The red light slowly receded.
The once blue sky turned silvery gray, as if the world was being reborn but with old scars that had never healed.
Rhea stood on the cliffs of the former city of ECHO, her hair blown by the wind. Below her, the buildings burned silently, shadows as if still alive in the smoke.
"Three months," she said slowly.
"Three months without a sign, without a sound, without him."
Tekk beside her looked down. His eyes were empty. In his hand, he held a shard of silver crystal, a remnant of The Eye's core they had found floating in the sea.
"You know, this thing is still active, right?" he said.
"It's like it has a heartbeat."
Rhea looked at him, silent.
But before she could answer, the ground beneath them trembled subtly. The sea in front of them, which had been calm for the past few weeks, began to churn.
A line of blue light emerged from the seabed, rising into the sky.
"He…?" Rhea whispered.
"No," Tekk said. "This is… different."
---
Location: Zone 0 — Rebirth Site
They followed the beam into the middle of the ocean. There, stood a tower of crystal rising from the water, not man-made.
Inside, they encountered a creature, suspended in mid-air with a body half human, half energy, skin like shards of glass glowing blue-silver.
Rhea gasped.
"Zero…"
But when the creature's eyes opened, its blank stare made Rhea's blood stop flowing.
The voice that came out wasn't one. It echoed, three-layered.
Zero. Kyra. Origin.
"We're back."
Rhea stepped back, panicked.
"Zero… do you remember me?"
"I remember everything. But not as me. As us."
Each word caused a wave of energy to radiate out of Zero's body. The tower of crystals trembled, and in the sky the symbol of The Eye reappeared, this time in pitch black.
Tekk screamed, "He's unstable! That combination… he shouldn't last long!"
Zero lowered his head, clutching his head. Kyra's voice echoed in his mind.
"Don't fight. We're already part of him."
"I won't be a tool anymore!"
He screamed and the world around him shattered like glass, exploding in a flash of white.
---
In the Data World — The Inner Core
Zero woke up in a strange place.
No sky, no land.
Just a sea of black light pulsing like a heart.
In the center of the space stood an entity. Tall, faceless, but its body was enveloped in a stream of glowing code.
That was The Core, the remnant of consciousness left after The Eye was destroyed.
"You've finally arrived," he said in a voice that echoed a thousand times.
"I've been waiting for the creation that returned to its original form."
Zero stepped forward slowly, a blade of light forming in his hand.
"I've finished The Eye. You should have been extinguished."
"Erased? No. I was kept in your own memories, Zero. When you joined Kyra and Origin… you brought me back to life."
Zero fell silent.
"What do you mean?"
"You are me."
The light in Zero's chest began to glow brightly.
Images of the old laboratory appeared around him, Kyra laughing, the Mirror formed from the code, Origin rising on the Astra-01 station, and finally the great explosion that ended everything.
"I created it all," Zero whispered.
"Not for power, but for life."
"And you failed," The Core replied.
"You created life but took away the meaning of humanity."
The Core raised its hand, thousands of code fragments attacked. Zero parried, but each attack was not physical, it was a memory, a mistake, a failure.
He saw Kyra die. Rhea cried. The world burned. It all repeated itself over and over.
"Stop!" he screamed.
"I won't do it again!"
"You've done it, hundreds of times," The Core said calmly.
"Every time you try to save the world, you make it more corrupt."
Zero fell to his knees. His voice was low, hoarse, but full of determination.
"So this time, I will destroy you from the inside."
He gripped the energy blade, stabbing himself in the chest.
A white wave flooded the Core space, all the black light disappearing.
---
Real World — 7 Hours Later
Rhea and Tekk rose from the rubble.
The sky was now shining golden.
The crystal tower crumbled into dust, floating in the air like a shower of light.
From the dust, a figure walked slowly, Zero, but different.
His eyes were soft blue. His metal veins were gone. His breath was warm.
Rhea ran towards him.
"Zero!"
He smiled slightly.
"Do you believe in miracles, Rhea?"
"After all this? I don't know."
"Then look."
He raised his hand and from the sky, beams of light descended, reshaping the plants on the barren land. The collapsed building began to sprout roots and leaves, as if the world was coming back to life.
Tekk was stunned.
"What did you do?"
"I extinguished The Core. But every extinction has a replacement. I won't last long."
Rhea bowed.
"Are you going again?"
"No, I won't. Just… back to where I belong."
The wind blew. Zero's body began to break into silver particles.
"Tell the humans... I'm sorry."
And in that soft light, he disappeared.
---
A Year Later
The world changed.
The sky was completely blue again.
ECHO City was now a green city with clean energy, no war machines, no ORION.
On the main memorial wall, Zero's name was engraved:
"ZERON REISS — THE LAST CODE."
Rhea walked there every morning. But this morning, something was different.
On the news holoboard, a new signal was detected from outer orbit.
The signal was just one line:
[RECONNECTION PROTOCOL: PHASE ZERO INITIATED]
Rhea smiled slightly.
"You never really left, did you?"