The world didn't just shudder—it bent.
User Zero stepped once, and the sky fractured like glass. Lines of failed code spread across the horizon, bleeding red and silver light. Below, the ground beneath Nexus Core cracked open, revealing not rock or data—but memory itself. Floating scenes, echoing voices, frozen regrets.
Patchling screamed as her core flickered. "It's a root protocol—he's accessing the memory layer of the world!"
Rael gripped his glaive. "Is that even possible?"
"No," Oroth said. "But neither is he."
User Zero didn't speak. Instead, he raised one finger. The broken memories began reshaping into something solid—a tower of moments. A *Memory Root*. Each level formed from rewritten scenes: betrayals, system wipes, player deaths that were meant to be forgotten.
Kazen stood frozen. His eyes locked on the third tier of the tower. There, replaying in perfect silence, was his death. Not his character death—his real-world accident. The one that brought him here.
He clenched his fist. "He's not just rewriting the system… he's rewriting us."
The tower pulsed.
> Alert: Memory Synchronization Field
> Effect: Personal History Exposure
> Status: Emotional Core At Risk
Around them, Null warriors staggered. Some collapsed, screaming. Others stared into memories that weren't theirs. The battlefield became quiet—haunted.
Rael charged forward, planting the anti-fragment glaive into the tower's base.
The tower hissed—but remained.
Kazen took a breath, activated his core.
> System Override Engaged
> Skill Activated: Resolve Lock
> Effect: Emotional Contamination Nullified
"I'm going up."
"You'll see things you shouldn't," Oroth warned.
"I've already lived them."
Kazen ran toward the tower, every step warping beneath him. The closer he got, the more memories he saw—friends he forgot, regrets he buried, truths he never wanted.
User Zero stood halfway up the tower, waiting.
Rael and Oroth moved to flank him from below. Patchling hovered above, code wings torn and flickering.
And from the peak of the memory root, a final image formed:
A world where none of them ever existed.