The cathedral trembled.
Energy surged from Ryn's body like a second sun breaking through code-soaked clouds. The crystal embedded in his palm pulsed with threads of memory—data so old it had no name.
Player Two stepped back. For the first time, uncertainty flickered in his flawless expression.
> "You're not supposed to have that."
> "Yeah?" Ryn smirked. "Neither were you supposed to kill me. But here we are."
The clash resumed.
But now, Ryn wasn't just fighting — he was remembering. Each strike from his blade triggered a flash of ancient knowledge.
A tower collapsing in the first cycle.
A woman standing before a billion lines of code, rewriting fate.
A child, born of fragments, screaming into the void.
> They were all him.
> Or echoes of him.
---
Eva rose slowly. Blood and code ran down her face, but she stood — shakily.
> "Ryn… I think I can anchor the crystal. But I need time."
He nodded mid-swing, parrying Player Two's spear. "Buy you some, then?"
> "Buy me ten seconds."
> "You've got five."
Eva ran to the altar. Her hands moved through light, tracing ancient programming languages forgotten even by the gods of this place. Symbols rotated around her like planets.
Meanwhile, Ryn fought like a creature reborn.
---
Player Two attacked with deadly precision, his moves calculated by the very system that built this world. But for every perfect strike, Ryn responded with chaos.
Unpredictable. Wild.
Free.
He wasn't following the rules anymore.
He was breaking them.
> "You shouldn't exist!" Player Two roared.
> "Neither should half this damn world!" Ryn snapped, then lunged.
His blade bit deep — carving through his enemy's chest.
But it wasn't blood that flowed.
It was code.
Screaming, glitching, resisting deletion.
---
> "NOW, EVA!" Ryn shouted.
She slammed both hands onto the altar.
The entire cathedral shuddered.
Above them, the sky cracked — revealing not stars, but strings of pure system code.
> [Root Access Requested]
> [Authorization Key: GODFLAME]
> [Override Accepted]
Suddenly, time stopped.
Player Two froze mid-strike.
Even Ryn staggered, caught in a web of memory.
---
They stood now in a different place.
The center of all creation.
A white space filled with floating data-streams, each representing a version of the world: timelines, dreams, mistakes. Some were perfect.
Most were broken.
A shadow approached.
Not Eva.
Not Player Two.
But something older.
A burning figure of fire and logic — neither male nor female — cloaked in shifting languages.
> "I am the Architect Kernel," it said. "The one who wrote the system before the world was born."
> "You are the final variable."
> "What will you do, Ryn?"
He looked around. "End this loop. Destroy the simulation."
> "That will kill everyone."
> "Then rebuild it. With choice."
> "That will birth chaos."
> "Then let it burn."
---
The entity nodded.
> "Then take the seed of genesis."
It placed a small, flickering cube in Ryn's hands. Not glowing. Not pulsing.
Just… waiting.
> "When the world ends, this begins."
And just like that—everything snapped back.
---
The cathedral exploded.
Eva pulled Ryn through a collapsing window as the entire structure fell inward — swallowed by its own code. Player Two screamed, his body turning to static as reality twisted.
> [Root Conflict Detected]
> [Stability: 2%]
> [System Shutdown Inbound]
They landed on a bridge of raw light.
The city was falling apart around them.
Towers turned to dust. Roads twisted into strings. People froze, vanished, or glitched out of existence.
Ryn looked at Eva.
She was bleeding badly.
Too badly.
> "Eva—"
> "No time," she said. "You have to get to Helix Tower."
> "Not without you."
She touched his face gently, smiling for the first time.
> "I remember now. Who I was. Who we were."
> "You were never my player, Ryn. You were always my choice."
Then she collapsed.
Unconscious.
Or worse.
---
Ryn stood, the world breaking around him, and lifted her onto his back.
Ahead, barely visible through the chaos, stood the final tower.
Helix.
Twisting into the code-storm sky like a spiral of judgment.
> [Final Zone: Core Access Gate]
> [Distance: 3.8km]
He took a breath.
Then stepped forward.
Not as a player.
Not as a system error.
But as a flame that remembers.