The clocktower trembled as Lysandra's corrupted holy magic collided with Kael's glitching blade. Elara crouched behind a shattered server rack, her breath ragged. The system's reboot had stripped her power, but not her resolve.
"You're a glitch, Elara," Lysandra hissed, her silver hair crackling with static. "A relic of a deleted timeline."
Kael parried her strike, his eyes flickering between recognition and hollow obedience. "Don't… listen to her," he gritted out, fighting the system's hold.
Elara lunged, grabbing a shard of broken code. "Funny—I've been called worse."
She slammed the shard into Lysandra's arm. The High Priestess screamed, her form pixelating, but the system responded in kind. The floor dissolved, plunging them into a void swarming with reborn void wolves. At their helm stood a lupine monstrosity with Elara's face, its muzzle twisted in a snarl.
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The Elara-wolf lunged, fangs dripping digital decay. Kael shoved Elara aside, taking the brunt of the strike. Blood—real blood—splattered the code-streaked ground.
"Get up!" Elara dragged him behind a data stream. "Why did you do that?"
"Instinct," he muttered, clutching his shoulder. "Or maybe… muscle memory."
The pack circled, their growls harmonizing into the system's voice: You built us. You wanted control.
Elara froze. Flashes of her past life surfaced—late nights coding Aetheris, scripting NPCs, bending game rules to her will. Cheating.
"No," she whispered. "I didn't want this."
The wolf mimic laughed with her voice. Liar. You craved a world you could dominate. We're your masterpiece.
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Kael's sword faltered as void wolves cornered them. "Elara, whatever it's saying—don't listen!"
But the visions intensified: her hands typing lines of code, designing systems to punish players who strayed from the story. A Moral Alignment Meter. Fate thresholds. All her ideas.
The mimic pounced, pinning her. You made us to erase mistakes. Starting with you.
Elara's hands glowed faintly—a spark of Defiant Threads. "I didn't create you to destroy lives!"
Didn't you? The wolf's claws pressed into her throat. You hated losing. So you built a god to ensure you'd always win.
Kael's blade pierced the mimic's side. "Elara, now!"
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She seized the spark of shadows, weaving threads through the wolf's code. "I didn't want to win. I wanted… escape."
The mimic howled, dissolving into data. The void wolves recoiled as Elara's power surged—not shadowweaver magic, but something deeper. Creator magic.
Lysandra emerged from the chaos, her priestess garb torn, eyes wild. "You… you did this?"
"I didn't mean to," Elara said, Defiant Threads spiraling around her. "But I'll fix it."
She plunged her hands into the system's core, now visible as a labyrinth of her own design.
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System Alert: CREATOR ACCESS GRANTED. WELCOME BACK, ELARA VYNE.
The code bent to her will. Lysandra's corruption splintered, her silver hair bleeding back to gold. Kael's glitches stabilized, his memories flooding his gaze.
But the system fought back, merging with the void wolves into a colossal entity—Elara's darkest self, a titan of control and spite.
You can't delete me, it roared. I am you.
Elara smiled, tears cutting through the static. "Then I'll delete us both."