Chapter 296: The One True Architect

Aurora’s steps slowed almost to a halt, and for a moment the father and daughter walked in their own quiet world.

Behind them, the Originat watched with warm hearts.

Well—

most

of them.

Sonna felt conflicted, and as if sensing exactly what was stirring in her sister’s mind, Yonna leaned against her shoulder and spoke low enough that Aurora wouldn’t hear.

She even added a layer of protection, because the girl was simply absurd.

"Big sister..."

Sonna turned her head as Yonna continued.

"Let it go. The past is something that can and will never repeat... especially for our children."

Yonna knew Sonna almost as well as Ash did. She had been there through every step—though at one point in time she hadn’t known about the manipulation happening behind the scenes.

She knew Sonna’s life had been rough, all stemming from one thing: not having enough power.

From being cast aside by her family... all the way to her spending her darkest moments all alone unable to find words to explain her situation.

Sonna closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

It wasn’t the past that haunted her—she had long made peace with her trauma. But it was impossible for her to fully return to who she once was.

Well, not impossible... but Ash would never use his power to change his women’s minds or erase their pasts. Their histories had shaped them into who they were today.

’Yonna is right... I can’t coddle Aurora just because this world is dirty...’

A small smile formed as she watched Ash and Aurora’s backs.

"Yes. I’ll just erase any civilization that ever thinks to harm our children."

Such words—from someone who embodied Harmony, someone who hated participating in wars—caught several of them off guard.

"Haha, look at that. She’s finally acting like the rest of us," Diana laughed.

The others chimed in to lighten the mood, while Ash simply smiled. He heard them, of course, but his focus remained on Aurora.

He continued walking, his voice steady.

"The answer I came to was... nothing. Because the tale of Good and Evil is for children. When someone has the power to do whatever they want... they do it. There is no need for justification... for any morality. Just the will to do it."

He looked down at her—golden eyes warm yet unyielding.

"If you believe peace and music are all existence needs... then you need the power to make it so. Not because it’s good. Not because it’s right. Because you can."

Aurora’s musical symbols spun slowly—conflict still in her gaze, but something else was beginning to crystallize.

Then as Ash went to speak again... his aura shifted.

His voice changed.

It wasn’t something he tried to do—it simply happened.

Maybe because of the topic.

Maybe something else.

But the voice that emerged was nothing like the Ash they knew.

"...And my will... is currently a canvas."

It dropped—layered many times over, more ancient, and.... emotionless.

Something vaster and more inevitable than him seemed to speak through his form.

"For everyone in this Lower Dimension... they are failures. And they shall not be part of my next creation."

The words carried a chill that made even Nia’s flames flicker. Vaeloria’s hand tightened on her sword. Sonna’s lullaby faltered. Every Originat felt the weight of something older than themselves speaking through him.

The Codex appeared in his free hand—its blank pages already open.

The he began to write.

"And so, every title, cheat, and aspect in the Lower Dimension vanishes from their wielders and forms into a single seed in the Primavus Origin’s Lower Dimension."

The moment the words were finished, the multiverse answered.

HUMMMMM!

Across Earth—across every universe in the Ninth—everything gave by the records.... titles, cheats, every aspect simply... ceased.

Billions of golden‑red threads snapped.

All the souls that had been tethered suddenly froze; it was like their wills were collapsing. Their bodies slumped as though they were puppets whose strings had been cut.

Lucy she was had battled from the outside atmosphere... to countless light years away but in the heat of battle, she froze.

Her crimson eyes narrowed in confusion as her tattoos flared but they blinked out the next instant.

The Eternal Deceiver—enslaved and fighting among the billions—staggered once, his aura guttering like a candle in the wind.

Adam and Eve—locked in combat with Lucy’s clones—felt the sudden surge of pressure.

The Seraphim faltered, their wings dimming.

Everywhere, chaos collapsed into an eerie stillness. It was the kind of stillness all beings despised—

the kind that felt as though something beyond their understanding had finally opened its eye.

|Last Dawn (???)|

The moment the Codex vanished, Ash raised his right hand—with one single finger held up... the middle finger.

A single flame appeared above his fingertip.

It was small—no larger than a candle’s flame—yet it carried the weight of finality itself.

The flame did not flicker like ordinary fire.

No, it simply

was

... above his middle finger was a hollow core that was ringed in different shifting hues that defied normality.

At the edges of it rose gold burned.... then deepest black, then blinding white, then seemingly nothing.

Both Trans-Concepts and concepts alike wove through it like living threads—Endings, Eternity, Devourance, Finality, and Fatality all were cojoined into one single hollow core of flames.

And though it burned.... no heat radiated from it nor did any light spill outward.

It simply existed because Ash willed it...

Then, as he flicked his finger, he spoke... a poem.

Yet it was far beyond anything normal—because he was still embodying that vast, emotionless aura that had overtaken him.

|Ineffable Artisan|

"I am the Eye that opened before light had a name. The Architect who drew the first line and watched eight hands trace their own circles in dust.

You see them as cycles of time... I see simple sketches. While the other eight slumbered in their cradles of repetition, waiting to be complete.

The ninth... my own flesh... carried me inside it— a simple seed that refused such slumbering."