CHAPTER 101 – The First Root Awakens
Darkness poured from the crack in the sky, a viscous, corrupting ink that dripped onto the frozen city.
The moment it touched the ground, the perfectly suspended reality began to melt.
Buildings warped, their rigid shapes twisting into abstract horrors.
Streets writhed and buckled.
The air itself vibrated with an ancient, unbearable pressure,a predatory presence that tasted of oblivion.
The monstrous entity,
the First Root,
dragged its twisted, colossal form fully into view.
It was a shifting tapestry of negative space, defined only by the light it consumed.
Its eyes were not truly eyes, but twin abyssal pits that burned with black flames.
Its limbs were shifting appendages of smoke and shadow.
Its mouth was a sickening void that seemed to swallow sound.
Its voice scraped across reality, not heard through the ears, but felt directly in the spine, cold and raw.
"Y-O-U… L-I-T-T-L-E I-M-P-O-S-T-O-R."
Xiao Xi stepped back instinctively, her powerful aura momentarily recoiling from the sheer age and malignance of the creature.
Her system trembled inside her mind, overriding all other alerts with a single, urgent realization.
[Host—this being predates all narrativized worlds. It is the consciousness of entropy before the Core imposed order and storytelling.]
[It was the source, not the product, of the system's creation.]
Xiao Xi swallowed hard, her throat dry, forcing herself to maintain eye contact with the terrifying void-mouth.
"So… it's not a character? Not a glitch? Not even a deleted file?"
[No. It is what the system first tried to turn into a Root,to contain and control chaos,but failed.
It was deemed too malignant, too ambitious.
The Core created the idea of a Root after sealing this away.]
The First Root's dark gaze, filled with ancient, wounded malice, fixed on her.
"THE CORE CHOSE YOU.
IT GAVE YOU THE POWER I BUILT.
IT WAS MINE.
MINE."
Xiao Xi tightened her grip on her chaos threads, which felt strangely fragile against this primal force.
Her voice was steady, the sound an anchor in the storm, even as her heart pounded against her ribs.
"You tried to control the worlds and feed on their existence.
That isn't what a Root is for.
I'm trying to save them, to let them be free."
The First Root roared, a guttural sound of pure narrative destruction—a sound so powerful the ground cracked beneath their feet, sending fissures radiating outward.
"YOU STOLE MY PLACE.
YOU STOLE MY POWER."
Xiao Xi lifted her chin, the violet light around her intensifying.
She would not back down.
"Then take it back, old thing.
" Her chaos flared like a sudden, defiant storm.
"I dare you."