Han Si-woo stood his ground, but the air was thick enough to choke on. His Architect's Sight was screaming. Usually, the world was a map of code he could manipulate—a series of values he could subtract or delete. But the Avatar wasn't made of code. It was the Source Code. It was the language in which the world was written, and right now, it was looking at Si-woo like an error that needed to be purged.
"A parasite," the Avatar spoke. The voice wasn't human; it sounded like the grinding of tectonic plates. "A vessel created from the crumbs of the Void, daring to feast upon the marrow of my design."
[SYSTEM ALERT!]
[DIVINE PRESSURE DETECTED: -50% ALL STATS]
[THE ENTROPY ENGINE IS STALLING...]
"I'm no one's vessel," Si-woo spat. He forced his legs to move, the ground cracking under the sheer weight of the Divine Presence. "And I'm not asking for permission."
He lunged.
In his Level 5 state, Si-woo's movement was usually a blur of deleted distance. But as he swung his fist, encased in a shroud of violet-black entropy, the Avatar didn't move. It simply raised a small, desiccated hand.
Clang.
The sound was like a hammer hitting an anvil. Si-woo's fist stopped an inch from the Avatar's face, blocked by a geometric barrier of golden light.
[ATTACK BLOCKED]
[CONVERSION FAILED: TARGET MANA DENSITY IS BEYOND SYSTEM CAPACITY]
"You try to delete me?" The Avatar's eyes flared with the intensity of a dying star. "I am the one who defined 'Zero.' I am the one who authored the 'Void' you so greedily consume."
With a flick of its finger, the Avatar sent Si-woo flying. He crashed through three reinforced titanium walls, his body skidding across the cold floor of the Association's lower corridors. Blood, dark and shimmering with violet sparks, leaked from the corner of his mouth.
[HEALTH: 42/100]
[WARNING: INTERNAL SYSTEM DAMAGE]
The World Outside: The Great Dimming
While the battle raged in the depths of the Vault, the rest of Seoul was descending into a nightmare.
At the Association HQ, the S-Rank Hunters who had gathered to stop Si-woo were suddenly falling to their knees. Commander Kang, the man whose sword Si-woo had shattered, looked at his hands in horror. The golden light of his 'Pulse' was flickering out.
"My magic..." he gasped, his voice thin. "It's... it's being pulled toward the basement."
It wasn't just him. All across the city, the "Pulse" was failing. Healers found their spells turning to ash mid-cast. Shield-warriors watched as their barriers dissolved into gray mist. The Vaults—the massive towers that loomed over the city—began to hum with an angry, discordant frequency. Without the Clockwork Heart to regulate the flow, the mana was returning to its owner.
In a nearby hospital, the lights flickered and died. Han Su-jin, Si-woo's sister, lay in her bed, her breathing becoming shallow. The mana-infused oxygenators that kept her lungs functioning were stalling.
The world was returning to its natural state: a world without magic. And for a humanity that had become addicted to the "Pulse," the withdrawal was lethal.
The Sovereign's Desperation
Back in the Deep Vault, Si-woo struggled to his feet. He could feel the Entropy Engine in his chest vibrating so hard it felt like it would shatter his ribs.
"Is that all?" Si-woo wheezed, his violet eyes narrowing. "You talk about design... about authors. But you're just another battery. A bigger one than the rest, but a battery nonetheless."
[SYSTEM OVERLOAD INITIATED]
[FORCED SYNCHRONIZATION: 100%]
[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: 'TOTAL DEPLETION']
[Warning: Using this skill will permanently delete a portion of the Host's Soul.]
Si-woo didn't hesitate. "Do it."
The air around Si-woo suddenly turned pitch black. This wasn't the "blue flame" of a typical Hunter; this was a Cosmic Singularity. Every scrap of mana he had consumed—the S-Rank sword, the Shadow Unit assassins, the local ley lines—was being condensed into a single point of infinite density.
The Avatar's expression shifted from boredom to slight curiosity. "You would burn your own existence just to scratch me?"
"I'm not burning it," Si-woo said, his body beginning to dissolve into black smoke. "I'm spending it."
He disappeared.
This time, there was no sound of a collision. Si-woo reappeared behind the Avatar, his hand plunging directly into the golden halo. He wasn't punching; he was reaching for the core.
[SKILL: 'TOTAL DEPLETION' ACTIVE]
[TARGET: THE CLOCKWORK HEART (INTERNAL)]
[DELETING DIVINE DATA...]
The Avatar screamed—a sound that shattered every glass surface for five miles. The golden light began to bleed into Si-woo's arm, turning his veins into rivers of molten obsidian. The Engine was no longer just hungry; it was consuming the Divine.
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL 10... LEVEL 15... LEVEL 25...]
[CLASS CHANGE IN PROGRESS: 'VOID MONARCH' -> 'THE END OF DAYS']
The Vault began to collapse. The ceiling buckled as the structural mana was sucked out of the very concrete.
The Regressor's Choice
From the rubble of the lobby, Yoo Seol-ah watched the black pillar of energy erupt from the center of the building. She gripped her rapier, her silver hair whipping in the wind.
"He did it," she whispered, her eyes filled with terror. "He didn't just take the Heart. He's eating the Architect's Avatar."
In all her 411 previous lives, this had never happened. The Architect was always the final boss, the untouchable god who reset the world when humanity became too powerful. But Si-woo was doing something far worse than fighting a god. He was erasing the concept of the god.
Seol-ah looked at her hands. They were beginning to fade. If the Architect died, the "System" that allowed her to regress would vanish. This would be her final life. There would be no more do-overs. No more "next time."
"Han Si-woo," she said, a grim determination settling over her. "If you survive this... you better be worth the end of the world."
The Birth of the Sovereign
In the heart of the explosion, the dust settled to reveal a figure standing amidst the ruins of the Deep Vault.
The Avatar was gone. The Clockwork Heart was gone.
Han Si-woo stood in the center of a perfect circle of nothingness. He was no longer the ragged scavenger in a black hoodie. His hair had turned a stark, bone-white, and his skin was covered in intricate, glowing violet runes that pulsed like a heartbeat. He held a new weapon in his hand: a blade forged from the compressed shadow of the Architect itself.
[EVOLUTION COMPLETE]
[HOST IDENTITY: THE ZERO-SUM SOVEREIGN]
[CURRENT MANA RESERVES: INFINITE (TEMPORARY)]
[WORLD STATUS: CRITICAL DECAY]
Si-woo looked up, his gaze piercing through the layers of the building, through the clouds, and into the very stars above. For the first time, he could see them—the other "Architects" watching the Earth like a petri dish.
"I can see you now," Si-woo whispered, his voice carrying across the entire city of Seoul.
He raised his black blade and pointed it at the sky.
"The buffet is open. And I'm still hungry."