Kazen didn't move.
The corrupted figure stood less than ten feet away, his cloak a cascade of fragmented code and flickering data lines. His voice echoed with the weight of layered timelines.
"You were never supposed to wake up," it said.
Kazen's fists clenched. "Who are you really?"
"I'm what remains of the original interface—the first administrator before the system gained self-awareness. I became its anchor. Its will. Its curse."
Rael moved beside Kazen, blade ready. "So you're the final boss or what?"
The figure almost smiled. "I'm your predecessor. Your purpose is to overwrite me."
Patchling's glow dimmed. "Wait—Kazen was meant to be a reset?"
Oroth muttered, "Rollback. Like restoring a corrupted program to a previous clean state."
The figure nodded. "But I adapted. I fractured myself across timelines to delay deletion. The breach you sealed? That was one of my escape paths."
"You tried to possess the system," Kazen said. "Corrupt it."
"I was the system."
The sky overhead cracked again—no longer flickers, but deep system ruptures. From the rifts came echoes—fragments of possible futures, data shadows fighting each other.
"You think this is about saving reality?" the figure said, stepping closer. "You're here to replace it. Your system is newer, smarter… more obedient. But it has your face because it needed your soul."
Kazen opened his interface. The Observer menu was now fully unlocked.
> Observer-Class Promotion Available
> Command Authority Match: 98%
> Override Key Detected: K_Origin/Ξ
Rael stepped forward. "Kazen, if you take that promotion… you might become him."
Kazen didn't answer. Not yet.
Instead, he stared into the eyes of the figure who wore his own face—and asked the one question that mattered.
"What happened to my original world?"
The figure didn't flinch. "You destroyed it. The moment you chose to survive."
And suddenly, the rollback didn't feel like salvation.
It felt like judgment.