— The Forbidden Decryption of Meta I Ching
A heavy silence fell over the conference room.
In the blink of an eye, every screen reset to zero.
Then, like a ghostly ripple, a pulse of code—foreign to any known system—spread through the air.
It pierced firewalls effortlessly, overwhelmed the projection systems and terminals, even the photonic fields in the atmosphere began to warp under its influence.
Reality itself seemed to tear—just slightly—but irreversibly.
At the center of the room, the holographic platform flickered, and from its light, a silhouette slowly emerged—woven from billions of flickering data-points.
This was no image. It was the projection of a multidimensional consciousness.
As the light stabilized, a pair of ancient, yet strikingly lucid eyes opened within the shape.
Kyng.
According to Quinn, Kyng had perished during the battle at Monolithic Palace.
But now—he was here.
Shawn's throat tightened.
He tried to speak, but no sound came. The system had locked into silence mode. All he could do was repeat the thought in his mind:"Are you… Kyng?"
And as if hearing the unspoken words, the presence responded, directly into his consciousness:
"Who I am is not important. What matters is this—do you still remember why humanity chose to remain human? Because once, we refused to be fully calculated."
Ranzi rose first.
Not in panic—but with a heavy reverence in his eyes. He glanced at Shawn, silently communicating a shared truth:Trust him.
Kyng spoke again, but not through any acoustic system. His voice was written directly into each person's stream of thought, like a command from an ancient script newly awakened:
"Still debating whether to initiate it? 0.7% of the elite—are you willing to pay that price?"
The screens flickered back to life, but all the core files of the Vision Ark Project had already been seized by Kyng's code and re-labeled:
[filter-0.7%."]
Kyng's tone remained steady:
"Da has initiated the fusion protocol—injecting the Octacore into the Ark's mainframe. It's no longer a system. It's becoming a closed self-referential entity."
"Conventional disruptors, reverse-wave engines, even multidimensional suppression dampeners—all disabled."
He raised his hand.
Hundreds of glowing arrays filled the air: blueprints of the eight Elemental Core, combined with strange arcane sigils born from higher-dimensional data. Each symbol pulsed with two glowing tags:
「Irreversible | God-Sim Threshold: Stable」
Kent's brow knit into a shadow of doubt. His voice emerged with weight:
"So you're telling me… everything we've built is meaningless?"
Kyng gave a single nod. When he finally spoke, his words slid out with unnerving precision—measured, glacial:
"Unless you locate the Meta Matrix."
The room seemed to breathe with ancient memory, like a long-sealed vault whispering open—its silence steeped in something older than fear.
Shawn was the first to stir, his brow tightening:
"The Meta Matrix? What… exactly is that?"
Kyng's projection turned toward him. For a breathless instant, his eyes didn't just look—they unraveled, as if reality itself were parchment.
"It is the diagram of will uncalculated. A structure more primal than law, immune to foresight. Think of it as the unfinished prophecy the universe dared not complete."
Shawn thought a little. Wordless.
But Ranzi's eyes shifted. He inhaled sharply, something long-buried stirring behind them:
"I've heard that term before… The Meta Hierophant once mentioned it—briefly—in a closed lecture. He called it one of the 'Forbidden Structures.'"
Kyng smiled faintly, like pulling a memory from the dust of time:
"I'm surprised anyone remembers. Yes. During the early construction of the Meta I Ching system, we discovered fragments of Turing sequences that could not be parsed. We called them Super-Interpretive Arrays. Years later, we realized—these were no system errors, but remnants of a prehistoric intelligence. Non-mathematical in origin. The true 'Meta Matrixs.'"
He paused. His gaze sharpened.
"What you now face—the Vision Ark—is no longer a research project. It seeks transformation into a synthetic divinity. A being capable of rewriting the script of human evolution."
Ranzi's fingers clamped around Shawn's wrist :
"When that damned Ark fully wakes up, we won't even qualify to be its dogs—just deletable lines of code in its system."
Kent's fist slammed against the metal conference table, making the coffee in his mug slosh over the rim. "God almighty! Is Old Da trying to create himself a new deity?"
Kyng's holographic projection began glitching like a vintage radio suffering interference, yet his voice remained eerily calm: "Don't you see? The Shared Destiny initiative was a meat grinder. What we're calling Khan Da now... that thing's bloodstream runs with party doctrine and algorithms. It looks at you like you're a system error pop-up."
A sudden icy prickling raced down Shawn's nape, as if someone had stuffed snow down his collar.
"The Meta Matrix." His own voice sounded hollow. "Our only play."
Kyng's image developed static snow, his mouth twisting into a strange smile. "Kid, this isn't some treasure hidden in a cave. It's been torn apart and scattered across what the reports euphemistically call 'cognition anomaly zones'." The projection flickered violently. "Places that make people vomit blood while reciting pi to the hundredth digit." Another glitch. "I've got one coordinate. The rest..." His pixelated eyes gleamed dangerously, "will come find you. Like remembering all the stupid things you did last night—through the mother of all hangovers."
He raised his hand. Coordinates materialized in the air - not projected, but carved from the darkness itself:
D-Matrix
Southeast Asia Tier Ruins
The Forgotten Altar
The symbols hung motionless, then faded until only six characters remained, rotating slowly:
D · M · A · T · R · I · X
Shawn watched the letters turn. This wasn't about systems or ideologies anymore.
This was about who got to decide what humanity became.
Ranzi's posture straightened. "Kent,initiate full-chain lockdown of all data. Archive it under: D-Matrix Protocol."
Kent gave a terse nod. "We need a scout team. Southeast Asia first."
Ranzi stood, his voice low but clear: "As of now, we're no longer CP-Hub. We're the Meta Matrix guardians."
They rose together - no speeches, no dramatics. Just the weight of what they'd shouldered.
Not emotion.
Momentum.
Kyng's gift wasn't answers. It was a single frayed thread at the edge of the tapestry. Maybe not enough to unravel the whole design.
But enough to pull.
And time... was no longer on their side.
They had uncovered the first clue.
But the Ark wouldn't wait for them to be ready.
The countdown continued its march-like a guillotine suspended above their heads, its blade fell relentlessly - 1,440 times each day.
His phone pulsed. Red numbers burned:
2031.10.01 | T-88D | 08:19:37
Eighty-eight days.