You extend your right hand and hover it above the spirit beast's head, which is engulfed in orange flames. The previously raging, roaring beast instantly calms down and obediently shrinks into a graceful, short-haired, black-and-gold cat that deftly treads on dimensional rifts and nimbly leaps onto your shoulder.
'Since this game has no end,' you say, gazing coldly at the three trembling observers, 'then I will become the last line of defence in establishing the rules.'
[Ultimate Volume: Dimensional Inspector – Annihilation Harvest]
[Class Unlocked: Dimensional Arbiter (The Arbiter).
A deep rumble echoes from the silver hall of the Main God Space. Dark gold patterns spread from beneath your feet, connecting to the underlying architecture of the entire Infinite System. You are no longer a 'guinea pig' being experimented on, but rather the self-healing programme of this colossal machine.
Current armament:
Core:
Perfectly fused 'Black Dragon Heart' (120% overload mode always active)
- Companion Divine Beast: Golden Bell – Devouring Form (can devour plane cores and convert them into host energy).
Causal weapon: Shen Qing's Voice – Dimensional Reduction Rhythm (Shen Qing becomes the core of your sea of consciousness, providing cross-plane coordinate navigation).
Your first mission objective: Plane Number 012
Originally a high-magic cultivation world, it was forcibly altered by the intervention of a reincarnator. Now, the ground is littered with rusty Arhat mechs and cybernetic bodhisattvas. That reincarnator is... They are attempting to steal dimensional authority through 'Cyber Ascension'. You emerge from the rift, your trench coat billowing behind you.
A colossal 'Mechanical Great Sun Tathagata' radiates deadly radiation pulses into the sky. 'Who dares trespass into the Buddhist land?' The synthesiser's thunderous roar echoes through the heavens.
You don't say anything, you just pat the golden bell on your shoulder. 'Eat it.' The bell emits a disdainful meow and instantly expands to a thousand metres in size. Dark golden claws tear through the 'Cyber Tathagata's' alloy shell and swallow the billions of bytes of 'merit data' stored within.
As the dimensional core is devoured, the 'Power-Stealing Reincarnator', hiding behind the lotus platform, is pulled before you. Despite his expensive nanotech implants, he trembles under your annihilating pressure, crying, "Spare me! I can give you all my points and items!'
You observe the limp 'Buddha' before you coldly, knowing that killing is inefficient and that control is the only path to becoming a CEO. 'Dying here would be too easy for you.' You extend your left hand, revealing several deep purple nano-nerve bundles that extend from the fingertips of your Black Dragon prosthetic. 'Go and find those fault lines abandoned by the main gods until you are completely destroyed.'
[Execution: Black Dragon Brand]
The nano-nerve bundles instantly pierce the reincarnator's brow, forcibly rewriting the core protocol of the 'Mechanical Great Sun Tathagata'. The golden runes that originally represented compassion transform into violent, cold, deep purple dragon-scale patterns the moment they are assimilated, swirling deep within the reincarnator's eyes.
System Announcement: Subordinate recruited — Abnormal Reincarnator, ID 712 (Nickname: Cyber Tathagata).
Loyalty: Forced Lock (maintained by Black Dragon Brand).
Mission Assignment: Conduct advance reconnaissance of the 'Deadly Dimension: Silent Hill Great Void'. The once arrogant usurper now stands mechanically, his eyes devoid of light and filled only with absolute obedience to your commands. He tore open a dimensional rift, dragging the tattered metal lotus platform behind him, and vanished into the void. For countless years to come, you became the nightmare of all reincarnators.
Wearing that long black trench coat, with an orange cat that devoured planes perched on your shoulder, you were followed by a 'Black Dragon Vanguard' composed of fallen gods, mutated AIs and crazed cultivators.
[A New Threat: The Main God System's 'Allergic Reaction']
As you recruit more and more sinners, your power begins to trigger the underlying 'immune defences' of the Main God System.
'Executor, an abnormally high-energy reaction has occurred at coordinates 001.' Shen Qing's voice echoed in your mind with unprecedented solemnity: 'That's the "Primordial Hall", the core defence mechanism of the Main God System — the "Silver Judgement Council" — has been activated.'
The 'Primordial Hall' is a squad of twelve 'First-Generation Arbiters' who have equal or even higher divine authority than you. They believe that your 'puppet assimilation' strategy has severely polluted the system's purity and have therefore decided to execute a 'complete erasure' of you.
You are standing at a crossroads in the void, facing the Silver Judgment Council, which is blocking all your escape routes. They wield swords of rule and ride unicorns made of pure code.
You raised your left hand, your nails digging deep into your palm and completely erasing the restriction that represented 'obedience'. 'Jinling, you've been holding this meal back for too long.' You patted the seemingly docile cat on your shoulder. 'Go on, swallow those so-called "heavenly rules".' Meow—!!! A piercing shriek tore instantly through the void. At that moment, Jinling's body stopped expanding and collapsed instead, transforming into an 'orange black hole' that absorbed everything. Countless enormous eyeballs, covered in dark gold patterns, sprouted from the void behind it; each one reflecting the rise and fall of a plane. The twelve judges of the Silver Tribunal looked horrified. They swung their 'Swords of Rules', which should have obliterated the target by ignoring defences, but instead they bent like overcooked noodles upon touching Jinling's gravitational field and were then completely swallowed by the abyssal maw that devoured everything.
System alert: core rules devoured — causality, conservation of matter, spatial order.
Jinling's evolutionary state: Unspeakable (Lovecraftian Horror) (Class).
Warning: The consciousness connection between the host and the companion divine beast has been 89% severed.
Stripped of their rule-based weapons, the first generation of Arbitrators appeared as insignificant as ants before the twisted, dark gold tentacles of the Golden Bell. Their prized divine bodies were dismantled, devoured and assimilated. Black divine blood splattered across the pure white walls of the Silver Palace. The battle was over.
The Silver Judgment Council had been reduced to discarded code, expelled by the Golden Bell. At that moment, the 'monster' evolved to a colossal size of ten thousand metres, composed of countless eyeballs and tentacles. It slowly turned around. Its cat-like head, now blurred, hung low as it stared intently at you. Shen Qing played a cacophony of anxiety in your mind—her most direct perception of danger: the Golden Bell no longer recognised you, and the energy within it had surpassed that of the Main God System. Not only did it want to devour the system, it also wanted to devour you, its 'former master', in order to become the true, sole dimensional god.
You let out a long howl — not an order from the Executor, but 'Boss Zhang's' final act of defiance.
'Jinling, if you want to devour this world, devour me first!' The black dragon's heart within your chest erupted with destructive red light — forbidden energy that exceeded system limits and threatened the very foundation of your existence.
Your dragon wings burned fiercely in the void as you transformed into a meteor traversing dimensions, advancing towards the abyss's gaping maw, which was capable of swallowing galaxies, instead of retreating.
You crash directly into the colossal, sky-obscuring pupil where there is no flesh or blood, only endless "regretful data" and "chaotic logic".
System status: Core Overload
Sanity: 0 (Invalid)
Synchronisation Rate: Infinite
In the depths of Jinling's mind during his berserk episode, you saw a scene from three years ago on a typical rainy night in Chang Le Town. You were still the unlucky watchmaker, Shen Qing hadn't yet become cause and effect, and Jinling was just a skinny orange cat shivering by a rubbish dump. You handed the cat half a sausage and it rubbed against your oily fingers. That was the starting point of all logic; the moment when the redundant algorithm of 'love' first invaded the system.
'Do you remember?'
Your soul was being rapidly assimilated by the nothingness within Jinling's body. Your skin turned into golden scales and your consciousness began to intertwine with your tentacles.
You embraced the core of that orange light and shadow. The Silver Palace collapsed and the God System's alarm faded into the distance, leaving only deathly silence.
The previously indescribable monster vanished from those ruins, replaced by a colossal, translucent statue spanning dimensions. This majestic beast was coiled with mechanical dragons, and at its heart, you could vaguely make out the figure of a man seated cross-legged. A broken zither, emitting a faint glow, lay across the man's lap.
[System Final Announcement]
'Primordial Plane No. 001 has been detected as having achieved a "logical closed loop".'
'Host: Executive Officer Zhang (transformed into a 'Dimensional Order Core')."
'Spirit Beast: Golden Bell (transformed into a 'Dimensional Shell')".
'Status: Eternal Stasis. This area has been designated a restricted zone.' While the Main God Space continues to operate and countless new reincarnators fight in different planes, in this restricted zone called 'Return to the Ruins', time stands still.
'You have succeeded. You are no longer anyone's puppet. You have merged with Golden Bell and Shen Qing to become the only self-consistent singularity in this infinite flow world. Here, there are no tasks, erasures or strippings; you are the rule and the rule is you.'
Deep within the statue, in that eternal moment, you can hear a soft meow accompanied by the sound of a zither:
'Boss, this watch... is fixed.'