Chapter 9 – The Truth Beyond the Loop
James had lived for 90,000 years inside a single day.
He had become a master of all knowledge. He had explored every theory, every law of reality, every scientific principle.
But one question remained unanswered.
Why was he trapped?
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The First Glitch
It happened on Loop 1,001,237.
James noticed something—a flicker in the sky.
At exactly 3:14 PM, for just a fraction of a second, the entire world glitched.
Buildings flickered like static on a broken screen. People's movements froze, then continued. The sun shifted position unnaturally.
James had seen errors in code before—but never in reality itself.
That's when he knew.
This world was broken.
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Uncovering the Truth
James dedicated thousands of loops to tracking the glitch.
He built machines to scan the anomaly.
He tested ways to interfere with it.
He pushed the limits of his knowledge, looking for something science couldn't explain.
And then, on Loop 1,010,000, he saw it.
The Boundary.
A place where reality itself ended.
It was hidden deep within the Atlantic Ocean—a place where the water suddenly stopped moving, frozen in an endless moment.
James constructed a deep-sea vessel and descended into the abyss.
And there, in the silent darkness, he saw a door.
Not a physical door. Not a metaphorical one.
But a boundary to another existence.
A voice whispered in his mind.
"You were not meant to see this."
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The Parallel Worlds
A flood of knowledge overwhelmed him.
He saw 8 billion other worlds, each one with its own version of reality.
Each world had its own protagonist.
Its own James.
And each world was part of a greater system, controlled by beings beyond human understanding.
Higher Beings.
They were the architects of these parallel worlds. They set the rules, controlled fate, and ensured that each protagonist followed their story.
But something had gone wrong in this world.
A technological failure.
Something in the system running his world had broken.
That's why he was trapped.
That's why he was looping.
And the Higher Beings?
They had abandoned this world—left it frozen in time because they couldn't fix it.
James was nothing more than a glitch in their design.
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The Choice
James now knew the truth.
His world was malfunctioning. The Higher Beings had left it behind.
And unless he fixed the error himself, he would be trapped forever.
But how does a human fight against gods?
How does a mere protagonist rewrite the rules of existence?
James clenched his fists.
He had spent a million loops mastering the world.
Now, he would break it.