The stars above Steven shimmered unnaturally—as if time itself was stuttering. He floated in the middle of a dimensionless void, the shattered remains of reality swirling like broken glass in slow motion. The Codex pulsed violently in his hand, its pages flipping uncontrollably.
He wasn't in any known universe anymore.
"Where... am I?" he muttered, his voice swallowed by the silence.
A voice answered—not with sound, but with overwhelming presence.
"You stand at the edge of reason. The Unwritten Paradox."
Before him materialized a colossal figure of shifting forms—sometimes an ancient scholar, sometimes a child, sometimes a writhing black hole of knowledge. It was The Paradox, a being that existed outside existence.
Steven braced himself. His body flickered with magic sigils and cosmic energy. "Are you the one warping the Codex?"
"I am not warping it. I am what the Codex cannot contain. I am the truth no page dares write."
The entity surged forward. Instantly, Steven's thoughts splintered. His past, present, and future screamed into his mind simultaneously. He saw himself dying. Becoming a god. Losing everything. Winning nothing. Infinite outcomes.
"Stop!" Steven roared, casting Chrono Seal, locking the space-time around him. The visions dimmed.
He summoned the Arc of Null, a blade forged from pure antimagic. "Then let's make a new page… one you will be written on!"
The Paradox laughed.
"Then write your death, Spellcaster."
The battle defied logic. Steven cast spells before he thought them. The Paradox countered with contradictions—undoing attacks that never happened. Reality glitched. The void collapsed and remade itself each second.
Then Steven remembered the core lesson from his mentor Aetherion:
"When facing what cannot be known, anchor yourself in who you are."
He planted his staff into the nothingness. Magic flared, not from the Codex—but from his soul.
"I am Steven Lethal. I am the Starcaster. The truth writes itself through me!"
A brilliant sigil—The Sigil of Absolute Identity—formed behind him.
The Paradox froze.
"Impossible… That symbol... has no origin!"
Steven struck. The Arc of Null cleaved into the entity—and with a final, unreadable shriek, The Paradox unraveled like an unsolvable riddle collapsing.
The Codex stilled. A new page etched itself.
---
To be continued