THE PARADOX HOUND

The void churned with unseen forces, rippling like the surface of a vast ocean disturbed—by something beneath. I had consumed, adapted and grown beyond my initial existence, but I knew—the System had not been idle.

I felt it before I saw it.

A presence unlike the one before.

Suddenly, the space around me warped, bending at very unnatural angles and something slithered into existence. It did not emerge from hyperspace nor did it breach the barriers of another dimension.

No—It wasn't something like that. 

It had simply just been there, as if it had always been....lurking just beyond my perception.

A soundless growl vibrated through the void.

Immediately, I surged my gravitational pull in response—an instinctive reaction to a threat I had no name for. The anomaly, as if sensing my defiance, coalesced into a being resembling a beast—with limbs twisting in and out of phase, its form manifesting as if it were flickering between realities-—as though it could not decide which one it should exist in.

Then, as if reality itself had answered—

No.

It was not just an answer. It was as if the System was marking its arrival.

 ⚠ [SYSTEM DESIGNATION: EXECUTION UNIT 03 - PARADOX HOUND] 

 ⚠ [ CLASSIFICATION: REALITY STABILIZER ] 

 ⚠ [DIRECTIVE: HUNT AND ELIMINATE UNSTABLE ENTITIES ] 

The Paradox Hound

And, it had been sent — for me.

The Hound manifested itself as if its very existence were an insult to the natural order of the universe, a creature neither fully physical nor fully conceptual. It prowled along the thin line between what was real and what was impossible.

And worse still, it had locked onto me.

There was no warning. No time to react. The first strike had already happened before I could grasp its existence.

I barely managed to contract my singularity, dragging the nearest debris into me as a shield. Then, the the wave of nothingness struck—silent, absolute. The fragments of consumed asteroids didn't just shatter. They simply ceased to be, erased as if they had never existed.

This was not a weapon of force, nor an attack of matter or energy. No, it was — conceptual negation, a rewriting of reality itself, one that attempted to erase me from the fabric of existence.

The Hound did not pause.

It flickered, shifting between coordinates faster than I could track or sense. Its very movement bent the rules of spatial continuity, warping reality.

Then it lunged — jaws widening, not to bite, but to consume.

Consuming—probability, ensuring that no reality in which i survived could ever be.

Its maw was not bound by flesh or form; but a rupture in reality itself. The edges flickered, shifting between existence and nonexistence, an abyss that was neither empty nor full.

A paradox given shape.

There were no teeth , no throat—only the suggestion of its hunger, an all—consuming void that devoured not with force, but with certainty. Anything caught in its grasp would not be torn apart. It would simply cease to ever have been.

No. Not like this.

I twisted space around me, expanding my gravitational field in every direction at once, warping the void into a spiraling distortion—a collapsing event horizon that folded the incoming force inward instead of letting it reach me. The Hound's maw shut just beyond my range.

Absence.

There was no impact, no shockwave—just a void where something should have been.

A missing piece of space.

I had barely escaped.

But my survival meant nothing if I couldn't turn the tide.

『 EVASION PROTOCOL: FAILED. 』

The Paradox Hound circled , its form flickering in and out of phase, like a predator studying its prey.

And I realized—this was no mere execution.

This was a hunt.

A one-sided slaughter, about to begin.