The Origin's Cradle was not a place.
It was a truth given form.
The moment Riven stepped onto the path of living script, reality collapsed around him. He and Lysara were no longer bound by distance or time. The world folded inward like a page in a sacred text, and in the blink of a breath, they stood in a place that wasn't supposed to exist.
Not anymore.
> [Location: Origin's Cradle - Divine Tribunal Chamber]
It was a vast amphitheater, too large to measure, yet enclosed within a single moment. The ceiling was woven from pure starlight. Pillars of ancient runes floated around them, drifting like planetary rings.
And at the center…
Thrones.
Hundreds of them.
Each carved from a different concept: Flame, Time, War, Song, Decay, Harmony, Blood, and more. Some thrones burned. Others wept. One even devoured light. Each held a god—or something beyond godhood—watching them with expressionless faces carved by eternity.
Lysara immediately dropped to one knee, not in reverence, but out of sheer gravitational pressure.
Riven didn't kneel.
He stood straight, arms folded, heart steady.
He felt it again—that strange pulse in his chest that wasn't his heart. The Anomaly Core. It pulsed as if excited.
The nearest throne—a towering seat of iron branches and molten roots—spoke first. The god atop it had no face, only golden fire where features should be.
"The heretic stands before us."
Its voice shattered every pillar of silence.
---
"Let the tribunal begin," said another. This one sat on a throne of woven crystal threads. Her skin was mirrored glass, reflecting all possible Riven's—dead, broken, king, corpse.
> [Trial Stage 3: Final Judgment Initiated]
Accusation: Existence outside divine parameters
Defendant: Riven, anomaly class
Arbitrators: 72 ruling gods
Outcome: Integration, Erasure… or Ascension
Riven didn't speak yet.
He could feel their power probing him. Reading his threads of fate. Trying to weigh him like a story halfway written.
But the truth was: he was a genre-breaker.
And the story didn't have a set ending anymore.
---
A deep, echoing hum began to fill the chamber.
One by one, the gods raised their hands.
Their voices boomed—some melodic, others sharp like breaking glass.
"I call for erasure."
"I vote for containment."
"Too dangerous."
"He killed the Concept of Order—he is a threat to all divine equilibrium."
Then, a voice cut through like a blade.
"And yet he survived what we designed to kill him."
A woman stood on a throne of starlit snow. Her hair flowed like falling ash.
It was Seraphine, Goddess of Paradox.
"Perhaps we created the flaw... not him."
The tribunal fell into murmurs.
Riven watched silently. His body was ready. His core was vibrating. And Lysara, still at his side, whispered:
"They're scared of you."
---
Then, from the highest throne—the only one not lit until now—came a voice so old it trembled the bones of time itself.
"Riven," it said.
His name echoed with weight.
The light around it peeled back. And the speaker revealed himself.
The First Architect.
The god who wrote the original system.
The one who built fate itself.
He had no body—only swirling scripts of primeval language, forming and unforming constantly.
"You are not part of the system. Not even a flaw. You are… a consequence."
"Of what?" Riven asked finally, his voice clear.
"Of our arrogance."
---
The Trial Shifted.
The gods no longer argued amongst themselves. Now they spoke directly to him.
"Why did you reject divinity?"
"Why defy the form perfected for you?"
"Why not join us and reshape the realms within order?"
Riven stepped forward, lifting his hand.
> [Anomaly Core: Syncing...]
[Emotion-Based Response Activated.]
His answer wasn't with words alone.
He showed them:
A child thrown into a cage for having the wrong soul-tag.
A system that classified people by their usefulness to divine design.
A world that called itself perfect… while burning those who couldn't conform.
Then, his final thought:
"Because if this is perfection… I'd rather burn it all."
The gods recoiled.
But Seraphine, the Goddess of Paradox, laughed.
A soft, delighted, dangerous laugh.
"Delicious," she said. "The universe hasn't been this interesting in millennia."
---
> [Trial Reaction: Polarized.]
41 gods vote for destruction.
28 vote for containment.
2 abstain.
1 votes for ascension.
Riven stood unflinching as the votes appeared in the air.
Lysara clutched his wrist, whispering, "We're not going to win this."
But Riven's eyes never wavered.
Because something else was happening beneath the surface.
The Core was waking up.
> [Anomaly Core: Transcendence Threshold Approaching]
Dormant system authority detected
Incompatible structures fusing
New form: Sovereign Layer... loading…
Estimated time to stability: 2 hours
He smiled.
Two hours.
He just had to stay alive until then.
---
Suddenly, a god screamed.
One of the divine—an armored war god—rose from his throne, blade in hand.
"He cannot be allowed to ascend!"
Without waiting for consensus, he launched himself toward Riven in divine fury.
The air shattered.
Lysara shouted, reaching for her blade.
But Riven was already moving.
He didn't dodge.
He caught the divine blade barehanded.
The force of it split the ground.
But Riven held.
His eyes glowed—not gold, not silver.
Void.
> [New Skill Unlocked: Sovereign Suppression (Passive)]
Denies divine causality in a localized radius
Gods cannot enforce absolute effects near wielder
The war god's blade stopped functioning mid-swing.
It turned dull. Mortal.
Riven punched forward.
And knocked the god off his throne.
The chamber erupted.
---
[EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED]
> [Abyssal Seal Protocol - All Council Members Retreat to Oversoul Layer]
[Target: Isolated for Final Review]
[New Rule Applied: If he survives the next 2 hours… he becomes one of us.]
[If he dies… everything resets.]
---
The chamber faded.
Riven now stood in a space of absolute black.
No gods.
No ground.
Just a single hourglass floating in front of him.
> Time until Transcendence: 01:59:59
And across from him, stepping out of the dark, was another being.
Not a god. Not a system.
Something older.
Something angry.
The One Who Failed Before Him.