Chapter 7: Patch Notes for a Dead God
Ethan sat cross-legged on a jagged rock beneath the gnarled shade of a rotting sunthorn tree, his golden eyes closed as he drew a slow, controlled breath. Mana surged around him like liquid fog, shimmering in hues only he could perceive. It wasn't the intensity of the energy that startled him—he'd expected mana to saturate the very air in this new world—but how it responded to him.
It cowered.
"Why?" he murmured, barely audible.
His body was still weak, still recovering from its evolutionary reset. At the age of nineteen once more, Ethan had no cultivated energy, no formal foundation, and yet the mana in the atmosphere bent away from him. As though it feared contact.
He opened his eyes. The golden orbs spun slowly—clockwise in his right, counterclockwise in the left—an evolution he hadn't noticed until that morning. They weren't just eyes anymore. They were sensors. Processors. Predictive engines.
Too fast, he thought.
In the span of one week since unlocking his dormant energy, he'd regrown from an infant to a full-grown man. That wasn't growth. That was optimization.
His cells were rewriting the very blueprint of humanity.
The world had no idea.
---
He descended the slope toward the ruined monastery the villagers called Whispering Bone Abbey. It had long been abandoned by the local cultivators—monks who once followed the Path of Breath and Stone. Now, it served as Ethan's temporary hideout.
From the corner of his eye, he spotted movement.
She appeared from the shadows like an echo from a dream.
Lady Selene.
Dressed in tight leather armor that left her long legs bare to the thigh, the older woman approached with a panther's grace. Her silver hair was pulled back into a messy braid, and her bosom strained slightly against her fitted breastplate. Her eyes were a shade of amethyst that made Ethan's body react involuntarily.
She paused, arching a brow.
"You're staring again."
Ethan offered a half-smile. "You're distracting again."
"I'm twice your age."
"Exactly my type."
Selene exhaled sharply—half amusement, half frustration. "You may have some strange talent, Ethan Walker, but if you keep playing with fire, even your so-called invincibility won't save you."
"You have no idea how hot I burn."
Their eyes locked. Power flared between them—not just magic, but a tension Ethan hadn't experienced in any laboratory or experiment. It was a primal pull. One that made his control waver.
And that… was dangerous.
---
Later that night, Ethan poured through the scrolls he'd stolen from a defunct mage's tower a few valleys away. The parchment crackled as he unrolled a section on energy classification.
Mana. Magical Energy. Divine Energy. Aether.
Null Energy wasn't even mentioned.
But tucked between the lines was a fragment of what he'd been searching for: an ancient footnote about the Event Horizon of Conscious Realities. The scholar who'd written it—an elf named Eron Veth—had theorized that some energies operated outside the hierarchical energy spectrum.
"These are proto-concepts," the note read. "They exist beyond interaction, influencing through passive entanglement. One such energy is theorized to be Null—an anti-state of all known forces. Useless… unless merged."
Ethan's pulse quickened.
Unless merged.
That was it. The combination of Null and Aether had created what now lived in his body—his evolving energy. It explained the suppression of mana around him. The shifting of his eyes. The terrifying ease with which he adapted to foreign stimuli.
He wasn't just changing.
He was rewriting the laws.
---
As dawn broke, Ethan stepped outside the Abbey to find Selene sparring with her elite soldiers—her personal militia, known as the Duskwind Blades. Each one was a veteran cultivator in the mid stages of the Foundation Realm. All male. All devoted to her.
He watched as she dismantled a trio of them with a smirk and a flick of her blade.
Flawless.
When she noticed him, she called out, "Care to test your limits, boy genius?"
Ethan rolled his shoulders. "Only if you promise not to fall in love when I beat your best."
One of the soldiers laughed. "You're not even in the first stage of Mana Condensation, orphan. Stay on the sidelines."
Ethan looked at Selene, not the soldier. "I accept."
The duel was over in thirteen seconds.
Ethan moved before the soldier could finish his insult, a blur of muscle and predictive awareness. He didn't use mana. Didn't need to. Every movement his opponent made was broadcast in micro-muscle twitches and shifts of balance. Ethan read them all.
He dodged the first strike, pivoted behind the man, and tapped a pressure point behind the soldier's ear.
The man collapsed.
Silence.
Selene stared.
He winked. "Your turn?"
She didn't answer.
But later that night, she visited his room.
---
She stood in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.
"You're not normal."
"Define normal."
"Your energy… it doesn't register on my senses. You're a black hole."
Ethan nodded. "Because I'm not from here."
She stepped forward, lips parting. "Then where?"
He stared into her eyes.
"From a place where stars don't die quietly. Where energy doesn't obey. Where gods feared their own creations."
Selene's breath hitched. Something primal in her understood.
She closed the distance. "Then show me."
Ethan reached out, fingers brushing her cheek. "Are you sure? If I let go, I don't hold back. Not in battle. Not in bed."
Her smirk was slow. Dangerous.
"Good. I'm tired of boys pretending to be men."
And then her lips were on his.
---
The following morning, Ethan stood atop the ruined Abbey, watching the sun rise. His senses had expanded. He could feel the mana in the air—more distant now, retreating from him.
Selene lay beneath the furs inside, sleeping deeply for the first time in years.
Ethan had given her more than pleasure. He'd shared a fragment of his energy with her during climax. A dangerous, reckless act.
But intentional.
She needs to evolve, he thought. She'll be the first.
Because this world wouldn't change with one man alone.
It would take gods.
And Ethan Walker… was writing new patch notes.
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