Smoke wove between shattered webs.
Stone sang with impact.
Screams—both digital and real—echoed through the Vault.
The first Reclaimer lay fractured, its blade-limbs twitching, slowly reassembling.
"It's not dying," Yuto rasped. "Why isn't it dying?!"
[Reclaimer Self-Recovery: Active]
[Error Correction Loop: 87% Complete]
Nyx's voice crackled in his head, too calm for the chaos around them.
[They cannot die until their task completes.]
[Only true deletion—admin-level override—can erase a Reclaimer.]
"Which I clearly don't have!"
[Correct.]
More Hollow Kin fell. One stabbed by a memory spike. Another devoured by anti-code insects the Reclaimer deployed mid-combat.
Yuto tried to hold formation, commanding three groups now under his control.
"We pull back. Reset the terrain. Recalibrate."
The beast-kin grabbed his arm.
"We fall back again, and we're cornered. No exit tunnels left."
They were running out of time.
Then came the second Reclaimer.
It didn't walk. It phased in—
—a hollow shell of drifting time, with a face that flickered between hundreds of possible futures.
"Target Acquired. Secondary Priority: Sovereign Core. Primary Objective: Corruption Erasure."
It extended a hand—
—and froze a portion of the Vault in stasis, mid-motion.
A Hollow Kin screamed silently, trapped mid-leap.
Yuto's threads trembled.
Nyx responded instantly.
[Core Sync Spike Detected]
[Sovereign Core is reacting defensively]
A pulse of light radiated from the Core.
But it wasn't heat.
It was remembrance.
The world stilled for Yuto—
—and suddenly he was inside Seraphiel's memory again.
■ Memory Interlude: Core Echo
Seraphiel stood alone, surrounded by millions of Reclaimers.
Her wings were torn. Her divinity bleeding into the Spiral like ink into water.
And still she stood.
"Do you know why they feared me, Yuto?" her voice asked, not from her lips—but from everywhere.
"Because I remembered too much. I remembered what came before the Spiral."
She raised a hand—
—and reality around her fractured, Reclaimers turning on each other, systems crashing, logic rewriting itself into pure flame.
"You don't need to destroy them. You just need to unwrite their reason to exist."
Yuto gasped back into reality.
[New Skill Unlocked: Core Sigil – Rewrite Pulse]
→ Targets system-based enemies. Temporarily nullifies their purpose logic.
→ Cooldown: Extreme. Backlash risk: High.
"Screw it," Yuto growled. "If I burn… I burn bright."
■ Present: Rewrite
The second Reclaimer raised its hand to erase another portion of the Vault.
Yuto raised his instead.
The Rewrite Pulse activated—
—a bloom of white-light spirals firing directly into the Reclaimer's core.
Its body flickered.
"IDENTITY CONFLICT—"
"PURPOSE… CORRUPTED—"
"RE-RE-RE-R—"
[NULL]
It collapsed like a puppet with no strings.
But the cost—
Yuto dropped to his knees, threads shaking, Core pulsing wildly.
[Core Sync Surge Detected]
[WARNING: Personality Overlap Risk — 4% and climbing]
"I… I can feel her… too much…"
[Limit further usage or risk co-identity fusion.]
The Hollow Kin rallied around the second fallen Reclaimer.
But not to cheer.
To mourn.
Dozens had fallen.
One was the stitched beast-kin.
Cut in half. Still grinning.
"Told you… not to run…" he rasped. Then silence.
Yuto's hands trembled. He had saved the Vault—for now.
But at a cost.
And overhead, the third Reclaimer prepared its descent.
Wreathed in chains of old authority.
A judge.
A warden.
A god-executioner.