chapter 359 - Consequence Of Rewrite
The world did not shatter.
It simply… Paused.
Birds froze mid-flight, their wings caught between Motion and Memory. Oceans held their breath, waves unmoving like painted murals. The wind stilled, not because it was silenced, but because it had forgotten how to move. Trees ceased to sway, not from stillness, but from confusion, as if even nature questioned its role at this moment.
And time... Time stood on the edge of a question.
Somewhere, in a realm draped in celestial law, a god reached for their dominion… Only to find it slipping like sand through trembling fingers.
A prophet opened their mouth, but the visions were gone, replaced by static.
A historian turned a page, expecting ink and certainty, but met only blank parchment.
The Rewrite had touched everything.
Not violently. Not loudly. Not even with intention.
It simply was.
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Taufik stood at the epicenter of this suspended existence, surrounded by a silence that had never existed before. Not the absence of sound, but the absence of certainty.
The world observed him. Not with eyes, but with its laws, its codes, its systems... Its dreams.
And all of them were trying, desperately, to understand what he had done.
He looked at his hand.
No glow. No divine flare. No pulse of magic.
Just a hand.
But he knew better.
This was the hand that had rewritten a sentence the universe once believed was unchangeable.
And beneath his feet, the very threads of reality trembled, subtly rearranging themselves to accommodate his presence.
Not as a chosen one.
Not as a god.
But as something far rarer…
An Exception.
Across realms, across heavens and hells alike, eyes turned.
Old beings stirred from beneath timelines and across forgotten dimensions.
Some in terror.
Some in reverence.
Others in calculated anticipation.
But one truth echoed across the cosmos like an aftershock:
Taufik was no longer a variable.
He was a constant.
The one who could bend the script.
Not by defying fate... But by rewriting its grammar.
And now, the world would either adapt to him.
Or be left behind.
He blinked... Just once.
And the world resumed, but it did not resume as it was.
Something subtle, something foundational, had shifted.
It was less certain now as if the universe itself feared its own continuity.
He exhaled, and even that breath trembled.
Something was wrong.
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He reached out with his senses.
Darkness, shadows, Concept, System... All responded, but sluggishly. Hesitantly.
As if unsure whether they still served him or whether they now feared him.
His Concept flickered, not from weakness, but from instability.
Rewrite had not only altered reality.
It had touched him.
Altered the very structure of his being, the integrity of his Essence had been shaken.
Then the voice came.
But not from outside.
From within.
"You rewrote the world… But what about yourself?"
Taufik froze.
The world around him rippled, faint but unmistakable.
Like a corrupted file trying to sync with a foreign codebase.
"Every Rewrite creates a paradox.
And you, Taufik… You are now a walking one"
Then he saw it.
In the dark surface of a puddle nearby, his reflection… Fractured.
Three versions of himself stared back... Each is impossibly real.
One with golden eyes, calm and divine: Authority incarnate.
One with hollow eyes lost and broken: The forgotten self.
And one with burning eyes, wild and grinning: Chaos unchained.
They weren't illusions.
Not hallucinations.
But possibilities.
Real paths are birthed by the paradox of Rewrite.
And then, the pain hit.
It wasn't physical. Not in the ordinary sense.
It was ontological.
Like his very identity was unraveling.
Taufik dropped to one knee, hand gripping the earth.
And even the soil twisted beneath him, rejecting his presence like a misaligned puzzle piece.
System error messages danced like red butterflies at the edge of his vision:
[DING!]
[Warning!!]
[Concept Integrity... COMPROMISED]
[World State... UNSTABLE]
[System: Daily Login temporarily suspended due to paradox conflict]
[You are no longer recognized as a fixed variable in reality]
His heart didn't beat in rhythm anymore.
It beat in error codes.
He was becoming something else, something that didn't belong in any version of the world... Any system, prophecy, or divine plan.
A paradox is given form.
A Rewrite without an editor.
A question the universe was not ready to answer.
And in that moment, Taufik realized something chilling:
He hadn't just rewritten the world.
He had rewritten himself out of it.
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Taufik still stood at the epicenter of this suspended existence, dropped to one knee, hand gripping the earth.
And then he heard his reflection.
"You don't belong here anymore"
The voice was layered, three tones in unison. Calm, broken, and wild. Each carries the weight of a self that could be, should be, or might never have been.
He looked up.
The puddle was no longer just a mirror. It was a window. No... A conversation.
Golden-Eyes spoke first, voice like judgment carved in light:
"You reached beyond your place, and the world reshapes to fit your crime"
Hollow-Eyes followed, whispering like forgotten prayers:
"You weren't meant to remember what you erased"
Then Burning-Eyes grinned, teeth sharp with glee:
"But you did. Oh, you did. And now we're all free"
Taufik's breath hitched. Not in fear. In recognition.
These were not just paths, they were roots, each one digging into him, tugging, stretching his being across unreconciled timelines.
He tried to speak.
The puddle fractured again, sending ripples across reality itself.
Behind him, the air distorted, light bending, sound warping. As if existence was buffering, struggling to keep him rendered.
"What am I becoming?"
He asked, voice raw.
Golden-Eyes: "Correction"
Hollow-Eyes: "Anomaly"
Burning-Eyes: "Fun"
Taufik's fingers dug deeper into the trembling soil, each breath a rebellion against unraveling.
The reflections circled him now, not in the puddle, but around him.
Phantoms made flesh by the paradox he had become.
They moved with different rhythms: Golden-Eyes walking as if carrying judgment in every step, Hollow-Eyes drifting like a lost shadow, and Burning-Eyes skipping, dancing on fault lines.
"Let go," Hollow-Eyes urged, voice soft, enticing. "Forget the burden. Fade with me"
"No," Golden-Eyes countered. "Seize your rightful place. Bring order to this chaos. Restore balance. Be the author, not the accident"
"Or," Burning-Eyes sang, spinning wildly, arms outstretched, "set it all on fire. Unmake the story. Write in laughter and screams!"
Their whispers weren't just heard, they were felt like fingers threading through the seams of his mind.
Taufik clenched his jaw. "I didn't rewrite the world to become your puppet," He growled.
Burning-Eyes laughed. "But you did rewrite it, didn't you? That's the fun part. You can't go back"
A pressure mounted in his skull, like a thousand conflicting truths trying to nest inside one fragile identity. The world around him flickered, like a faulty simulation caught in a paradox loop.
But then... Taufik remembered something.
Not a memory.
A conviction.
Something before power. Before the System. Before Rewrite.
Back when he was just a kid, clueless about how the world really worked, where everything seemed so much simpler.
His mother's voice, firm but kind, said:
"You don't have to be anything more than yourself, Fik... That's already enough"
And in that moment, he planted his will like a sword into the core of his being.
"I am not you"
He looked at Golden Eyes.
"I am not only order"
He turned to Hollow-Eyes.
"I am not only loss"
He faced Burning Eyes.
"And I am not chaos"
He stood.
The world shook in response.
His reflections paused... Uncertain.
Taufik's shadow stretched beneath him, no longer echoing the forms of the others. It was his again. Singular. Whole.
"I am not a consequence of Rewrite," He said, voice steady now. "I am Rewrite. And I choose"
And with that declaration, the world responded, not with resistance, but recognition.
Golden-Eyes vanished first, a soft nod before dissolving into light.
Hollow-Eyes crumbled like dust in the wind, sighing something close to relief.
Burning-Eyes lingered, smiling wide, whispering:
"We'll meet again. You'll need me, eventually"
Then he, too, was gone.
Taufik stood alone once more.
The paradox didn't vanish.
But now, it obeyed.
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Back at the vault, where Lembuswana and Aksara were.
And time resumed.
Taufik stood there.
Calm.
Centered.
Different.
He was present. But deep inside, threads of his being worked in silence, repairing what had been lost, what he had broken.
His eyes blinked, once, then again... Unnaturally fast.
And in those moments, lines of shimmering code flickered across his irises. Not symbols of magic or divine power...
Syntax.
Structure.
Law.
Then… He blinked again.
Normal.
Human.
Still.
He turned slowly to face them, his son, and Lembuswana.
His voice was quiet. But every word echoed with the weight of a rewritten truth.
"I'm not just breaking the rules anymore…"
He raised his hand.
Reality rippled.
Not like a mirror cracking... But like an old memory trying to remember itself.
"…I'm rewriting them"
Having said that, Taufik turned to Lembuswana.
His tone softened, not with weakness, but with clarity.
"Lembu… It's time for me to fulfill my promise to you, are you ready?"
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