Walking beneath the black snow was not just a physical exhaustion; it was a spiritual erosion. With every step, the tar-like layer sticking to my boots seemed to suck away the very memory of the earth. Ren staggered beside me, while Elian moved silently like a ghost within his blackened armor. The massive red-ringed eye in the sky wasn't just watching us; it was digesting us.
"Hyoga," Ren said, his voice thinning in the howling wind. "My feet... I can't feel them anymore. But not from the cold. It's like... they aren't there."
I stopped and looked at Ren. I fought the urge to succumb to horror. From Ren's ankles down, wherever he touched the black snow, he was becoming transparent. The system had begun erasing him from the extremities inward.
"Hold on, Ren," I said, grabbing his arm with my right hand. I funneled that dense, dark energy from my seal into him. As the black veins traveled down his arm and reached his feet, the transparency was replaced by a solid, dark form. I wasn't keeping him alive; I was merely keeping him "pinned" to this world.
"You can't carry him much longer, Hyoga," Kagetsu said. His voice was far from its usual mocking tone. It was trembling. "The closer we get to the Tower, the more the contrasts fade. Light and shadow are bleeding into one another. I... I am losing my shape."
Looking at Kagetsu, I saw that my shadow on the ground no longer had a distinct border. Its edges were fraying, dissolving into the air like smoke. If he vanished, I would be left incomplete.
"We have to enter the Tower," I said, looking ahead at the massive structure with its pulsing veins. "Now."
The old entrance gate of the Academy was gone. In its place were massive, bone-like pillars rising from the ground, with a purple plasma leaking between them. Thousands of the "Rusted"—people in the process of being erased—were walking into this plasma as if in a ritual. With every person who entered, another vein on the Tower's hull glowed brighter, and the structure grew a little larger.
"This isn't a building," Elian said, gripping the hilt of his sword tightly. "It's a grinder. While the Council claimed to be protecting us, they were actually feeding this monster."
"Let's go," I said.
The moment we passed through the plasma curtain, the sound of thousands of glass panes shattering echoed in my ears. But it wasn't a sound; it was the breaking of reality.
For a moment, I found myself in the old, sunny courtyard of the Academy.
Everything was in its place. Ardent stood in front of the library, waving at me. Riku passed by, joking with his friends. I was wearing a pristine, spotless Academy uniform. There was no seal on my hand; my skin was smooth and pure.
"Hyoga, you're late," Ardent said, smiling. "Today is your graduation ceremony. You will go down in history as the only student to achieve perfect synchronization with the System."
My heart nearly stopped. The peace was so intense that for a moment, I wanted to forget all the pain, the black snow, and Kagetsu. I wanted to stay here, to grow old within this lie.
"DON'T!"
Kagetsu's scream exploded in my mind like a lightning bolt. The image flickered. Ardent's face turned for a split second into that mirror-like void of the Herald.
"This is an illusion!" I roared. I swung my right hand toward the phantom Ardent. Even though there was no seal in this vision, the "Hunger" was there. The imaginary courtyard began to catch fire at the edges, charring like burning paper.
When I opened my eyes again, I was inside the Tower. But it didn't look like a tower. We were in a void filled with infinite black mirrors. Ren and Elian were kneeling beside me, their eyes turned completely white. They were still trapped in their own illusions.
"Ren! Elian! Wake up!"
I shook them, but they didn't react. Their minds had surrendered to the false peace the system offered.
"You cannot wake them, Hyoga," a voice said.
From the center of the Tower, the Herald appeared. But this time, he had no mask. His face was entirely my own. He was speaking with my voice.
"They are happy. Why would you call them back to this ruined world? Look, Ren is with his family now. Elian is being celebrated as a hero who was never betrayed. Don't do this evil to them."
"This isn't real!" I shouted.
"What is reality, Hyoga? Pain? Loss? If the system gives them this peace, what is wrong with it? You are just an anomaly. A bug in the order. And bugs cannot understand why the system broke."
The Herald—or rather, the entity in my likeness—extended his hand. "Give me your seal. Release the First Deviation within you. Then you too can join this peace. Even Kagetsu will find rest. Don't you think he's tired of being a shadow?"
I looked at Kagetsu. My shadow had completely dispersed now. It lay at my feet like nothing more than a dark stain.
"Kagetsu?" I whispered.
"Hyoga... I... I can't go on..." Kagetsu's voice was so weak, as if it were coming from a distant room. "This place... is the center of absolute light and absolute darkness. A shadow has no place here. If you surrender... I will vanish. But you... you will be saved."
The Herald smiled. "See? Even he is ready to sacrifice himself for you. All you have to do is reach out that cursed hand to me."
I took a step toward the Herald. I reached out my hand. The purple sparks in my seal were beginning to fade. The Herald's fingertips were about to touch mine.
In that exact moment, I pulled out the single memory I had hidden in the deepest part of my soul. My first day at the Academy... the paper Ardent gave me... But the memory had changed. Ardent hadn't told me "Synchronize with the system" that day. He had whispered to me, "Never erase yourself."
I pulled my hand back and clenched it into a fist.
"I am not a bug," I said, my voice echoing throughout the void of the Tower. "I am the proof of how cowardly the system is. You built these lies because you couldn't face the truth!"
The seal on my right hand glowed more violently than it ever had in my life. But this time, the light wasn't black or purple. It was like a pure, brilliant white flame. But it wasn't the light of "purification"; it was the light of the will to exist.
"Kagetsu! Now!"
My shadow tore itself away from its scattered state and lunged into the air like a whip. It caught the Herald's hand. The Herald screamed, but it wasn't a human scream; it sounded like the static of a broken radio.
"Impossible! This energy... it doesn't belong to the Tower!"
"Correct," I said. "This energy belongs to me."
I threw a heavy punch into the Herald's chest. The energy erupting from my seal shattered the form made of my likeness. The mirrors exploded. The void trembled.
When we returned to reality, we were still inside the Tower, but now everything was blood-red. The Tower was wounded. A black liquid was leaking from the walls. Ren and Elian were gasping for air, their eyes wide with shock.
"What happened?" Elian asked, using his sword to push himself up from the ground.
"The system sold us a dream," I said. "But we didn't buy it."
The heart of the Tower was right in front of us. It hung from the ceiling like a massive, crystallized brain. Within it, the faces of millions of souls passed by. Every one of them was a human swallowed by the system.
"There it is," I said. "The source of the Reset."
However, someone else stood before the crystal. This time, it wasn't a Herald or an illusion.
Ardent was there. But he wasn't the old man I knew. Half of his body had merged with the Tower. Veins entered his arms and exited through his eyes. He was the Tower's last line of defense. He had become the Tower's "processor."
"Hyoga," Ardent said. His voice came from every wall of the Tower simultaneously. "I was expecting you. But you didn't come here as a savior; you came as the final piece."
"Ardent... what did they do to you?"
"They didn't do anything to me, Hyoga. I chose this. Someone had to pay the price to keep the System upright. Now, it is your turn. If you touch that crystal, the First Deviation within you will merge with the system and the Reset will be complete. The world will be reborn in perfect order."
"I don't want a perfection built on lies!" I shouted.
"Then you will watch this rot," Ardent said. When he raised his hand, black spears emerged from everywhere in the Tower and pointed at us. "I'm sorry, boy. But order is above all."
Kagetsu appeared beside me. His form was still weak, but his eyes burned with determination. "Hyoga, you must destroy the crystal. But if you destroy it, the entire world will fall into the void along with the Tower for a while. No one knows what will be left."
"Nothingness is better than this slavery," I said.
I moved my hand to my seal. I gathered all the energy within me, all the rage, and Kagetsu's very being into a single point.
"Ardent! Get out of my way!"
Ardent only smiled. "Go ahead, Hyoga. Give the System its final touch."
Just as I lunged toward the crystal, another massive explosion echoed from outside the Tower. But it wasn't the sound of the black snow or the system.
It was the sound of a rebellion created by the other students, the outcasts, and the anomalies left among the ruins of the Academy. The Tower was being besieged not just from the inside, but from the outside as well.
As I was about to touch the crystal, I saw a face among the millions within it. A face I didn't know, but one that looked remarkably like mine. Perhaps the next spare part... or the one before me.
The moment my hand touched the crystal, my entire world turned white.