Kazen knelt, one knee against fractured terrain, blood-data trailing from his lips. The air around him shimmered with corrupted code. The Echo Revenants didn't fight like normal echoes—they anticipated, adapted, and learned.
Rael had just been knocked across the battlefield, his system armor flickering. Even the anti-fragment glaive wasn't enough to cleave through the new forms.
"Patchling," Kazen called out, "run a deep scan on the Revenants' structure."
"Already on it," she replied, flickering. "They're partially embedded with User Zero's signature. Not just fragments—he's rewriting their original death flags. Turning loss into power."
"They grow stronger every time they should die," Rael muttered, standing up with a grunt. "He's breaking the logic loop."
Above them, Xerol floated calmly, observing like a god from a forgotten myth. User Zero remained still beside him, faceless, voiceless—but his mere presence bent the rules of reality.
Oroth rejoined Kazen. "There's only one answer to a corrupted script."
"More power?" Kazen asked.
"No," Oroth said. "A cleaner error."
He drew out a relic wrapped in cloth—etched with ancient proto-code. "This is a ghostcore. Built during the first rollback cycle. If we plant it at the center of their hive-mind, it can force a paradox loop."
Kazen nodded. "It'll delete the Revenants?"
"No," Oroth said grimly. "It'll make them remember what they were."
Rael's eyes widened. "They'll break."
Kazen stood up. "Then we move. You two hold off Xerol. I'll take the core in."
Patchling pulsed above. "Warning: Core stability at 32%. System Overclock recommended."
"Do it."
Kazen activated Overlord Override.
> Temporary Class Upgrade: System Executor
> Effect: Admin-Layer Traversal Enabled
> Duration: 90 seconds
Time fractured around him. He blurred forward, phasing through waves of Revenants.
As he reached the echo nexus, he stabbed the ghostcore into the ground.
Reality warped.
And the screams began.
The echoes remembered. Their deaths. Their lives. Their choices. The betrayal.
The Revenants dropped to their knees—some shattering, others crying in silence before fading into light.
Above, Xerol snarled. "You stole my army."
Kazen stood, gasping. "They were never yours."
User Zero moved at last—stepping forward.
And the world shuddered.