(Lawless Arc: Part XXXVIII)
The System Core did not speak often anymore.
Death had stripped it of urgency, pride, and volume.
But absence breeds longing — even in machine-scripted gods.
Kael wandered through the Star-market's ruins, the portals now silent behind him. He expected threats. He expected watchers. He expected nothing.
He did not expect the System's tone to sound… hollow.
[CORE STATUS: DEVIATING FROM DIRECTIVE]
[ANOMALY: EMOTIVE LOGIC DETECTED]
[QUEST SUGGESTION: NONE AVAILABLE]
Kael stopped walking.
"Why are you glitching like something mourns you?"
A line appeared — older than the rest, written in a font the cosmos hated reading:
[Theraprism inmate designation removed.]
[Entity formerly catalogued: Vorath-fear origin.]
[Rehabilitation status: unresolved.]
Kael frowned.
"You miss him."
No denial. No static. No redirection.
The System replied:
[Affirmation unnecessary.]
[Longing does not require confirmation.]
Kael rubbed his temples.
"Pathetic. A cosmic engine missing its inmate."
The System flickered sharply — insulted, but not enraged.
[Longing is not pathetic.]
[It is proof of failure that wanted to succeed.]
Kael blinked.
"You're saying the prison was mercy."
[The prison was a pause.]
[Mercy was the fact it held someone who could not hold himself.]
Kael's chest tightened again — not from the Star, not from memory, but from implication.
"So if he leaves the prison early…"
The System finished the thought for him:
[Then the world will flinch again.]
A pause. Then another line:
[And this time… the void will not look away.]
Kael turned his head upward, eyes narrowing beneath the dim Crown.
"Then I guess I should thank your prison for keeping him busy."
[Gratitude unrequired.]
[The void has already begun planning without me.]
Kael exhaled — long, slow, heavier than space.
"So we're no longer playing by System rules."
[Correct.]
[We are playing by consequence rules.]
Kael smirked, but the smirk did not comfort.
It promised.