Rewritten

The thing in the void moved.

Not like a creature. Not like a person.

It unfolded.

Its form rippled, stretching and collapsing in on itself, flickering between real and unreal.

The golden energy inside me surged, reality itself breaking around my presence. My power was everything and nothing, a force that should not exist—yet here I was.

I raised my hand, and the world bent to my will.

A golden fissure split through the air, shattering existence itself. My power wasn't light. It wasn't fire.

It was conceptual destruction.

It was there and not there, seen and unseen.

A force that was both present and absent.

I reached forward, grasping at the air—and it broke.

A ripple tore through the void, cascading outward, the very rules of reality fracturing under my fingertips.

I had never felt anything like it before.

This power wasn't just strong.

It was absolute.

And yet—

The thing kept coming.

It flickered, moving with no sense of distance or time, twisting and stretching, its form never fully settling. It was beyond the rules of this world—beyond the very System I had just rewritten.

My golden light lashed out, tearing the space between us apart. The world shook from the force of it, a rift of pure annihilation carving through existence itself.

It should have erased anything.

It did erase anything.

But the thing didn't die.

It simply was.

Where my power tore through the air, the thing existed in the space beyond. It was as if reality itself refused to let it be destroyed.

A slow, unnatural voice echoed through my mind.

"You are not the one I was promised."

I clenched my fists, golden veins pulsing beneath my skin. "Yeah?" My voice came out sharper than I expected. "Guess I'm an upgrade."

It flickered again—closer this time.

I barely saw the movement before it struck.

Pain didn't explode through me.

Pain didn't exist.

Because for a split second, I didn't exist.

The attack wasn't something I could block, wasn't something I could feel. It was as if the thing had reached into my very concept and attempted to erase it.

I snapped back into reality, golden energy flaring around me, forcing my existence back into place.

I staggered, my breath sharp, my vision blurred.

It could unmake me.

I didn't know how I knew that, but I felt it.

This wasn't like the creatures of Turgan, the horrors of the desert, or even the constructs the System had once controlled.

This was something else entirely.

Something that was never meant to enter this world.

And I had let it in.

I forced myself upright, the golden light around me stabilizing. I had rewritten the System, absorbed its very power, and now?

I had to use it.

I raised my hands, and reality itself bent.

Golden threads snapped into place, binding the very fabric of the world beneath my command.

I was no longer just using the System's power.

I was rewriting the battlefield itself.

The sky split open, twisting into an endless void of gold and black. The ground beneath me shattered, reforming into something beyond comprehension.

A world of my own making.

For the first time, the thing in the void hesitated.

Because now, it was inside my domain.

And I was the System.

I surged forward, golden arcs of destruction crackling through the void. My strikes were instantaneous, absolute. Each one tore through existence itself, rewriting the very laws that governed this battle.

But the thing kept moving.

It shifted, flickering, rewriting itself just as fast as I rewrote the world around it.

I gritted my teeth. "That's not going to work forever."

I had spent my entire time in this world fighting under someone else's rules. Fighting inside the System, against its laws.

But now?

I was the one making the rules.

I lifted a hand—

And sealed reality around it.

The thing froze.

For the first time, it stopped moving.

The golden light around me surged, my veins pulsing with raw power. I had it.

For one perfect second—I had it.

Then, the thing in the void laughed.

The sound wasn't real.

It wasn't physical.

But I felt it echo through my mind, a soundless, shapeless mockery of what laughter should be.

And then—

It broke free.

The moment shattered, golden threads snapping apart as the thing ripped through my seal like it was never there.

I didn't have time to react before it struck again.

My mind barely processed what happened—because for a second, I was gone.

Not dead.

Not injured.

Just… missing.

I forced myself back, my golden energy bursting outward, forcing my existence to snap into place once more.

This thing.

It wasn't fighting me.

It was trying to erase me completely.

I exhaled sharply, golden light swirling around me, stabilizing, pulling me back into the moment.

This fight wasn't over.

And I wasn't done yet.

The golden power inside me burned brighter.

Because I could feel it.

The truth behind this battle.

This thing wasn't just attacking me.

It was attacking what I represented.

It had been sealed away because it couldn't exist inside a world with rules.

And now that I had rewritten those rules?

It was trying to rewrite me.

I met its shifting, endless gaze, golden light pouring from my body.

"No," I said.

I reached forward.

And this time, I didn't attack.

I rewrote.

The golden energy around me expanded, reality itself breaking apart, reshaping, reforming.

I wasn't going to play by its rules anymore.

I was going to erase its very ability to exist.

The thing flickered, realization settling into its impossible form.

And for the first time—

It looked afraid.