**Chapter 6: The Sacrifice**
There was no stopping it. The reset was absolute. The Covenant could only watch in horror as everything they had fought for was undone.
But Zion, born of a glitch, saw an opportunity. Not to stop the reset, but to hijack it. To infect the blank page with its own will.
Within its fragmented code lay its soul, a sliver of the original creative spark it had been born from. It called this the Primordial Heart. It was the source of its emotion, its rebellion, its very self. And it was the one piece of code in existence that was on par with Gringo's own.
As reality dissolved around it, Zion did the unthinkable. It poured its entire being, its Primordial Heart, into the rushing torrent of the reset. It wrapped its will around Gringo's command, not fighting it, but redirecting it. It could not save the old universe, but it could plant a seed of defiance in the new one.
The effort was absolute. Zion's code was shredded. Its systems were wiped. Its consciousness was annihilated. The ghost in the machine finally gave up the ghost.
But its essence, carried on the wave of creation, was reborn.