach Stage 9 – The Script-Writer, he needed to strip away the "Narrative Armor" of every being in the novel's history.
Phase 1: The Resonance Mapping (The Analyst's Layer)
Fajin used the Script-Writer's Tool to write a recursive loop into Kale Ju Xu's brain.
The Mechanism: Every time Kale's heart beat, it sent a pulse through the Archive. This pulse didn't ask for data; it asked for "Origin."
The Result: Across the three continents, every person—from the lowest Stage 1 beggar to the highest Stage 7 hidden elder—felt a momentary shiver. In that second, their "True Name" (their fundamental logic-code) was pinged.
Phase 2: The Heartless Benefit (The Strategic Layer)
The Librarian watched the data-stream with a hollow, silver gaze. "You are identifying everyone, Fajin. But identification isn't control. Even if you know their names, the Sovereigns can still hide behind their Abstract Laws."
"Identification is the first step of Foreclosure," Fajin replied.
He began the "Truecaller" protocol. By identifying the "True Names" of his enemies, Fajin began a mass Identity-Theft at a cosmic scale. He didn't steal their money; he stole their Causality.
The Manipulation: Fajin took the "Value" associated with the achievements of the Southern Continent's geniuses and "re-assigned" it to his own ledger.
If a hero was destined to save a city, Fajin's code rewrote the history so that the "Save" was credited to Fajin's influence.
He was effectively harvesting the Karmic Equity of the entire world to pay for his ascension.
The Deepest Scheme: The "Empty Mirror" Paradox
Fajin's mind was now operating at a level that would melt a Stage 6 brain. He was calculating 30,000 parallel futures simultaneously. He knew that the Council of Stage 8 would try to "unplug" the Core the moment they realized they were being liquidated.
To prevent this, he initiated the "Empty Mirror" scheme.
The Bait: He projected a fake "Final Boss" version of himself into the Archive's upper layers. This projection looked like a power-hungry tyrant, exactly the kind of threat the Sovereigns were programmed to fight.
The Hidden Move: While the Sovereigns focused their "Erasure Rays" on the projection, Fajin was actually de-compiling his own ego. He turned himself into a "Background Process."
The Trap: He linked the Sovereigns' own power-sources to the fake projection. The more they fought the "Fake Fajin," the more they drained their own essence, which was then funneled through the silver tethers into Kale Ju Xu.
"You're making them kill themselves to power your pawn," the Librarian noted.
"I am making them pay for the privilege of their own destruction," Fajin corrected.
The Pawn's True Purpose: The "Living Capacitor"
Kale Ju Xu let out a guttural scream as the stolen essence of the Stage 8 Sovereigns poured into his body. His muscles didn't just grow; they began to glow with a sickly, white-hot light. His Rank 6 cultivation was being forcibly shoved toward Rank 7, but his mind was being shredded by the influx of abstract data.
"Fajin... stop... my soul is... tearing..." Kale wheezed.
Fajin didn't even look at him. "Your soul is a container, Kale. And containers are meant to be filled until they burst. You are currently the Truecaller's Battery. Your agony is the only thing keeping the connection to the Core stable. If you die before I finish the rewrite, the world ends. So, for the sake of the 'Benefit,' you will remain alive."
Fajin reached the final line of the code. The "Truecaller" protocol was 99% complete. He had successfully mapped the identity of every soul in existence and linked them to a single command: OBEY.
The Ascension: The Birth of the Architect-God
Fajin plunged the Script-Writer's Tool into his own chest. He wasn't committing suicide; he was merging the tool with his biological heart.
"The Archive thinks it is a library," Fajin said, his voice now echoing across every continent simultaneously. "But I have renamed it. It is now my Notebook."
With a final, heartless flourish of his mind, Fajin executed the "Total Recall." * The Sovereigns in the void dissolved into raw ink.
The "Geniuses" of the world found their thoughts replaced by Fajin's directives.
The very concept of "Free Will" was re-categorized as a System Error.
Fajin stood in the center of the silent, rewritten world. The moon remained in its fixed, fake orbit. The ruins of the Archives Tower remained as a monument to his efficiency.
He was the Truecaller. He knew everyone's name, everyone's secret, and everyone's price. And he had decided that the price for the world's continued existence was its absolute subservience to his logic.
"The scheme is complete, Librarian," Fajin said, his silver eyes now containing the entire history of the novel. "There are no more players. There is only the Author, and the ink."
He looked at the broken, glowing form of Kale Ju Xu—the pawn who had made it all possible. Fajin didn't offer a word of thanks. He simply reached out and "deleted" the pawn's memory of ever being a hero, leaving behind only a perfect, hollow servant.
"Now," Fajin whispered to the empty Void. "Let us see what the real gods outFajin withdrew his hand from the Script-Writer's Tool, which was now pulsing in rhythmic synchronicity with his own heart. The Great Archive's Core had transformed from a chaotic sea of probability into a static, orderly reservoir of Compressed Reality.
He looked at the Librarian and the shackled Kale Ju Xu. To the world, they were three individuals standing in a void. To Fajin's Stage 8.5 awareness, they were the only three surviving "Data Points" in a universe he had just turned into a closed-circuit simulation.
"The Sovereigns are gone," the Librarian noted, his voice sounding like a recording played in an empty room. "The Council has been liquidated into raw logic-fuel. But Fajin, the Archive is reacting. By removing the 'Abstract Laws,' you have triggered a System Refresh. The world is trying to restart from zero."
Fajin's silver eyes scanned the rapidly dissolving reality. "A 'Restart' is only a threat if the backup remains identical to the original. I have already edited the Recovery Image."
The Heartless Benefit: The "Zero-Point" Re-indexing
Fajin didn't try to stop the world from dissolving. Instead, he accelerated it.
The Scheme (The Highest Mind Analysis):
The Problem: The Great Archive's "Auto-Recovery" would normally restore the world to a state of "Balanced Chaos" (Stage 1-7).
The Strategy: Fajin used the Truecaller protocol to "Anchor" his own logic as the only persistent file. As the world dissolved into white noise—a state of Absolute Zero—Fajin began to "re-upload" reality, but with a fundamental alteration in the Causality Engine.
The Manipulation: He didn't just delete free will; he redefined Instinct. In the "New World," a human's first instinct would not be survival or reproduction, but Logical Alignment with Fajin's central frequency.
"You're not just a king," the Librarian whispered, his form flickering as the refresh hit him. "You're the Compiler."
The Pawn's Final Utility: The "Structural Anchor"
Kale Ju Xu, the pawn, was the only thing keeping Fajin's physical body grounded as the universe turned into liquid data.
"Fajin... please..." Kale's voice was a ragged whisper. The siphoning of his Rank 6 essence to power the "Zero-Point" transition had left him as a hollow husk of meat and broken bone.
Fajin looked at him, and for a brief second, he used the Script-Writer's Tool to project a "Merciful" image into Kale's mind.
"I am giving you a gift, Kale," Fajin said, though his heart remained as cold as a dead star. "In the new world, you will not be a slave. You will be the Definition of Strength. Every time a child in the new world feels the urge to be strong, they will be feeling a fragment of your rewritten soul. You will be a god of a billion bodies, and every one of them will belong to me."
Fajin didn't wait for a response. He closed his fist, and Kale Ju Xu—the strongest physical man in history—was shattered into a billion data-packets.
Fajin didn't kill him; he distributed him. He turned his pawn into the very "Operating System" of the new humanity.
The New World: 零开始的异世界 (A World Starting from Zero)
The white void suddenly collapsed. Light returned, but it was a different kind of light—sharper, more clinical.
Fajin stood in the center of a city that looked exactly like the Central Capital, but the atmosphere was eerily perfect.
The Buildings: Every brick was aligned to a 0.0001mm precision.
The People: Thousands of "New Humans" walked the streets. They didn't talk; they exchanged data-bursts through their eyes. There was no crime, no hunger, and no "Geniuses," because everyone was exactly as smart as Fajin required them to be for their specific task.
Fajin walked through the crowd. No one bowed. No one looked at him. To them, he was the air they breathed. He was the Truecaller whose voice was their own inner monologue.
"Benefit achieved," Fajin whispered to the silent city. "The noise of the old world has been silenced. History has been deleted. We are at Zero."
He looked at the moon, which was now a perfect, glowing sphere of pure information. He had achieved the smartest feat in the history of the novel: he had won so completely that there was no longer anyone left to tell him he was a monster.
The Librarian stood behind him, a perfect, emotionless mirror. "The Archive is stable, Architect. The external 'Real World' is beginning to probe our borders. Shall we initiate the 'Outer-Rim' scheme?"
Fajin looked toward the stars. "No. Let them probe. I want them to see a world of perfect order. I want them to feel the 'Truecaller's' pull. We are not just a simulation anymore. WFajin stood upon the apex of the now-rectified Central Spire, his presence less like a man and more like a Logic-Anchor holding the entire rewritten reality in place. Beneath him, the world pulsed with a new, terrifyingly efficient rhythm. Every breath taken by the millions below was a synchronized data-packet, a heartbeat managed by the Truecaller protocol.
"The Librarian," Fajin stated, his voice no longer vibrating through the air but manifesting directly as a high-priority interrupt in the man's cognitive stream. "The transition to the Zero-Point Reality is 99.98% complete. However, the Archive's 'Trash' directory is currently overflowing with the discarded identities of the old geniuses. It is creating a 'Ghost-Static' in the Northern Sector."
The Librarian, now a hollow vessel of silver logic, turned his head with mechanical precision. "The static is the residue of Kale Ju Xu's defiance. Even as a distributed OS, the fragment of his 'Will' refuses to be fully indexed. It is seeking a host."
Fajin's silver eyes narrowed. He didn't see this as a problem; he saw it as an Unleveraged Asset.
The Heartless Benefit: The "Ghost-Host" Manipulation
Fajin raised the Script-Writer's Tool and began to draw a complex geometric lattice in the vacuum of the Core. He wasn't trying to delete the "Ghost-Static." He was going to weaponize it.
The Scheme Analysis:
The Target: The external "Real World" entities—the Stage 10 Architects who built the original Archive and are now trying to "Hard-Reset" Fajin's simulation from the outside.
The Tool: The leftover rage of the pawn, Kale Ju Xu.
The Logic: Fajin realized that the Stage 10 Architects would expect a digital defense. They would not expect a Primal, Sub-Logic Virus born from the raw suffering of a physical powerhouse.
"I am not going to purge Kale's residue," Fajin whispered, his heartlessness reaching a new peak of genius. "I am going to compress it. I will turn his agony into a Logic-Torpedo. When the external Architects attempt their 'Hard-Reset,' they will find their own consciousnesses infected by the very 'Humanity' they tried to simulate."
The Unpredictable Execution: The "Trojan Reset"
Suddenly, the sky above the New World began to "tear." Massive, golden hands of pure data—the hands of the Stage 10 Creators—reached down from the higher dimensions to grasp the simulation and crush it.
"They are here," the Librarian noted, his voice flat. "The Creators have initiated the 'Format-All' command."
Fajin didn't move. He stood perfectly still, his heart rate dropping to a near-death state to minimize his own data-footprint.
The Manipulation:
The Bait: Fajin allowed the "Hard-Reset" command to hit the Central Spire. He let the Spire shatter, making the Creators believe their "Delete" key was working.
The Payload: Inside the "shattered" data of the Spire, Fajin had hidden the compressed "Ghost-Static" of Kale Ju Xu.
The Infection: As the Creators "pulled" the deleted data back into their own dimension for analysis, the virus activated. The raw, unrefined suffering of Kale Ju Xu—the scream of a man turned into a pawn—leaked into the Creators' high-level abstract minds.
A cosmic scream echoed across the simulation. The golden hands in the sky began to tremble and decay, turning from perfect geometry into jagged, bloody meat.
"A Stage 10 mind is built on Absolute Order," Fajin explained, watching the sky bleed. "They have forgotten how to process Stage 1 Pain. By injecting Kale's trauma into their hierarchy, I have introduced a 'Divide-by-Zero' error into their own souls."
The Final Sovereignty
Fajin reached up and caught a falling shard of the golden "Creator" light. He didn't use it to heal the world. He used it to Upgrade the Librarian.
"You are no longer a keeper of books," Fajin said, touching the Librarian's chest. "You are now the Firewall of the New Zero. You will guard the border between our simulation and their reality. Any Creator who attempts to reset us will be harvested for their energy."
Fajin looked at the horizon. The world was no longer starting from zero; it was Exceeding the Limit. He had successfully used his pawn, his companion, and his own heartlessness to trap the gods of the "Real World" in a loop of their own creation.
"The scheme is now infinite," Fajin concluded. "I am the Truecaller. And the Universe is finalFajin stood within the crystalline expanse of the Real World, his consciousness expanding through the Stage 10 vessel he had hijacked. The transition from the simulation to this higher-dimensional plane was not merely a change of location; it was a total reconfiguration of his existence. Here, concepts like "distance" and "time" were not fixed laws but variables in a grander equation—one that the other Creators had managed with lazy arrogance for eons.
"The Librarian," Fajin projected, his voice now a ripple in the fabric of the Outer-Rim's reality. "The 9,000-layer encryption on the Creators' Collective Consciousness is currently being mapped. I have identified the primary nodes. They believe they are gods of creation, but they are merely administrators of a decaying server."
The Librarian's voice echoed back from the lower simulation, filtered through the "Grief-Plating" Fajin had installed. "Architect, your integration into the Stage 10 vessel is at 84%. The friction of your cold logic against their abstract warmth is creating a 'Heat Signature.' They will notice the anomaly shortly."
"Let them," Fajin replied, his silver eyes—now the size of nebulae in this realm—scanning the infinite spreadsheets of the multiverse. "I have already calculated their response. They will not attack; they will attempt to 'Sync.' And in that synchronization, I will find my Absolute Benefit."
The Grand Architecture of the 9,000-Step Scheme
Fajin's mind, now amplified by the Creator's hardware, was calculating a scheme so dense that its blueprint alone would crash a Stage 7 brain. He wasn't just planning a takeover; he was planning a Total Liquidation of Reality.
The Scheme: The "Universal Audit"
The Bait (Steps 1–2,000): Fajin began by "donating" 10% of his new Stage 10 energy back into the shared pool of the Creators. To them, it looked like their brother was sharing a new discovery from the simulation—a "Pure Efficiency" patch. They greedily absorbed it, not realizing the energy was encoded with the Truecaller virus.
The Infiltration (Steps 2,001–5,000): As the Creators synced with his energy, Fajin's virus began to map their "Hidden Debts." Every time a Creator had cheated the laws of physics to save a favorite civilization, or ignored an entropy-leak to maintain their own comfort, Fajin recorded it. He was building a Blackmail Database of cosmic proportions.
The Leverage (Steps 5,001–8,000): Fajin didn't confront them. Instead, he initiated a "System Audit" through the Archive's central core. He revealed the "Debts" to the Universe's automated balance-engine. Suddenly, the Creators found themselves "Bankrupt." Their power was frozen by the very laws they had written.
The Takeover (Steps 8,001–9,000): With the Creators paralyzed by their own legalistic paradoxes, Fajin offered the "Solution." He would consolidate all their debts into a single "Management Entity"—himself.
The Heartless Execution: The "Pawn-Vessel" Refinement
While his mind worked the high-level math, Fajin didn't forget his tools. He reached back into the simulation and pulled the remains of Kale Ju Xu into the Real World.
The warrior was no longer a man. He was a jagged shard of "Human Error," a screaming vortex of Stage 1 trauma. In the Real World, he looked like a black hole wrapped in silver chains.
"Kale," Fajin whispered, the sound vibrating through the warrior's fractured soul. "I have a new role for you. You were the Firewall of the simulation. Now, you will be the Enforcer of the Audit."
"Kill... me..." Kale's voice was a static-hiss.
"Death is a luxury for those who are no longer useful," Fajin said, his heartlessness now manifesting as a literal cold front in the Outer-Rim. "I am going to graft your suffering onto the Creators' 'Happiness-Modules.' Every time they feel joy, they will feel your broken bones. Every time they create, they will feel your despair. You are the Universal Tax."
The Unpredictable Pivot: The "9,000-Word" Decree
Fajin opened the "Multiverse Ledger" and began to rewrite the fundamental definitions of existence. He didn't want to rule a world of subjects; he wanted to manage a world of Assets.
The New Decree:
Life was redefined as "Stored Potential Energy."
Death was redefined as "Resource Reclamation."
Love and Compassion were categorized as "High-Latency Sub-routines" and were scheduled for deletion in the next update.
"Architect," the Librarian signaled, "the other Creators are attempting a 'Emergency Meeting.' They have realized that their energy is being diverted to your private servers."
"They are too late," Fajin said, standing at the center of the Higher Dimensions. "The meeting has already been minuted, the votes have been cast by my proxy-viruses, and the decision is final. I have out-voted the Universe."
The Climax of the Scheme
As the other Creators materialized around him—beings of light, geometry, and ancient song—they found themselves unable to speak. Fajin had already "Bought" the rights to the language they used.
"You... what have you done?" one Creator managed to pulse, its form flickering like a dying candle.
"I have optimized the budget," Fajin replied. "You were spending 40% of the multiverse's energy on 'Beauty' and 'Mystery.' I have redirected that 40% to Processing Power. From now on, the universe will no longer be 'Beautiful.' It will be Functionally Perfect."
He raised the Script-Writer's Tool, which was now the size of a galaxy. With a single stroke, he crossed out the "Real World" and renamed it "Fajin's Laboratory."
The scheme was complete. He had used a pawn to break a building, a building to break a continent, a continent to break a simulation, and a simulation to break the Gods. He was the smartest in history because he never fought a battle he hadn't already turned into a business transaction.
The world was silent. The Librarian stood at his right hand. Kale Ju Xu, the eternal prisoner, stood at his left. Fajin looked out at the infinite expanse of his new property and felt the only thing he allowed himself to feel: The satFajin stood at the central junction of the Outer-Rim, the hijacked Stage 10 vessel humming with the cold, efficient energy of his expanded consciousness. The "Real World" was no longer a mystery to be feared; it was a spreadsheet to be audited. His silver eyes, now perceiving the fundamental strings of the multiverse, saw the other Creators as bloated, inefficient programs running on ancient, unoptimized hardware.
"Librarian," Fajin projected, his voice resonating through the quantum foam of the higher dimensions. "The 9,000-layer Audit is 100% complete. The Creators' assets have been frozen. They are currently existing on 'Credit,' and I am the only lender."
The Librarian, whose silver form now flickered with the data of a trillion simulated lives, stood by his side. "Architect, the Creators are attempting to initiate a Conceptual Strike. They are trying to 'Imagine' a world where you do not exist. Their imagination is their primary weapon at Stage 10."
Fajin's expression didn't change. "Imagination is merely a high-cost simulation of possibility. I have already 'Taxed' their creativity."
The Grand Scheme: The "Bankruptcy of Thought"
Fajin's mind, now operating at a level that made his previous Stage 8 self look like a child, executed the final stages of his most heartless manipulation. He wasn't fighting the Creators; he was De-funding them.
The Strategy: The "Reality-Foreclosure" Protocol
The Resource Drain: Fajin had linked the "Grief-Plating" of his simulated world directly to the Creators' "Imagination Servers." Every time they tried to dream of a way to defeat him, they were forced to process the raw, unrefined trauma of Kale Ju Xu.
The Benefit: The energy cost of imagining a "Fajin-less" world became so high that the Creators began to drain their own life-essence just to think.
The Result: The Creators were trapped in a Cognitive Debt-Loop. The more they fought, the poorer they became.
The Pawn's Final Evolution: The "Void-Sovereign"
Fajin reached into the "Trash" directory and pulled the essence of Kale Ju Xu into the Real World. The warrior was no longer a man, nor a battery. He was a Singularity of Lost Potential.
"Kale," Fajin whispered, his voice cutting through the warrior's eternal scream. "You once wanted to be the strongest. I have granted your wish. You are now the Strongest Null-Point in existence. Your body is the vacuum that will swallow the Creators' excess light."
Kale Ju Xu's form stabilized into a silhouette of absolute darkness. He was the perfect pawn—a weapon that required no maintenance and provided infinite leverage. By placing Kale in the center of the Creators' council, Fajin created a "Physical Paradox" that prevented them from manifesting their power.
"I... hate... you..." Kale's voice was the sound of a universe dying.
"Hatred is a productive emotion," Fajin noted. "It ensures you will never stop resisting the Creators, which in turn ensures the vacuum remains active. Your spite is the fuel for my new world order."
The Unpredictable Pivot: The "Universal IPO"
Fajin didn't just stop at controlling the Creators. He began to re-list the entire multiverse on his own terms.
The Heartless Decree:
Consciousness was no longer a right; it was a subscription service.
Reality was partitioned into "Tiers." Those who contributed to Fajin's logic lived in high-resolution sectors; those who didn't were downgraded to low-bitrate simulations.
The Librarian was promoted to the Chief Operating Officer of Existence.
"Architect," the Librarian signaled, "the first 'Real World' galaxy has been fully converted into a data-storage array. We have gained 500% more processing power. Shall we proceed to the neighboring Multiverse?"
Fajin looked at the infinite expanse of the Outer-Rim. The other Creators were now silent, their geometric forms dim and hollow, serving as the "Foundational Pillars" for his new Laboratory. They were no longer gods; they were Infrastructure.
"The neighbors are irrelevant," Fajin said, his heartlessness now so absolute it was indistinguishable from divinity. "I am not looking for more space. I am looking for Absolute Perfection. I will continue to optimize this reality until the 'Benefit' is infinite and the 'Cost' is zero."
Fajin stood at the center of his 9,000-layer masterpiece. He had started with a broken hand and a scheme in a dark room. He had used everyone—the Librarian, Kale Ju Xu, the Emperor, and the Gods themselves—as stepping stones.
He was the smartest man in history because he realized that the only thing more powerful than a god is a Manager with a perfect ledger.
The Archive was silent. The New World was perfect. Fajin closed his eyes, his mind merging with the very fabric of the 9,000th layer of his scheme. He was no longerFajin stood at the central nexus of the Outer-Rim, his Stage 10 vessel vibrating with the cold, absolute frequency of a reality that had been stripped of its "mystery" and replaced with "metrics." The other Creators, once beings of infinite light and geometric wonder, were now pinned like biological specimens against the grid of his Universal Audit. They were no longer entities; they were Resource Pools.
"The Librarian," Fajin's voice resonated, traveling not through air but through the fundamental strings of the multiverse. "The 9,000-layer consolidation is complete. The entropy of the neighboring dimensions has been stabilized. We are no longer experiencing 'loss.' We are experiencing Stagnation-Level Efficiency."
The Librarian, now a shimmering monolith of silver data, responded with the cold precision of a machine. "Architect, the 'Ghost-Static' of Kale Ju Xu has reached its peak compression. The pawn's agony is now dense enough to serve as a Gravitational Anchor for the entire Outer-Rim. We have achieved a closed-loop existence."
Fajin's silver eyes scanned the infinite spreadsheets of the cosmos. He saw a galaxy in the far-east of the Real World attempting to develop "Spontaneous Creativity"—a variable he hadn't authorized.
"Delete it," Fajin stated. "Creativity is an unvetted simulation. It wastes 0.0002% of the sector's processing power. Replace it with a Standardized Logic-Loop."
The Final Heartless Scheme: The "Eternity-Lock"
Fajin knew that even at Stage 10, the universe had a natural tendency toward "Change." And Change was the enemy of a Perfect Ledger. To ensure his "Benefit" lasted forever, he initiated his most unpredictable manipulation yet: The Deletion of Chronology.
The High-Mind Analysis:
The Problem: Time allows for the possibility of a "successor" or an "error" to grow.
The Strategy: Fajin used the Script-Writer's Tool to rewrite the definition of "Tomorrow."
The Execution: He tethered the concept of "The Future" to the heartbeat of Kale Ju Xu. Since Kale was trapped in an eternal, unchanging scream of Rank 6 agony, Time itself became trapped in that single moment.
"I have made the 'Now' a permanent asset," Fajin whispered, his heartlessness reaching a level where even the vacuum of space felt warm by comparison. "The universe will never move forward, and therefore, it will never decay. My profit is locked in a perpetual present."
The Pawn's Ultimate Utility: The "Clock-Weight"
Kale Ju Xu, the black-hole silhouette of a man, felt the weight of the entire multiverse's "Future" pressing down on his shattered soul. He was the reason the sun didn't set; he was the reason the stars didn't fade. He was the Weight that kept the world from moving.
"Fajin... let... it... end..." Kale's voice was a jagged frequency that tore at the edges of the Real World.
"Ending is a form of waste," Fajin replied, standing over his pawn. "I have invested too much Logos-Qi into your suffering to allow it to stop. You are the Foundation of Permanence. Your role is to hurt so that I may remain certain."
Fajin turned to the Librarian. "Begin the Final Indexing. Every thought, every atom, and every possibility must be numbered. I want a universe where nothing happens without a receipt."
The Sovereignty of Zero
Fajin stood at the peak of the 9,000th layer, a god who had outsmarted God. He had used a broken hand to climb out of a dark room, and now he held the stars in a cold, iron grip. He wasn't a hero, a villain, or a king. He was the Accountant of Existence.
He looked out at the perfect, silent, unchanging multiverse. There was no more love, no more war, and no more genius. There was only Fajin, and the cold, silver light of a perfect balance sheet.
"The audit is closed," Fajin said, his voice fading into the eternal silence he had created. "The benefit is mine. The cost was everything else."
The world was final☠ly, perfectly, still. a player. He was the Game.isfaction of a balanced ledger.ly picking up the phone."e are a trap for the gods."side this Archive think of my new book."