I had been drifting through the endless void. The vast expanse—where I consumed stars, planets, entire galaxies, and black holes, one after another, indiscriminately. Their gravity collapsed into mine, their essence drawn into my abyss without resistance. With every black hole consumed, I gained something beyond mere mass or strength. What I gained was—knowledge. Fragments of understanding—insights into something far …

I consumed the unresisting black hole, and the shift within me began immediately. It was not a sudden surge, not an explosion of force, but a gradual, undeniable transformation—like the slow unfurling of something long dormant. The sensation was unlike anything I had experienced before. It was not just an increase in mass or a deepening of my gravitational pull. …

I reached out, expanding my gravitational field, stretching my pull toward the distant singularity. My event horizon trembled, extending beyond its usual reach. The moment my presence touched the distant black hole, the space between us rippled, bending under the combined weight of our gravity. And then— I drew it in. . . . . . . . . . …

I had been consuming stars and celestial bodies for what felt like an eternity. Galaxies drifted through the void like scattered embers, remnants of cosmic events that had long since played out. Their stars, burning with raw fusion and untamed energy, collapsed into me one after another, fueling my expansion. Each mass consumed strengthened me, reinforcing my event horizon, solidifying …

I had a bizarre thought. If I could not consume the fragment of the Nova Reaper, then perhaps I could contain it. My singularity rejected it, but what if I formed another? A secondary core—one that could stabilize the rogue authority within me instead of letting it destabilize my being. A containment vessel forged from my own existence. And for …

Something was wrong. I had buried the thought, forcing it beneath the chaos of the Hound’s relentless attacks and the ever-present gaze of the System. Yet, no matter how much I ignored it, the truth remained—an unshakable realization that I was merely delaying the inevitable. The Fragment. The fragment of the Nova Reaper remained inside me—an intruder that refused to …

???: “Fool.” Just before the Hound’s claws were about to reach me—I heard a voice. A voice—not my own.Not the System’s message.Not the growling of the Paradox Hound. No. This was something far more ancient, far more powerful than any of them. A voice beyond existence.Beyond the System.Beyond the Paradox Hound.Beyond anything I had ever encountered since my time as a …

It had been some time since I first encountered the Paradox Hound, though time itself had become meaningless in this endless struggle. Dodging. Evading. Surviving. What had begun as instinct had devolved into something far more desperate—a futile, ceaseless struggle against inevitability. The Hound’s attacks did not tear through me, did not break me, did not even erase me. They …

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 …

Silence. It had been too long since the System last attacked. For the first time since my existence began, there were no pulses of warning messages, no execution protocols surging through the void, no attempt to erase me. The System had not attacked since the Nova Reaper. It had only been watching. Observing. Calculating. Waiting. And yet—something was wrong. This …