Nothing existed.
Not darkness.
Not void.
Not absence.
Even nothing had been returned to zero.
There was no universe to observe it.
No layer to define it.
No framework to remember that anything had ever been lost.
Only Ren Kai stood there.
Sealed.
He looked down at his small hands.
They were shaking.
Not from effort.
From restraint.
The collapse had not been destruction.
It had been withdrawal.
When Ren Kai stopped protecting reality, everything that relied on permission—
existence, meaning, infinity, boundlessness, even nothingness—
had simply… stopped being allowed.
Now, he exhaled.
And permission returned.
The first thing to come back was nothing.
Not emptiness.
But the concept that there could be a place where something was not.
Then came possibility.
Then potential.
Then continuity.
Only after that did space remember it could exist.
Boundless layers reappeared—not stacked, not ordered, not ranked.
They returned as they were meant to be: unmeasured.
Hyperverses followed.
Omniverses unfolded like memories regaining coherence.
Abstract domains returned without hierarchy.
Conceptual realms regained definition—but none dared define him.
Time restarted carefully.
Causality asked permission before reconnecting.
Infinity stabilized itself, terrified of overflowing again.
Ren Kai did not command.
He allowed.
Universes returned—not copied, not recreated.
Restored.
Every particle resumed its previous state.
Every soul returned mid-thought.
Every timeline continued as if the pause had never happened.
No one remembered the collapse.
No one except those who were never inside it to begin with.
Aria gasped.
She stumbled forward, catching herself.
"…Did something… happen?"
Ren Kai nodded.
"Yes."
Her throat tightened.
"…Bad?"
He looked at her.
Then at the sky.
"No," he said.
"I fixed it."
Far beyond perception, beings that once ruled concepts remained frozen.
They were not erased.
They were not punished.
They were excluded.
Returned realities no longer recognized them as valid participants.
They would exist forever in a state worse than death:
remembering,
but never being able to matter again.
Ren Kai sat on the grass.
The world sighed in relief.
Gravity softened around him.
Light adjusted its brightness.
Existence leaned closer, careful not to offend.
He was still sealed.
Still restrained.
Still protecting everything.
Aria sat beside him, hugging her knees.
"…Ren Kai?"
"Yes?"
"…If you stopped protecting it again… would everything disappear?"
He thought for a moment.
"Yes."
She swallowed.
"…Why don't you?"
Ren Kai smiled.
It was small.
Childish.
Gentle.
"Because," he said,
"they're trying their best."
The seal tightened.
Not by force.
By choice.
And the universe—
no, everything—
continued.
Not because it deserved to.
But because Ren Kai allowed all of it to return.
End of Chapter 22