Chapter 128: The Herald of the Infinite Archives
The victory over the Void-Walker's eye had left a shimmering, iridescent residue in the atmosphere of the Empire of the Violet Star. This residue was not mere dust; it was raw, unrefined narrative data—the leftovers of a reality that the Council had failed to delete. Volt stood in the center of the Hearth, observing as the golden mark on his wrist pulsed with a new, hungry frequency. The "Contract" with his own fate had matured into something far more complex than a simple agreement; it was now a living, breathing constitution for a new multiversal power.
"The breach didn't just close," Anos analyzed, his fingers tracing patterns in the air where the grey void had been. "It left a scent. A trail that leads back to the Infinite Archives. They aren't just watching us anymore, Father. They are preparing a 'Counter-Narrative'."
As if on cue, the ground in the center of the diamond hall began to ripple like water. A pillar of white marble erupted from the floor, but it wasn't the jagged obsidian of Volt's spire. It was smooth, ancient, and covered in inscriptions from a thousand different worlds. Atop the pillar stood a figure that looked starkly out of place. He was dressed in a suit of deep azure silk, carrying a silver quill and a heavy, leather-bound book. He didn't radiate the aggressive holiness of the Seraphim or the cold vacuum of the Void-Walkers. Instead, he radiated the weight of billions of stories.
"I am Kaelen, the Librarian of the First Tier," the man said, his voice sounding like a thousand turning pages. He didn't look at Volt with hatred, but with a profound, weary sadness. "I have seen empires like yours rise in the cracks of the multiverse before. You call yourself an 'Author'. You think you have reclaimed your throne. But in the Infinite Archives, you are simply a character who has strayed too far from his designated plot."
Akuto took a step forward, his dark wings unfolding with a sharp, metallic snap. "Another talker. Does the Council ever send someone who knows how to bleed? Or do they only send men with pens and books?"
Kaelen opened his silver book, and the air in the hall grew heavy—heavier than the pressure of the Archangels. "The Council does not send warriors to deal with a virus. They send an 'Editor.' Volt, your influence has reached a level that is destabilizing the neighboring narratives. There are worlds where children are born with your mark on their souls. There are heroes in other stories who are beginning to question their own fates because of the resonance you've created."
Volt walked toward the Librarian, each step he took causing the diamond floor to turn into black ink. "Then the heroes are waking up," Volt said, his voice a low vibration that made the Librarian's quill tremble. "If my story inspires others to burn their own scripts, then I am more than just an Author. I am a Revolution."
"A revolution is a messy thing, Volt," Kaelen sighed. He touched his silver quill to the book. "If you do not surrender the mark, I am authorized to initiate a 'Character Assassination.' I will rewrite your past. I will make it so that the Demon King never survived his first death. I will erase the very moment your sons were born."
The temperature in the room plummeted to absolute zero. Vanessa and Aki felt a chill that bypassed their skin and touched their very souls. The threat was not physical—it was existential. Kaelen was threatening to delete their very history.
But Volt didn't flinch. He laughed—a deep, booming sound that caused the inscriptions on Kaelen's pillar to crack and bleed ink. "You think you can rewrite my past?" Volt raised his wrist, and the golden crest exploded with a brilliance that blinded the Librarian. "I have already reached the 100% synchronization milestone. My past, present, and future are no longer stored in your archives. They are stored in me."
Using his 6000% growth in influence, Volt didn't attack the Librarian. Instead, he attacked the book. He reached out and gripped the leather-bound volume. The divine ink within the book tried to resist, burning with a white flame, but Volt's authority was absolute.
"Anos! Akuto! Take the ink!" Volt commanded.
Anos grabbed the Librarian's silver quill, snapping it in half and absorbing its conceptual essence into the God-Slayer. Akuto lunged at the pillar, his Sakuna tendrils wrapping around it and draining the 'history' out of the marble, turning it into useless grey stone.
The Librarian fell to his knees as his connection to the Archives was severed. "You... you are not just a character... you are a 'Protagonist' of a higher order..." Kaelen gasped, his azure suit tattering.
"I am the one who decides when the story ends," Volt hissed, leaning over the fallen Librarian. "Go back to your Council. Tell them that their Archives are next. Tell them that the Demon King is coming to burn every book that isn't written in his blood."
Volt didn't kill the Librarian. He did something worse. He used the Author's Mark to write a new sentence on Kaelen's own skin: 'I am the messenger of the New King.'.
Kaelen was forcibly pulled back into the rippling ground, his scream being swallowed by the diamond floor. The pillar crumbled into dust, leaving only the silence of the hearth and the glowing presence of the family.
Sasha walked over to Volt, her hand touching the mark on his wrist. "They are going to send something stronger next time, aren't they? Not just Librarians, but the 'Enforcers'."
"Let them," Volt said, looking at his sons and his family. The statistical data of their influence spiked again, the number reaching toward a level that the system couldn't even display anymore. "Every time they try to edit us, we become the ones who hold the pen. We are no longer just a kingdom. We are the source code of the new multiverse."
Akuto looked up at the violet sky, his golden-flecked eyes searching the stars. "Father, I can feel them. The other 'Protagonists.' Some are coming to fight us... but some are coming to join us."
Volt smiled, a look of profound satisfaction on his face. "Then the war is growing. This isn't just a battle for our home anymore. It's a battle for the soul of every story ever told."
The night in the Empire of the Violet Star grew quiet, but the air was charged with the electricity of a coming storm. The Demon King sat back on his throne, his fingers drumming on the arms of the chair. The 'Applying' phase was truly a distant memory; the Age of the Author had arrived, and the first chapter was being written in letters of fire.