Ten Lucky Draws: I Became OP

Chapter 618: Ceasefire?

The destruction of the Lower Framework didn’t just weaken the Prime Expanse—it struck deep at the very cores of the two beings who had brought it into existence.

But the truth wasn’t so straightforward.

The Mother and the Father weren’t merely rulers or the master architects of their own vast realms.

In the same way that Ash was intrinsically tied to Pantheos, these two beings were inseparable from their creations.

They didn’t just shape their cosmologies—they were their cosmologies.

Every reality that had once existed beneath the Prime Expanse was a reflection of their own being — living shards of their will, their essence, and their strength.

When those layers were wiped away, it wasn’t just far-off worlds that disappeared.

It was literal parts of who they were.

The lower laws, concepts, and trans-concepts acted like the roots of a vast tree, pulling in raw existence and directing it toward the higher realms.

By now, it was understood that in the Prime Expanse, beings first existed as Ideas, followed by Essences.

Long ago, Ash had noticed something in the Power System that influenced his decision to create his own.

Each rank that came after seemed to be tied to the one before it.

While this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, he saw it as a redundancy that might one day cause more trouble than the creators had anticipated.

And that’s exactly what happened...

Ideas and essences?

They were essentially elevated states of existence, drawing their strength from the dense concepts beneath them.

The richer and more complex the lower layers were, the stronger and more stable the higher Ideas became.

That’s why those in the Prime Expanse could tap into power on par with the 5th Wall, but never beyond.

It all came down to the combined force of the lower frameworks.

Their power wasn’t something they developed alone — it was nurtured by the vast, layered cosmology that had once stretched out beneath them.

Now, that foundation had been ripped away.

Without the lower laws and concepts to sustain them, the Ideas and Essences in the Prime Expanse would soon begin to experience a slow but irreversible starvation.

Not only that, but Mana—the most fundamental energy that once flowed freely from the lower frameworks—was no longer being generated.

This didn’t mean that Mana would vanish entirely; what remained wasn’t finite, but it had lost the density and strength it once possessed.

And as this decline persisted, the longer the deterioration dragged on, the more unstable the Prime Expanse would become.

The higher powers that once coexisted in harmony would begin to clash.

Ideas that had once been absolute would start to contradict and erode one another.

The very structure of the Prime Expanse, which had always relied on the lower layers to maintain balance, would begin to fracture under its own weight.

And when that happened, there would be no gentle decline.

Only pure, unrelenting destruction.

----

"...It seems something has decided to ruin our little game."

The Mother stood at the edge of the boundary, her long white hair drifting slowly as she gazed across the thin veil of the First Absence.

Her voice was soft, yet it carried the weight of countless cycles.

"...It seems something has decided to ruin our little game."

The Father remained still on the opposite side, his silhouette of pure absence seeming even darker than usual.

After a moment, he gave a slow nod.

"Indeed," he replied, his voice cold and vast. "The question is... who could have managed such a thing?"

He paused, as if weighing the implications.

As the embodiments of everything and nothing, they were undeniably the strongest, even with Minx in the picture.

They knew she was far more mysterious than they were, but she wasn’t on their level of power.

The idea of her pulling something like this?

It had never even crossed their minds.

"Not only have the lower frameworks been completely erased, but our plans for the final stage have also been disrupted.

The champions we had prepared... I can no longer sense any of them."

The Mother turned her head slightly, listening.

The Father continued, his tone carrying a rare note of irritation.

"Even my son... he has been killed."

At that moment, the Mother arched a delicate brow, a flicker of genuine surprise dancing across her luminous features.

"Your son?" she echoed, her tone tinged with curiosity.

"Are you sure? I never sensed the passing of my own child. The last time I saw him, he was still pressing onward without any trouble."

The Father was quiet for a long moment, his presence pressing against the boundary between them. When he finally spoke again, his voice was low and deliberate.

"Then look again."

He stared at her across the First Absence, his tone leaving no room for doubt.

"Look in on him now."

The Mother held his gaze for several seconds before slowly closing her eyes, reaching out with her awareness to check on her own son’s status within the collapsed layers of existence.

The Mother held the Father’s gaze for a long moment before slowly closing her eyes.

She extended her awareness, sweeping through the shattered remnants of the Prime Expanse, searching for even the faintest trace of her son’s existence.

There was nothing.

No echo, no ripple, not a single thread of his presence.

It was like her son, Ash, had never existed at all.

Her brow creased in quiet frustration.

She tried again, this time going further back — all the way to the beginning.

She tracked the roots of his existence, following the threads of his birth, past lives, and the bond that tied him to her through endless cycles.

She chased the course of his fate back to its very beginning, looking for any sign that might guide her to now.

But once again, there was nothing.

The link was utterly broken—not concealed, not disguised—just gone.

The Mother’s eyes slowly opened.

She stared at the Father across the thin veil of the First Absence, her expression unreadable for several long seconds.

Her eyes wandered for a moment, as though she was lost in thought.

Then, it came back to her.

She remembered the last report Vigil had given her — the white Watcher who had spoken of strange movements within the Lower Framework.

He had mentioned the Ineffable Pantheon’s growing influence, the way they had been interfering with the Realities, and how Ash in specific had been acting far beyond what should have been possible.

At the time, she had dismissed much of it.

Now, the pieces were falling into place with terrifying clarity.

The Mother’s lips parted slightly as she muttered under her breath, her voice carrying a rare note of genuine shock:

"...It was him."