Chapter 50: The Finger of God
The Central Spire of Polaris wasn't just a building. It was a hollow tube of indestructible diamond-glass that stretched fifty miles into the sky, connecting the jungle floor to the Crown of the World—the floating continent that hovered above the atmosphere.
We stood inside the Celestial Elevator.
It was a circular platform roughly a hundred feet wide, opulent and lined with velvet. It was designed to carry Gods in luxury.
"Hacking complete," Ria announced, her hand deep in the control panel's interface. "Spoofing Soul Signature: Lord Polaris. Destination: The Crown."
HUMMMM.
The platform shuddered. The anti-gravity engines groaned.
We began to rise.
Outside the glass walls, the City of Polaris was shrinking. The white towers turned into toys. The giant trees turned into moss.
"We are moving fast," Prince Valerian noted, looking a bit green. "My ears popped three times already."
"We aren't moving fast enough," I said, looking up through the glass ceiling.
Above us, the sky had darkened.
The Hand of the Arbiter—a colossal construct of white light the size of a continent—was descending. It wasn't just reaching down; it was punching through the cloud layer, aiming to crush the entire Spire like a straw.
"Aeon," I called out.
The Time Saintess stepped forward. She looked terrified but resolved.
"Yes, Sovereign?"
"Can you accelerate the elevator?"
"I can try," Aeon raised her hands. "Time Art: Local Acceleration."
A golden bubble surrounded the platform. The world outside blurred. We shot upward at Mach 10.
But the Hand was faster.
It crashed through the cloud layer. It was so big that the fingerprints were the size of valleys. It radiated a pressure that cracked the indestructible glass of the Spire.
[ANOMALY DETECTED.]
[PROTOCOL: SQUASH.]
The Hand didn't aim for the elevator directly. It aimed for the Spire.
It wrapped its massive fingers around the crystal tube two miles above us.
It squeezed.
CRACK-BOOM.
The sound was deafening. The Spire fractured. The structural integrity failed.
The tube began to collapse inward.
"We're going to crash!" Lyra screamed.
"No," I said. "We're going to fight."
I looked at Seraphina.
"Stay here. Guard the team. Ria, keep the engine running."
"Where are you going?" Seraphina grabbed my arm. "That is a Hand of God. You can't fight it with a sword!"
"I'm not using a sword," I smiled, my eyes burning silver. "I'm using a Shield."
I pressed the button for the emergency hatch.
The roof of the elevator opened.
The wind howled, carrying the crushing pressure of the High World's upper atmosphere.
I jumped out.
I landed on the roof of the rising elevator.
I looked up. The massive white thumb of the Arbiter was pressing down on the glass tube, crushing it directly into my path.
"Hey!" I shouted at the sky. "Get your finger off my ride!"
The Titan's Defense.
I activated Seal 1: The Titan Sovereign.
My body didn't grow in size, but my mass increased exponentially.
I became a singularity. A point of infinite density.
I bent my knees.
I jumped.
BOOM.
I launched myself off the elevator roof. I flew upward, straight at the crushing thumb.
To the Arbiter, I must have looked like a flea jumping at a hammer.
"Event Horizon."
I punched.
I didn't punch the thumb. I punched the gravity around it.
I created a localized sphere of Repulsion Force.
CLANG.
My fist met the giant thumb.
The impact created a shockwave that cleared the clouds for a hundred miles.
The thumb stopped.
For a second, the image was absurd. A human-sized boy holding back a finger the size of a mountain.
My bones creaked. The pressure was immense—enough to turn coal into diamond instantly.
"YOU RESIST?" The voice of the Arbiter boomed from the sky. "YOU ARE DUST."
The Hand pushed harder.
My arms buckled. I fell back a few feet.
I grinned, blood leaking from my nose.
"I am not dust," I gritted my teeth. "I am the Titan."
I pulled my other arm back.
I channeled every ounce of the Void Qi I had stolen from Polaris.
'Technique: Heaven-Devouring Sutra.'
'Fusion Art: Void-Titan Uppercut.'
I punched again.
This time, I didn't just push. I bit.
A massive phantom jaw appeared around my fist.
CRUNCH.
I punched a hole straight through the giant thumb.
I flew into the finger of light. I tore through the divine energy, ripping the construct apart from the inside.
"ERROR. ERROR."
The Hand recoiled. It shattered into millions of shards of white light.
The pressure vanished.
I fell back down, landing heavily on the roof of the elevator.
The elevator surged past the broken section of the Spire, continuing its ascent.
I lay on the roof, panting. My knuckles were smoking.
"That..." I wheezed. "...was a big finger."
The hatch opened.
Seraphina poked her head out. She looked at the shattered remains of the Hand raining down.
"You punched God in the thumb?"
"He started it," I stood up, dusting off my coat. "Is everyone okay?"
"Valerian fainted," Seraphina pointed down. "But the rest are fine."
"Good. Because we're almost there."
The Crown of the World.
The elevator slowed.
The sky turned from blue to black. We had reached the edge of the atmosphere.
We were in space. But it wasn't empty space.
The Crown of the World was a floating continent made of pure white marble, drifting in the void above the planet. It was pristine. Perfect. Sterile.
There were no trees. No animals. Just endless rows of white pillars and a single, massive Golden Gate.
The elevator docked.
The doors opened.
We stepped out onto the marble floor.
The gravity here was strange. It was light. Artificial.
"This place..." Old Mo whispered, shivering. "It feels... dead. There is no life force here. Only Law."
We walked toward the Golden Gate.
Standing in front of it were twelve figures.
They wore white robes and blank white masks.
The Twelve Judges.
The personal guard of the High Arbiter.
"Halt," the lead Judge spoke. His voice was a harmonious chord. "You have reached the limit of your existence. Turn back, or be erased."
I stepped forward.
I looked at the twelve of them. They were all Rank 9 True Gods. The peak of power in this world.
"I have an appointment," I said.
"You have no appointment. You have a death sentence."
The Judges drew their weapons—swords made of solidified light.
I didn't draw Antakala.
I looked at Ria.
"Ria. Introduce them to the 6th Era."
Ria's eyes flashed gold.
She opened her briefcase.
She didn't pull out a gun. She threw the briefcase into the air.
"Deploying Tactical Nuke: The Sun-Eater."
The briefcase expanded. It turned into a floating drone.
It fired a beam of anti-matter.
ZAP.
The beam hit the lead Judge.
His barrier flared.
POP.
The barrier broke. The Judge was vaporized instantly.
The other eleven Judges froze. They had never seen technology like this. They only knew Qi. They didn't know how to block anti-matter.
"Attack!" the Judges screamed, charging.
"Valerian!" I shouted. "Front line!"
Prince Valerian (who had woken up) ran forward. He raised his shield.
"I am the wall!"
CLANG.
He blocked three light-swords at once. His knees buckled, but his 6th Era robotic arm held firm.
"Seraphina! Flank!"
Seraphina flew over them, raining black fire.
"Aeon! Slow them down!"
Aeon cast a Time Dilation field. The Judges moved like they were in molasses.
I walked through the chaos.
I walked straight toward the Golden Gate.
A Judge tried to block me.
I didn't even look at him.
Time Skip.
I appeared behind him.
Slash.
He fell in two pieces.
I reached the Golden Gate.
It was locked. Sealed with a puzzle of complex runes.
"Ria," I called back. "Can you hack it?"
"Negative," Ria reported, firing missiles at a Judge. "That gate is organic. It requires a bio-key."
"Bio-key?" I frowned.
I looked at the gate. The runes pulsed.
They looked familiar.
They looked like... Dragon Runes.
I placed my hand on the gate.
My 4th Seal (The Beast Monarch) vibrated.
In my 8th Life, I was the Primordial Void Dragon.
"Open," I whispered in Draconic.
The gate shuddered. It recognized the language of its creators.
The Arbiters hadn't built this place. They had stolen it from the Dragons eons ago.
CLICK. RUMBLE.
The massive Golden Gate swung open.
Blinding light spilled out.
I turned to my team. The Judges were dead or dying.
"Leave them," I said. "We're going in."
We stepped through the gate.
The Control Room.
I expected a throne room.
I expected a palace.
I did not expect Screens.
The room was vast and dark. Floating in the air were thousands of holographic screens.
Each screen showed a different world.
Screen 1: Planet Aerthos (Low World).
Screen 2: Aurelia (Middle World - Destroyed).
Screen 3: Terra Nova (High World).
Screen 4... Screen 5... Screen 100...
This wasn't a palace.
It was a Server Room.
And sitting in the center, in a simple chair, was a man.
He didn't wear robes. He wore a grey suit. He looked like a tired office worker.
He was watching the screens, drinking coffee.
He turned around as we entered.
He had no face. Just a smooth, white surface where features should be.
"You are late," the Faceless Man said. His voice was the same one I heard from the sky. "I expected you ten minutes ago."
I gripped my sword.
"Are you the High Arbiter?"
"I am Administrator 001," the man said. "I manage this Sector of the Simulation."
"Simulation?" Valerian gasped.
"Reality is subjective," 001 stood up. "You call it a Universe. We call it a Sandbox. And you, Rudra Ye... you are a Bug."
He raised his hand.
The room shifted. The screens vanished.
We were suddenly standing in a white void.
"I deleted the background," 001 explained. "It saves processing power. Now... let us delete you."
He didn't attack with Qi.
He opened a console window in the air.
He typed a command.
[> DELETE ENTITY: RUDRA_YE]
A wave of erasure washed over me.
It wasn't an attack I could dodge. It was a command to the universe to stop existing.
I felt my body fading. My hands turned transparent.
"Rudra!" Seraphina screamed, reaching for me. Her hand passed through mine.
I looked at the Faceless Man.
He was typing the final key. [ENTER].
I smiled.
My eyes flashed silver.
"You think you have Admin privileges?" I whispered.
Inside the Ring, Chronos opened his eyes.
He didn't type code.
He grabbed the Timeline of the room.
And he Bent it.
"System Restore," I said.
I rewound my own state by 10 seconds.
I solidified instantly.
I appeared directly behind the Administrator.
"You forgot one thing," I put my sword to his neck.
"Bugs survive."
End of Chapter 50.