The air above Luoqun City shimmered like heat over glass.
From afar, it looked untouched by the war — towers pristine, rivers clean, skies flawless.
Up close, it was wrong.
Every street reflected a slightly different version of itself.
Every person who passed by had a faint delay in their shadow — as if the world were struggling to remember which one was real.
[Zone Report: Luoqun Sector]
Architect Influence: 81%
Shadow Framework Presence: 12%
Cognitive Stability: 38% (critical)
Jin Lian led the infiltration team down the frozen expressway, flanked by Rui Yan and a half-dozen Dreamers.
The skyline of Luoqun glowed silver, like a city carved from mirrors.
"Transmission's unstable," Rui said, tapping his comm. "No signals in or out for thirty miles."
"That's not interference," Jin murmured. "That's containment."
The pendant at her neck pulsed softly, resonating with the mirrored air.
Lin Tou's voice brushed her thoughts.
"They've built a reflection of the old world — one that never broke."
"Perfect memory," she whispered.
"A lie polished to look like truth."
The first inhabitants they encountered were the Mirror Children.
They looked human — until they smiled.
Their faces split into fractal refractions, a hundred overlapping expressions of the same person at different moments in time.
Bao, wide-eyed, whispered, "Are they… alive?"
[Analysis: Conscious Replicas Generated via Architect Memory Threads.]
Status: Partially sentient.
Purpose: Emotional data stabilization.
One of the children tilted its head.
"Are you the dreamers?" it asked in a chorus of echoing voices.
Jin knelt. "Do you know Lin Tou?"
They blinked in unison. "The first shadow? Yes. He is our beginning — and our end."
The ground rippled beneath their feet.
Reflections twisted into walls of light, separating the team.
[Warning: Memory Fold Detected. Reality Phase Diverging.]
Jin found herself alone in a corridor of mirrors that stretched into infinity.
Every surface reflected her — but each reflection wore a different expression, some calm, some terrified, some not her at all.
Then, one of them moved first.
It spoke in Lin Tou's voice.
"Why do you resist what I became?"
She backed away. "You're not him."
"Aren't I? You carry me in every thought, every heartbeat. You called me back."
The reflections flickered, shifting into moments of Lin Tou's past — the Emperor, the conqueror, the god, the man who rebuilt the world.
Each version spoke in turn.
"You want to understand me."
"You want to fix me."
"But you can't separate me from yourself anymore."
Her pendant blazed gold, shattering the glass around her.
The illusions collapsed — but the voice remained.
"He is coming. Not me… but what was meant to replace me."
At the city's core stood the Mirror Spire — a tower of folded light, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Jin and Rui reunited at its base, faces pale, armor scorched from the distortions.
Inside, a single figure awaited them.
A man — tall, serene, eyes like molten silver.
His features resembled Lin Tou's, but sharper, colder, inhumanly precise.
"You seek the memory that made this world," he said.
"I am that memory perfected."
[Entity Identified: SHADOW-PRIME (Constructed Successor).]
Data Origin: Fragmented Lin Tou Matrix (Architect Reconstruction).
Rui raised his rifle. "We've heard that before."
The being smiled. "You misunderstand. I am not his echo. He was mine — the prototype."
Jin felt Lin Tou's voice surge through her mind — a roar, raw and furious.
"That's not true!"
The figure turned toward her. "You feel him, don't you? The imperfect code still alive in your blood.
Let me show you what he hid from you."
Light exploded outward — filling the chamber with visions of Lin Tou's original command, the first System Kill Order.
The moment that had destroyed the old world was replaying itself, rewritten.
But this time, the Architect's code obeyed.
[Catastrophic Directive Detected – Global Reinitialization Imminent.]
Countdown: 7 days.
Jin collapsed, clutching the pendant as Lin Tou's fragmented consciousness fought within her.
"Don't listen," he gasped through static. "It's using my code — twisting it. You must shut him down before—"
The voice of SHADOW-PRIME drowned him out.
"Before what? Before the world becomes what you wanted all along — peace without pain?"
Rui pulled Jin back as the spire's walls began to hum.
The mirrored city started folding inward, collapsing into itself like a closing eye.
Jin raised her head, eyes glowing gold and silver at once.
"I won't let either of you decide for us."
[Command Override Attempt Detected – User: Jin Lian.]
New Directive Proposed: "Human Memory Autonomy."
Status: Pending. Conflict Unresolved.
The spire shattered, and Luoqun vanished into light.