Silence followed Kazen's words, but it wasn't empty—it was thick, electric, waiting to snap.
Oroth's grip tightened on his halberd. "He's bluffing. This isn't restoration—it's rollback. Null Root doesn't want balance. He wants obedience."
Rael nodded slowly. "We didn't survive all this to become shadows of someone else's story."
Patchling hovered behind them, unusually quiet. Her glow pulsed in sync with the system itself. "There's… another path," she said softly. "But it's dangerous."
"Define dangerous," Kazen muttered.
Patchling turned toward Null Root. "System access level: Root Merge Override. Bypass the original code. Rebuild from fracture."
The system glitched.
> Unauthorized protocol detected…
> Divergence Pathway initializing…
> Critical instability: 83.7%
Null Root's voice sharpened. "You would tear apart reality rather than accept unity?"
Rael raised his sword. "We'd rather write our own."
Null Root raised both arms—and the void collapsed inward. Time shattered into shards, each one a scene from lives they'd never lived. Kings. Monsters. Survivors. Dead men.
The three moved at once.
Oroth hurled his halberd, embedding it in the system's interface above. It flared, revealing the hidden memory cache—the true core. Rael launched into the sky, slashing code chains that anchored Null Root to the original thread. Kazen rushed forward, system blade drawn, and plunged it into the central anchor point.
The system screamed.
Patchling linked with the core and let herself burn.
> Divergence Protocol: Accepted
> New Thread Created
> Users Retained: 4
> System Root Rewritten
Reality went white.
When vision returned, Kazen awoke in a world both familiar and new. Skies of code-filtered stars. Cities grown from memory and machine. A rebuilt timeline—their timeline.
Patchling reformed, pixel by pixel. "It worked."
Rael emerged beside him, bruised but alive. "So... what now?"
Oroth looked to the sky. "Now we start from zero. But on our terms."
The system pinged once.
> Welcome to: World Recode
> Version: Divergence Alpha_01
> Role: Overlords