This paper explains why the critical line sits at real part equal to one-half by treating it as an intrinsic boundary of a reparametrized complex plane (“z-space”), not a mere artifact of functional symmetry. In z-space the real part is defined by a geometric-series map that induces a rulebook for admissible analytic operations. Within this setting we rederive the classical toolkit—eta–zeta relation, Gamma reflection and duplication, theta–Mellin identity, functional equation, and the completed zeta—without importing analytic continuation from the usual s-variable. We show that access to the left half-plane occurs entirely through formulas written on the right, with boundary matching only along the line with real part one-half. A global Hadamard product confirms the consistency and fixed location of this boundary, and a holomorphic change of variables transports these conclusions into the classical setting.