The transition from godhood to nothingness didn't feel like death. It felt like an error in a blueprint—a sudden, jarring calculation mistake that erased a billion years of architectural perfection.
I was the Sovereign Architect. I had designed the skeletal structures of galaxies and the genetic sequences of celestial predators. But as my consciousness collapsed, there was only one sensation: Vibration.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The rhythm was primitive. Weak. It was the sound of a failing organic pump—a heart.
I opened my eyes, and the world screamed in a language I knew too well: Imperfection.
"He's awake! The young master is awake!"
The voice was high-pitched, vibrating at a frequency of 250Hz, laced with the scent of cheap medicinal herbs and fear. My vision was blurry, but I didn't need eyes to see. My soul, though fractured, still processed the world through the lens of a Master Architect.
I looked at the ceiling. To a normal person, it was just old wood. To me, it was a structural disaster. I could see the microscopic fissures in the timber, the way the moisture had compromised the cellulose fibers, and the exact second the main beam would snap if hit by a sudden gust of wind.
"Young Master Alpagu, can you hear me?"
A face leaned over me. A woman. Her cellular structure was... disappointing. Her skin lacked the collagen density of the upper-tier races I used to design. Her genetic aura was a pale, flickering yellow—the color of a commoner with no cultivation potential.
Alpagu. The name echoed in my mind, anchoring me to this small, fragile frame. I wasn't in the Void anymore. I was in a human body. A body that felt like a cage built by an amateur.
"Water..." I tried to speak, but my vocal cords were stiff. I could feel the friction of the dry membranes. I analyzed the sound of my own voice—it was shaky, lacking the resonance of power.
As the woman rushed to bring a wooden cup, I closed my eyes and focused inward. If I was to survive in this new reality, I needed to understand my own blueprints.
[Initiating Genetic Scan...]
A familiar interface flickered in the darkness of my mind. It wasn't a "system" in the magical sense; it was the manifestation of my own divine intellect, the Sovereign Interface I had used to build worlds.
[Subject: Alpagu Ashina]
[Race: Human (Base Form)]
[Structural Integrity: 12% - Critical Warning]
[Genetic Purity: 3.4% (Diluted Primordial Strain)]
[Status: Malnourished, Muscle Atrophy, Severe Bone Fragility]
I almost laughed, but my lungs lacked the capacity for a full chest laugh. 3.4% purity? In my previous life, I would have incinerated such a flawed specimen to keep the gene pool clean. And yet, this was me.
But then, I saw it. Deep within the double helix of my DNA, hidden beneath layers of evolutionary trash and dormant sequences, there was a flicker. A sequence that didn't belong to this world. A sequence that pulsed with the frequency of the Grand Architect.
My soul hadn't just inhabited this body; it had started rewriting it.
"Here, drink slowly," the woman whispered, lifting my head.
The water touched my lips. I didn't just taste it; I analyzed its molecular composition. Hydrogen, Oxygen, and a high concentration of calcium and magnesium—hard water. As it slid down my throat, I followed the path of every drop. I felt the cells in my esophagus absorbing the moisture, the way the red blood cells began to carry oxygen more efficiently to my starving brain.
Suddenly, a memory flashed—not mine, but the other Alpagu's.
A cold night. The smell of burning tents. The sound of wolves—or men who acted like them. The Ashina tribe was falling. We were the "Broken Clan," a people whose blood had grown thin, whose warriors had lost their strength. I was the sickly son of a fallen leader, a burden to a tribe that was already starving.
"They are coming, aren't they?" I asked, my voice gaining a strange, metallic clarity.
The woman froze. The cup in her hand trembled. "Who... who told you?"
"The earth told me," I replied.
I could feel it through the floorboards. Rhythmic vibrations. 42 horses. 84 riders. The frequency of their gallop was aggressive, synchronized. They were less than three miles away. They weren't coming to trade. They were coming to harvest.
"Nanny, go to the cellar," I said, struggling to sit up. Every movement was a lesson in pain. My joints grinded like ungreased gears.
"Young Master, you are in no state to—"
"Go!" I snapped.
The authority in my voice wasn't that of a sickly boy. It was the roar of a Sovereign who had commanded stars to ignite. The woman, startled by a power she couldn't understand, backed away and fled toward the back of the hut.
I was alone.
I stared at my hands. Thin, pale, trembling.
"Genetic Sovereignty," I whispered. "If the world is built on flaws, then I am the only one who can fix the design."
I closed my eyes and dove into the microscopic world of my own cells. I didn't have mana. I didn't have qi. I had something better: The ability to manipulate the fundamental code of life.
I targeted the muscle fibers in my legs. I forced the mitochondria to overproduce ATP. I broke down the excess fat in my liver and converted it into pure, raw energy. It was a painful, violent process. It felt like a thousand needles were stitching my muscles back together in real-time.
[Warning: Cellular Stress at 85%. Risk of Spontaneous Combustion.]
"Ignore the warnings," I commanded my mind. "Optimize the structure. Efficiency over safety."
My skin turned a feverish red. Sweat poured from my pores, smelling of toxins being purged from my system. My bones creaked as I forced them to density.
Outside, the sound of horses grew louder. Screams began to echo through the village. The "Broken Clan" was being shattered.
I stood up. My legs felt heavy, but stable. For the first time in this life, I didn't feel like a victim. I felt like a prototype.
I walked to the corner of the room and picked up a discarded iron poker from the fireplace. As my hand touched the metal, the "Architect's Vision" flared.
[Object: Low-Grade Iron]
[Impurity Level: 42%]
[Stress Point Detected: 4cm from the tip.]
I gripped the iron. With a precise surge of my newly optimized muscles, I struck the iron against the stone hearth. I didn't use brute force; I hit it at the exact frequency of its structural weakness.
CRACK.
The iron didn't just break; it shattered into a sharp, jagged blade, perfectly balanced for my small hand.
I walked toward the door. The vibrations were right outside now. I could smell the iron in the blood being spilled, the ozone in the air, and the adrenaline of the killers.
"Architect's First Rule," I whispered to the empty room. "Before you build a new world, you must tear down the old one."
I pushed the door open.
The sun blinded me for a second, but my interface adjusted the dilation of my pupils instantly. I saw a rider, a mountain of a man on a black horse, raising a torch toward our roof. His grin was a chaotic mess of crooked teeth and rotting gums.
He looked down at me, a small, sickly boy holding a piece of broken iron. He laughed—a vibration of pure, arrogant stupidity.
"Look at this little rat! Thinks he's a—"
He never finished the sentence.
I didn't aim for his chest or his head. I saw the flaw in his armor—a loose leather strap near his throat, a gap where the metal hadn't been tempered correctly.
I moved. Not like a human, but like a calculated strike of lightning.
The iron poker found the gap. The vibration of the impact traveled up my arm, and I felt the exact moment the metal pierced his carotid artery.
Blood sprayed—a vivid, chaotic red.
As the giant fell from his horse, I stood over him, my eyes glowing with a cold, predatory intelligence.
[Kill Confirmed.]
[Absorbing Genetic Material: Human (Strength Variant)...]
[Evolution Progress: 0.01%]
I looked at the horizon, where more riders were approaching. A small smile touched my lips.
This body was a disaster. This world was a ruin. But as an Architect, I knew one thing:
The best buildings are always built on the ashes of the worst ones.