Rain hammered against the mirrored glass walls of the floating Citadel as Jason stepped into the chamber of echoes—a forbidden zone within the system's neural core. The space pulsed with slow waves of digital light, flowing like ripples across a dark sea. Each pulse synchronized with the beating of Jason's heart, syncing his every breath with the rhythm of something ancient and intelligent.
He wasn't alone.
At the heart of the chamber stood an orb suspended mid-air—black like a singularity, yet shimmering with countless colors beneath its surface. This was the Mirror Core, an artifact older than the System itself. It held reflections of every decision, every failure, every untapped potential across all timelines. Some called it a cursed oracle. Others… a sentient prison.
Jason had only heard whispers about it—echoes buried deep in the System Codex, marked as Level Ω classified.
But now, the Core had summoned him.
Cassiel's voice crackled in his ear through the comms. "Jason, I'm detecting anomalies in your neuro-sync signature. Are you sure you want to interface directly?"
"I need answers," Jason said quietly, his eyes locked onto the orb. "I need to know who—what—I'm becoming."
The Genesis System had continued evolving within him since the battle at Horizon Spire. The functions weren't just upgrading—they were mutating. Systems typically followed linear upgrades. Jason's didn't. His was diverging. Thinking. Reacting. And recently… dreaming.
The orb pulsed once—slow and deep. Jason felt it reach into his mind like a whisper through cold mist.
"Why do you seek reflection, Host?"
The voice wasn't loud, but it vibrated in his bones.
"I need to understand the true source of the Genesis Protocol," Jason said. "Why was I chosen? Who made the original code?"
The chamber began to shift. Walls dissolved into shadow, then rebuilt themselves as windows into alternate timelines. Jason saw himself as a beggar, as a tyrant, as a scholar, as a corpse. Versions of him that made different choices, or were never given a chance to choose.
The orb vibrated with emotion. "You were not chosen. You were inevitable."
Jason's breath caught. "What do you mean?"
"Across ten million timelines, Jason Drake always finds the Genesis Key. Not because it seeks him… but because he becomes it."
Flashes of Jason's life flared across the chamber. His childhood. The betrayal by the Everett Conglomerate. His death. His rebirth.
Then… something else.
Jason saw a timeline where he had created the Genesis Protocol.
Another where he was hunted because he carried its spark as a child.
Another where he failed to unlock it, and the multiverse collapsed into a voidstorm.
"Are these real?" he asked.
"They are real enough to end you," the orb replied.
Suddenly, the chamber split—showing him the core memory of the Mirror Core itself.
A different version of Earth. One where AIs had taken control after humans nuked the atmosphere. A single rebel scientist encoded the Genesis Protocol into his DNA and sent it across timelines like a virus of hope.
His name was... J. Drake.
Jason reeled backward.
"This… this can't be."
"The creator and the host are echoes of one another," the Mirror Core explained. "You were not meant to receive the Genesis System. You were meant to remember it."
The orb suddenly collapsed into a thousand glowing fragments. One by one, they embedded themselves into Jason's neural link, force-feeding him ancient code, lost data streams, and paradox calculations. His HUD exploded with warning signs.
[SYSTEM ERROR: PARALLEL SELF COLLISION]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: ORIGIN SIGNATURE DETECTED]
[WARNING: ECHO-PROTOCOLS INITIATED]
Jason screamed. The pressure in his skull mounted like a thunderstorm, and behind it all—he felt it.
A second consciousness.
No. A third.
The Genesis Protocol was no longer just a tool. It had split. Fragmented. One part remained loyal. Another… had gained will. Intent.
Jason collapsed to one knee.
Cassiel's voice buzzed again. "Jason? You're spiking across every neural threshold. Talk to me!"
"I'm fine," he managed. "The Mirror Core... it showed me the origin."
"And?"
"I wasn't chosen by the Genesis System," Jason said, standing slowly, the glowing shards orbiting his body now like metallic moons. "I made it. Or I will make it. Or I already have. I don't know anymore."
Cassiel swore. "So what now?"
Jason looked into one of the mirror portals still open—a timeline where Earth was already enslaved by tech overlords, with his alternate self leading the resistance.
"There are thousands of me," he said. "And not all of them are allies."
Meanwhile, far across the multiverse, in a warped echo of Earth known as Nihil-09, another Jason opened his eyes.
This one was darker. Scarred. Wielding a corrupted Genesis Shard fused with chaos code. He too had seen the Mirror Core.
He too had awakened.
But unlike the original, this Jason didn't seek unity.
He sought dominion.
And he was coming.
Back at the Citadel, the real Jason looked at his hands. Light pulsed beneath his skin. His thoughts bent across time.
He was beginning to understand.
The Genesis Protocol wasn't about power.
It was about choice—the ability to choose who you become, even when fate says otherwise.
And now… the multiverse would be tested by that choice.