At the edge of the universe, in a void that swallowed even light, Link's consciousness underwent a disintegration and reconstruction unlike anything he had known.
He was no longer a god-king seated upon a throne, no longer a master of the universe holding six Infinity Stones. Every atom of his body, every strand of divinity that carried his will, was reduced to a torrent of pure information the moment he plunged into the End Singularity.
He "saw" the universe's underlying code flowing around his consciousness like rushing rivers of gold. Time was curvature, space was coordinates, and reality was a fragile canvas woven from countless variables. The Infinity Stones he had once used to rule everything were merely the six "Administrator accounts" with the highest access privileges in that ocean of code.
Merging with the Check-In System—the "seed of civilization" from a previous universe that had been wiped clean—had made him a new "firewall," a guardian who existed alongside the Laws of the entire universe. At the cost of his own existence, he repaired the reality the Eradicator had torn apart and restored harmony and freedom to all things.
Endless ages passed in an instant within Link's consciousness. He fulfilled his duty as guardian, silently holding back incursions from other dimensions and parallel universes like a tireless, eternal sentinel.
He had become unimaginably powerful, and unimaginably alone.
Through that endless solitude, one glimmer of light had never gone out. It was the fragment of Harley Quinn's soul he had reclaimed from the Law Ripper's void with the last of his God Power. Like the final ember within his cold divinity, it anchored his humanity.
His longing to return grew wild as weeds.
He began to think. He searched the Laws he himself had laid down for the universe, looking for