The Demon King Academy, Delzogaide, stood as a monument of absolute, crushing power. Its towering black spires didn't just scrape the sky; they owned it. The very air around it was thick with magical authority, a constant, ambient declaration that this was the heart of the world.
And its master was bored.
Anos Voldigoad sat on his throne in a disused lecture hall, his chin resting on his fist. His subordinates, the twin sisters Misha and Sasha Necron, stood nearby, their own immense magical power a gentle background hum compared to his deafening silence.
"It has been two whole minutes," Sasha announced, crossing her arms, her Demon Eyes of Ruin flaring with impatience. "Are you certain your 'feeling' wasn't just a passing whim, Anos?"
Misha, her voice a quiet counterpoint, simply said, "He is waiting."
Anos's lips curved into a faint, knowing smile. He wasn't just feeling something. He was observing it. The laws of the world were trembling, like a web with a fly caught in it. Something was plucking at the strings of causality, trying to retune them to a different, dissonant song.
And it was now directly overhead.
The roof of the lecture hall—a construct fortified with magic that could repel a god's assault—did not break. It was unmade. A perfect, circular section of the ceiling was simply gone, leaving a hole that looked out onto a sky swirling with gray, lifeless static.
Floating in the center of the aperture was a being of pure, crystallized law. It had the form of a majestic, multi-winged angel, but its body was made of interlocking, golden geometric shapes that shifted and reformed constantly. It had no face, only a single, perfectly spherical "head" that pulsed with the light of a dying star. A Progenitor Redactor.
Anos didn't stand. He didn't even lift his head. He simply looked up, his crimson eyes unimpressed.
The Progenitor's voice echoed in their minds, not with words, but with a stream of pure, authoritative logic.
[This timeline contains a severe logical contradiction. A reincarnated entity possesses power exceeding its recorded origin. Subject Anos Voldigoad is a paradox.]
"Is that all?" Anos asked, a hint of amusement in his tone. "Did you come all this way just to state the obvious?"
The Progenitor ignored him. It raised a hand, and the very fabric of magic in the room began to unravel.
[The law of 'Magic' in this sector is a flawed construct. It permits impossibilities. Therefore, the law itself must be edited. Commencing rewrite.]
Sasha gasped, her Demon Eyes flickering wildly. The connection she had to her own destructive power was wavering, as if the concept itself was being recalled. Misha's hands glowed faintly as she tried to erect a creation-magic barrier, but the spell constructs dissolved as quickly as she could form them.
They were fish in a sea that was being boiled away.
Anos chuckled. "You think you can rewrite a law that I created? A presumptuous, yet pitiable, effort."
He stood. The act was so casual, yet the world pivoted around the motion. The pressure in the room vanished. The unraveling of magic ceased, frozen in place. He had not cast a spell. He had simply decided that the Progenitor's command no longer had his permission to function.
The golden being seemed to recoil. [Impossible. My authority is derived from the Prime Manuscript. It supersedes local phenomena.]
"Manuscript?" Anos tilted his head, his smile growing wider, sharper. "You are a character, acting out a script. I am the author of my own story. Did you really think your editor has any power over me?"
He held up a single finger. The air around it began to thrum with a power that was deeper than magic, older than time.
"You believe that my existence is a paradox that violates your laws. Let me correct your misunderstanding. It is your laws that violate my existence."
[Logic is absolute. Paradoxes must be resolved. Initiating Origin Severance.]
The Progenitor unleashed its ultimate weapon. A beam of pure, conceptual energy, whiter than light, shot from its core. It wasn't an attack on Anos's body or his magic. It was aimed at his origin, his source, the very principle of his reincarnation. It was designed to sever the thread that connected Anos Voldigoad, the reincarnated student, to Anos Voldigoad, the Tyrannical Demon King of Old. It would turn him into just a boy.
The beam struck him.
Nothing happened.
The beam splashed against his chest and dissipated into harmless motes of light. He hadn't blocked it. He hadn't negated it. He had simply refused to acknowledge its premise.
Anos's eyes began to glow, his crimson gaze seeming to pierce through dimensions.
"You wish to speak of origins? Then let me introduce myself."
He spoke his name. His true name. Not the title the world knew him by, but the absolute, undeniable sequence of concepts that defined his being. As the syllables left his lips, they did not carry sound. They carried truth.
"Anos Voldigoad."
The moment he said it, reality broke.
The white beam of Origin Severance reversed its flow, shooting back into the Progenitor. The crumbling lecture hall restored itself. The hole in the roof sealed over. Misha and Sasha, who had felt their powers wavering, were now overflowing with more energy than ever before.
The Progenitor froze, its geometric body shuddering. New lines of text scrolled frantically across the air, this time in a panic.
[FATAL_ERROR. CANNOT SEVER AN ORIGIN THAT IS SELF-DEFINING.]
[LOGIC_CASCADE_FAILURE. THE SUBJECT'S EXISTENCE IS THE LOCAL AXIS_MUNDI.]
[THE PARADOX… IS THE LAW ITSELF.]
Anos took a step forward. The Progenitor was an editor, a being who enforced rules. So Anos decided to give it a simple, direct lesson in cause and effect. He reached out and snapped his fingers.
The sound was impossibly small. A tiny click in the vast lecture hall.
But that click was a sentence. A final, undeniable period.
The Progenitor shattered. Its body of crystallized law didn't explode. It cracked into millions of pieces, each one holding a reflection of Anos's crimson eyes, before dissolving into harmless golden dust. It had been subjected to a logic so absolute, its own framework could not survive the comparison.
Anos brushed a speck of dust from his uniform.
A small, serene, blue screen shimmered into life before him, its text a stark contrast to the divine panic of the Progenitor's notifications.
[Tyrannical Demon King has asserted Primordial Authority.]
[Method: Self-Definition > External Law.]
[Synchronizing User: Anos Voldigoad. Welcome to the Gate network, Founder.]
The title—Founder—amused him. It seemed there were others out there playing at being gods. He glanced at Misha and Sasha, who were staring at him with looks of utter awe and devotion.
His smile was calm, confident, and utterly terrifying. "It seems a few stray words have escaped their book," he mused. "Perhaps it's time we reminded them who holds the pen."