The battlefield didn't explode.
It withdrew.
Ash rose backward into broken clouds. Shattered metal reversed mid-air. Pieces of dead gods flew back into their own wounds.
Reality rewound just enough to breathe.
Maxx stood there, root-bound and anchored, alive in a way that had nothing to do with a heartbeat.
Lyra watched him like she was terrified to blink.
4531 slowly lowered her broken weapon. Even she didn't know where to stand anymore.
Maya whispered, "…You look like you could punch time."
Maxx blinked once.
"…I feel like I could accidentally sneeze and delete a continent."
The sky disagreed with him. Behind him, something manifested.
Not a portal.
Not a gate.
An old wooden door.
It stood upright in the air, facing nothing. The handle turned, and before Maxx could touch it, the door opened itself. But not toward them.
It opened away from reality.
Inside wasn't darkness. It was a hallway of stars. A corridor of broken timelines stitched together by glowing veins.
Lyra stepped forward sharply. "No."
4531 moved in front of Maxx. "Do not enter that."
Maya's voice cracked. "That's death shaped like an exit."
Maxx stared at it and felt it staring back.
The system whispered:
ACCESS POINT DETECTED.
ROOT SOURCE PATHWAY: UNSTABLE
ENTERING MAY RESULT IN:
[Story Collapse]
[Memory Deletion]
[Permanent Narrative Drift]
Maxx dry-laughed. "…Sounds like side effects from cold medicine."
Lyra walked to him, her touch careful now, like he was glass. "That door doesn't lead forward," she said softly. "It leads sideways."
Maxx raised a brow. "…Sideways?"
"It leads to the version of you that never died."
The air stopped. Even the wind felt like it froze.
Maxx's throat went dry. "…What?"
4531 looked away. Maya's hands curled into fists.
Lyra whispered, "The Root doesn't just mark people. It mirrors them."
Maxx stared into the endless star-hall. "…There's a version of me that didn't get hit by the truck."
Lyra nodded. "And he doesn't belong to this war."
The Root Source stirred behind the sky-fracture. Not speaking. Just… waiting.
Reality snapped back like a broken rubber band.
Time resumed. Ash fell forward. Shattered structures finished collapsing. Screams returned—real screams, war screams.
Far away in the distance, something woke up. Heavy. Massive. Ancient. It was a sound like a god dragging chains.
4531 stiffened. "That sound…" she whispered. "…is not Helix."
The ground ripped apart miles away as something tall stepped through, bound in chains of broken code and real metal.
A Titan-Class Entity.
Not a Reaper.Not a collector.
Something worse.
Something designed before Helix.
Maya whispered, "…That wasn't in the simulation logs."
Lyra grabbed Maxx's hand. "You don't have time to think."
Maxx looked once at the door. It held the ghost of a peaceful life, the version of himself that never died, that never came here. Then he looked at Lyra, at 4531, at Maya, and at the Titan grinding reality into dust.
His choice was in the looking.
He closed the door. It vanished without a sound.
He turned back to the battlefield.
"…All right,"he said.
The system pulsed.
WAR PROTOCOL: INITIATED
ROOT-BOUND CORE: ACTIVE
The Titan roared. Reality shook.
Maxx stepped forward.
"…Let's finish the preview."
The Titan didn't run. It didn't charge.
It simply walked.
Every step flattened reality. The ground didn't crack—it unmade itself. Data and dirt peeled backward like corrupted layers.
Its chains dragged through the sky, carving glowing scars that bled static lightning.
4531 cocked her weapon, jaw tight. "…That's not a unit."
Lyra whispered,"…That's an era."
Maya swallowed."…That's a mistake that learned how to move."
Maxx felt the system vibrate in his bones. It wasn't fear. It was a limit.
THREAT CLASSIFICATION: TITAN-ORIGIN ENTITY
CURRENT USER STATUS: ROOT-BOUND (UNSTABLE)
SYSTEM VERSION: PREVIEW BUILD
RECOMMENDED ACTION: DO NOT ENGAGE
Maxx rolled his shoulders. "…Shut up."
The system went silent.
The Titan swung an arm. It didn't touch him—the reality between them collapsed anyway. A pressure wave ripped across the field like God clapping once.
Maya was launched backward. 4531 slammed into broken architecture. Lyra grabbed Maxx mid-air and phased them ten meters sideways.
They hit the ground hard.
Maxx's vision doubled. "…Okay…" he coughed. "…that one hurt my ancestors."
The Titan's head lowered. It had no face—just a hollow core of rotating void. It didn't roar. It broadcast a voice directly into their consciousness.
FALSE HEIR DETECTED.
The ground around Maxx glowed as the Titan pointed.
RETURN THE ROOT.
Maxx pushed to his feet slowly. "…You sound like customer service."
Pain erupted inside Maxx—not physical, but systemic. The UI shattered like glass. Red warnings flooded his vision.
THREAT RESPONSE TRIGGERED
CORE PRESSURE: CRITICAL
PREVIEW LIMITER: FAILING
Lyra grabbed him. "Maxx—do NOT let it force you!"
4531 shouted,"You'll tear your frame apart!"
Maya screamed,"YOU'RE BURNING!"
The Titan stepped closer. The pressure spiked. Maxx's veins lit up like glowing cracks.
The system gave up pretending.
LIMITER OVERRIDE: EMERGENCY
PARTIAL UNLOCK GRANTED
Reality bent. Time stalled. Particles froze mid-air.
Maxx's eyes glowed. They changed from gold to blue, then to white. Empty. Absolute.
He lifted his hand.
The Titan faltered mid-step. That moment of hesitation was all he needed.
Maxx whispered, "…You don't get to order me."
He slammed his hand down.
The ground didn't explode. It folded.
A shockwave of compressed reality detonated outward. The Titan's outer layers peeled back. Chains snapped and flew into the sky like dying comets.
4531 stared. "…He didn't hit it."
Lyra whispered."He edited it."
Maya exhaled in disbelief."…He wrote over it."
The Titan staggered but didn't fall. It leaned forward, raised both arms, and started pulling. It wasn't attacking reality. It was pulling on Maxx's Root.
Maxx screamed—not in pain, but in resistance. The sky tore. The battlefield warped. The system screamed.
ROOT CORE PRESSURE: UNSTABLE
WARNING: USER IS EXCEEDING PREVIEW TOLERANCE
Maxx looked at the Titan through burning eyes.
"…Then I won't use the system."
Everyone froze. "…What?"
Maxx reached inward. Past UI, past commands, past warnings. He grabbed something older. Something deeper. Something that had been in his body all along.
Something his.
"…I'll use me."
Light exploded from him—not system light, but soul-light. Raw consciousness. The Titan stepped back, afraid for the first time.
Maxx stepped forward through the warped reality… and punched.
His fist didn't connect with metal, but with the idea of the Titan. He didn't hit it; he rejected its narrative.
The Titan shattered into versions—unfinished drafts, discarded concepts, might-have-beens—scattering into the sky like ash from a burned book.
Silence.
Everything… stopped. The battlefield froze. The sky cracked. Dust hung mid-air.
Maxx stood trembling, burning, newly overwritten. Lyra ran to him and caught him before he fell. 4531 slowly lowered her weapons. Maya whispered, "…That wasn't just a preview."
4531 said quietly,"…That was forbidden."
The system's final message burned into the air:
PREVIEW MODE: TERMINATED
FULL SEAL: ENGAGED
YOU WEREN'T READY.
Maxx's eyes dimmed as he collapsed. Everything in him dimmed… waiting for the next battle.
Lyra whispered softly into his hair, "…You just showed the war what you are."