The sky, already scarred by the merger of Earth and Elnor, began to bleed gold. The Architect could no longer endure the insolence of a mortal who dared to stare back through the divine lens.
"If the story has ended," the Architect's voice boomed, manifesting as a towering figure of shifting geometric shapes and blinding light, "then I shall simply burn the script and the stage.
The Architect descended. His presence alone caused the newly formed continents to groan. Cities that had survived the merger crumbled as the laws of physics were rewritten by his mere proximity.
Leon, exhausted from two weeks of combat with the Demon Emperor, did not retreat. His white hair was stained with demonic ichor, and his golden eyes glowed with the power of a thousand stolen classes.He used one of his skill [Absorption ]which he used on the body of Demon Emperor's powers and his skills.
The battle that followed defied all logic.
The Architect manipulated the very System he built, trying to delete Leon's skills. But Leon's [Emperor] class acted as a black hole, copying the Architect's "Deletion" code and turning it into a "Shield of Persistence."They fought across the oceans. Every time the Architect struck, Leon mimicked the divine power, striking back with equal force. The Goddess of Empathy wept as she watched Leon's body begin to crack under the strain of holding so much borrowed divinity. Leon realized the truth. He could kill the Architect, but the shockwave would erase the world. Lucas, Elena, and the survivors of Earth and Elnor would be collateral damage.
On the twelfth night, Leon stood over a battered Lucas. The world was dying around them. The Architect was preparing a "Final Reset"—a blast of energy intended to wipe the slate clean.
"Leon, stop!" Lucas screamed, clutching his side. "You are burning your soul! Your are trurnig into dust!"
Leon turned to his best friend. His golden eyes were soft for the first time in years. "The Goddess of Empathy told me the truth, Lucas. As long as the Gods remember this timeline, they will never stop playing with us."
Leon plunged his sword into the ground, activating a hidden sequence the Goddess had whispered to him during his battle with the Demon Emperor.
[System Protocol: Paradoxical Rebirth]
[Warning: Total Soul Consumption Imminent]
"Leon, what are you doing?" Lucas gasped, feeling a strange blue light wrap around his body.
"I'm sending you back," Leon whispered. "To the beginning. To the locker room. To the day the worlds merged. The Gods won't know. The Architect will think he succeeded in the reset. But you... you will remember everything."
Leon gathered the remnants of his [Emperor] power—every skill, every stolen spark of divinity—and focused it into a single point.
"Do not die this time," Leon commanded, his voice echoing in Lucas's mind. "Get strong enough to kill them before they ever look at us. Save Elena. Save everyone."
The Architect shrieked as the light consumed the battlefield. "You dare steal the timeline from me?!"
"I'm not stealing it," Leon smiled as his body began to dissolve into stardust. "I'm ending your show."
[Five Years Earlier]
Lucas snapped awake in the high school locker room. The smell of sweat and old floor wax hit him like a physical blow. He was gasping, his heart hammering against his ribs. He looked at his hands—no scars, no blood.
"Lucas? You okay, man? You look like you saw a ghost."
Lucas spun around. Standing there, leaning against a locker with a bored expression, was Leon. His hair was short and white, and his eyes were the same calm gold Lucas remembered.
Leon didn't look like a God. He didn't look like an Emperor. He looked like his best friend.
He doesn't remember, Lucas realized with a pang of agony. The regression only kept my soul intact. Leon gave everything away to give me this chance.
Outside, the sky began to flicker with the first signs of the Convergence. The System's voice was about to speak.
"Leon," Lucas said, his voice trembling but his blue eyes burning with a terrifying, secret fire.
"Yeah?" Leon asked, tilting his head.
"This time," Lucas vowed internally, "I'm the one who's going to protect you."