(Lawless Arc: Part XLI)
The multiverse was quiet again.
But quiet is not calm.
Quiet is the posture of something waiting to be categorized and failing.
Je walked away from the Codex, each step heavier, not from power, but from awareness. The Crown above him flickered only once now and then — like a UI artifact unsure if it was warning or mourning:
[SYSTEM CORE: OBSERVING]
[HUNGER VALUE: NULL]
[FATE PROTOCOL: SELF-DRIVEN]
No quests.
No commands.
Only metadata.
Because the universe had stopped issuing instructions to Je Veyron long before he even learned the word System.
The Third Pulse
It came from his chest again — the Forgotten Star.
Not exploding.
Not glitching.
Beating.
One pulse.
Then another.
Then the third.
The System residue reacted instantly, ancient script crawling across Je's vision like cracked stone tablets:
[COSMIC SIGNAL SPIKE]
[SOURCE: UNAUTHORIZED SINGULARITY]
[NOTICE: HIGHER OBSERVERS ALERTED]
[RECOMMENDATION: DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE…]
[…BUT YOU ALREADY DID.]
Je inhaled sharply.
"You warned me not to remember."
"You warned me not to look."
"You warned me not to speak."
The System residue flickered like old iron trying to reform:
[Correction.]
[We warned you not to finish remembering.]
[Looking is not remembering.]
[Breathing is not speaking.]
[But your pulse… is recalling law.]
Je frowned.
"What law?"
The System did not answer with words.
The void around him answered by changing temperature, the fractures in the sky rearranging themselves like borders acknowledging a kingdom they didn't want to draw:
Kael Veyron was not the only holder of hunger.
Vorath was not the only mask that killed.
But Je was the first to carry something that pre-dated both:
A star that didn't come from a System Core.
A star that came from before Systems existed,
from a realm where cosmic engines did not govern universes,
where gods did not manage fate,
where names were not pronounced…
They were felt in the bloodstream of spacetime.
Je inhaled again.
"So the star inside me… is older than the System?"
[Affirmative.]
[Designation: Unbound Origin Spark.]
[Status: Seals irrelevant.]
[Authority: Not borrowed, not inherited, not given.]
[Authority: Existed first.]
Je staggered.
"That means—"
[That means you were not chosen to devour the multiverse.]
[You were chosen because the multiverse wanted something that could devour you first if you slipped.]
Je felt his breath go cold.
"You're saying… I'm not the anomaly."
The System residue dimmed, voice like dust sliding off a tomb:
[No.]
[You are the standard.]
[The anomaly is what the void is hiding from.]
Je blinked.
"…And what is it hiding from?"
The System residue flickered once, twice — then stopped glitching.
And said something it had never said before:
[End of metadata.]
"The third pulse belongs to something we cannot profile."
"And if you walk deeper into lawlessness…"
"…it will profile itself into you."
Je smiled faintly.
Not joking.
Not boasting.
Tired, wise, grim.
"Good," he whispered.
"I don't want instructions anymore anyway."
He turned toward the fractures in the sky.
The Library trembled behind him — the pages no longer bowing, but bracing.
Because now the multiverse understood:
Je Veyron was not rising because he could devour worlds.
He was rising because he could finally walk without needing to.