The air smelled like burning archives. Not the crude smoke of paper and ink, but the ozone-scented dissolution of something far older—the death of dogma itself.
Luo Feng stood at the heart of the Godforge, fingers buried wrist-deep in the pulsating core of creation. The System's interface hovered around him, not as sterile blue screens now, but as living threads of starlight, each one a line of code in reality's operating system.
"Final administrative access granted," chimed the Wife of Ashes' voice, her ghostly form flickering in the static. "You have one command left."
Before him, the Pantheon writhed—not in their gilded robes and thunderous majesty anymore, but as glitching silhouettes, their divine portfolios unraveling. The War God's axe melted into a spreadsheet of casualty reports. The Goddess of Wisdom's eyes scrolled with error messages.
"This is your fault," hissed the Void Emperor, his once-majestic form now just a fraying cable of ambition, plugged into the Godforge like a parasite. "You could've been a god. Now you'll be nothing but an obsolete program."
Luo Feng exhaled. The Eclipse energy in his veins had reached critical density—his blood was liquid syntax, his heartbeat a server's hum.
"Nah," he said. "I'm just hitting 'format.'"
He yanked his hands from the core.
The Godforge screamed.
Not a mortal sound—this was the death rattle of narrative inevitability, the sound of a thousand prophecies snapping like cheap guitar strings. The Pantheon flickered, their edges pixelating. The War God opened his mouth to curse Luo Feng, but his voice distorted into a dial-up tone. The Goddess of Wisdom reached for him, her fingers disintegrating into Terms & Conditions fine print.
The Void Emperor lunged, but his body collapsed into a corrupted file path: C:\Divine\Ambition\Failure\recyclebin
And then—
Silence.
The absence was loud. The weight of millennia of worship, of temples and tributes and trembling mortals, evaporated like a mist under noon sun. Somewhere, a last Chosen One felt their destiny fizzle out mid-speech, their prophecy now just a drunken bar bet no one remembered.
Luo Feng staggered back. The Eclipse energy drained from him, leaving only the warmth of a job done. The Godforge wasn't gone—just repurposed. Its surface, once etched with celestial commandments, now showed only three words:
"Under New Management."
The Wife of Ashes' ghost smiled. "You didn't delete yourself."
"Yeah, well," Luo Feng wiped starlight off his brow, "turns out I'm shit at following instructions."
Behind him, the tavern door creaked open.
Li Qing stood there, frostless for the first time in centuries, holding a bucket of mortal-grade ale. The Death Queen leaned on her shoulder, flipping a god-slaying nail like a hairpin. And perched on the sign above them, the Fox Spirit grinned, her tails waving like victory banners.
"Happy grand opening," she said, and tossed him a rag. "Now clean up this cosmic mess, boss."
Luo Feng laughed. The world felt lighter.
Somewhere, a plush demon stole the last divine relic—a coffee mug labeled "World's Okayest Deity."
Somewhere else, the Void Emperor groaned into his mop bucket.
And far, far away, in the unwritten corners of existence, something new began.
END OF CHAPTER 100