Chapter 12: Echoes of the Red Crown
The morning after the Archive felt too normal.
Birds chirped. Mist curled lazily through the trees. Bai was snoring. Daojin cooked rice with a puzzled frown, as if he wasn't sure when he'd learned how. And yet, Yan felt it — a wrongness just beneath the calm, like a tooth that didn't ache yet, but would.
They didn't have to wait long.
A scream echoed from the east.
Not human — something deeper. Like reality twisting in on itself and disagreeing. Trees bent unnaturally toward the sound. Animals fled the area in silence, not panic. Even the insects stopped humming.
Yan stood instantly.
Daojin grabbed his weapon. "That scream… It felt familiar."
Bai opened one bleary eye. "That's the kind of sound you only hear when a god gets back up."
---
They found the clearing an hour later.
Half-burned trees circled a crater. In the center: a figure, hunched, breathing hard, body covered in crimson armor that pulsed like a heartbeat. Around him, corpses — fresh. Robes of cultists. Faces frozen in ecstasy.
"Don't step in yet," Bai warned, fur flaring. "That's god-magic. Raw."
Yan narrowed his eyes.
The man stood slowly, revealing a face half-covered in cracked gold — like a mask forged from melted System prompts. His eyes flicked open.
And they were Yan's.
"You," he growled. "I was wondering when I'd face me."
Yan's hand gripped the Whispering Blade.
The other-Yan smirked. "I said yes. To everything. The Crimson Crown, the cheat codes, the glory. You? You're the weak thread."
Bai whispered, stunned, "A parallel version of you... One who didn't say no."
Daojin staggered. "His aura—he's leaking through realities. He doesn't belong here."
"Neither do you," said Crimson-Yan, stepping forward. "This world tried to delete me. But broken quests leave open doors. Now I'm here to reclaim what's mine."
A flick of his hand — and a surge of energy blasted outward. The trees didn't fall; they withered. Time bent.
Yan dodged, blade drawn, clashing steel-on-energy in a thunderous spark. For a moment, it was like fighting a shadow that knew every move you might make, but twisted them wrong.
"You're not me," Yan hissed, blocking a punch.
Crimson-Yan grinned. "I'm what you could've been. If you had the courage to burn the story."
---
The battle shook the clearing.
Bai summoned wind wards. Daojin attacked from the side, wielding fragmented energy like a shield. But Crimson-Yan fought like he was narrating his own victory — every blow laced with ambition.
Until Yan realized something.
He was monologuing.
"You think this makes you strong?" Yan said, circling. "You're just a bloated footnote with too many chapters."
Crimson-Yan roared, lunging forward.
But Yan had learned something in the Archive:
Not every fight is won by power. Some are won by choice.
He threw down his blade.
Everyone froze.
Crimson-Yan halted, snarling. "Cowardice?"
"No," Yan said. "Trust."
Daojin struck from behind, landing a hit to the spine.
Bai unleashed a spell carved from forgotten wind, dispersing the god-magic like smoke.
And in that instant, Yan stepped forward and laid his palm on his doppelgänger's chest — where the crack in his mask split down the center.
"Let go," he whispered.
And he chose.
Not to kill.
But to forgive.
The echo screamed, fractured — and collapsed into starlight and dust, drifting upward.
A single line of gold text flickered where the body vanished:
> [Echo Redacted: Branch Stabilized]
---
Later, they sat in silence.
Daojin finally spoke. "You let him go."
Yan nodded. "He was never really alive. Just a leftover possibility."
Bai leaned against a rock. "That's the second time you've ended something by choosing not to kill it. You're starting to make a habit of this."
Yan smiled faintly. "I don't want to be a protagonist who conquers everything. I want to be one who changes the story."
Bai snorted. "Then we'd better start rewriting. Because more ghosts are coming."
Yan stared at the sky.
Somewhere above, a System server still hummed. Not alive. Not gone. Just waiting.