⸻
Pain had a voice now.
It spoke in the cracks of my bones and the static in my blood.
It wasn't screaming anymore.
It was thinking.
"Merge process complete."
"Core identity: Unknown."
"System override pending… denied."
"Warning: Entity status—UNDEFINED."
I opened my eyes.
Nothing was where it should be.
The glyphs were in pieces.
Thronebridge Hall groaned like it was mourning something.
Even the light around me flickered like it was second-guessing its own existence.
Leneth was collapsed behind me—still breathing, thank whatever gods hadn't already fled.
Version_47 was frozen mid-step, watching me like a hawk watches a knife that just grew wings.
He had summoned the divine failsafe.
He wasn't smiling anymore.
"System Reassessment: Subject exceeds god-tier power tolerance."
"Initiating priority recalibration… failed."
"New directive: Neutralize—at any cost."
I stood up.
Not Kael. Not Version_37.
Not even a fusion.
Something new.
"Who are you now?" Version_47 asked.
I answered with silence.
Because even I didn't know.
But the ground beneath me did.
It shifted. Bowed.
Accepted me.
My blood had soaked into the bridge.
My memories had carved themselves into the air.
And now, even the system feared naming me.
"System note: No authority may bind this soul."
"Thronelocked: True."
"Time Loop Anchor has been shattered."
The throne remembered me.
And it wanted me to finish what I started.
I raised one hand.
The ashes on the stone rose with it—forming a crown.
Not of gold.
Of memory.
Every timeline I died in, every betrayal, every erased name…
It forged the points of that crown.
When it hovered over my head, I didn't lower it.
It lowered itself.
And the bridge bent with it.
Version_47 lunged.
The sword of divine edict blurred into the air, aimed at my neck.
I didn't flinch.
I raised my hand—and stopped it mid-swing.
Barehanded.
My palm split open, blood spilling—
—upward.
Into the blade.
Into the sky.
Into the system itself.
And the system began to glitch.
"Warning: Core loop violated."
"Requesting rollback… denied."
"Requesting purge… denied."
"Requesting divine evacuation… granted."
Temples cracked across the continent.
Scriptures burst into flame.
Priests dropped to their knees, choking on vanished prayers.
The gods?
The gods were leaving.
Because I was no longer part of their script.
And I couldn't be overwritten.
Then I heard a laugh.
Behind Version_47.
Not mine.
Not his.
Someone else.
A figure stepped through the fracture in space where the system had tried to eject me.
She was tall.
Barefoot.
Wearing a torn red dress that shimmered like it had bled its own timeline dry.
Her eyes locked on mine.
And I knew her.
Not by name.
By feeling.
Love. Rage. Regret.
She lifted a hand—bare except for a blackened ring.
"I liked the version where you married me," she said.
"Before you destroyed the realm."