The world did not shift—it shattered.
As Ayame confirmed the prompt, the Blood Root Gate imploded into a vortex of fractured light and cascading code. Her HUD convulsed with error messages and system logs she didn't understand, and for a moment, all sensation disappeared. No floor beneath her feet. No gravity. No time.
Just falling.
Just… silence.
Then a thud.
She landed hard—on her back—on something that felt like damp stone. Her vision adjusted gradually, her UI flickering, as if the system itself struggled to stabilize.
The landscape before her was unlike anything she'd seen in Chrono Abyss.
It wasn't a dungeon. It wasn't a battlefield. It was a city—no, a reflection of one. Towering buildings stood crooked, stitched together from mismatched code. Streets curved upward into the sky like Mobius strips. The sky was a jagged mirror, reflecting an inverted skyline that bled red from the seams. Some of the buildings floated, others flickered, as if caught between multiple versions of reality.
She stood slowly, checking her systems.
Status: ERRORHealth Bar: HiddenParty Link: SeveredCoordinates: NullMemory Sync: 73%
"Riven?" she called out.
No response.
She was alone.
A whisper of static brushed her ear. Not sound—code. Whispering her name, repeating fragments of her journey, mimicking voices from her past.
She turned. Behind her, a cracked billboard displayed something strange: a frozen still of herself—sitting at her desk in the real world. Her real room. Her real face.
ERROR: MEMORY BLEED DETECTED
Ayame backed away.
"What the hell is this place…?"
A low voice answered.
"This is what's left when the system forgets what it's trying to be."
She spun around, blade drawn—but stopped.
It was her.
Another version of herself—same face, same eyes—but with white hair and a hollow expression. This "ghost Ayame" stared at her, unblinking.
"Who are you?"
"I'm what remains," the copy said. "A memory fragment discarded by your first login."
"That's not possible."
"You think you only logged in once?"
Before Ayame could respond, the doppelgänger lunged.
[continued in next message…]
Chapter 6: Protocol: Endborn (continued)
Ayame dodged, barely sidestepping a blinding-fast strike. Her own sword met the phantom blade mid-air with a clang that sent sparks flying into the distorted sky.
She wasn't just fast—she was identical. Same weapon form. Same movement patterns. Same skills.
But… faster.
The doppelgänger smirked.
"You trained. I was trained."
Each attack was a mirror. Ayame barely kept up, relying on instinct rather than strategy. It felt like fighting her own shadow, except this shadow didn't hold back.
The clash drew blood—real or simulated, she couldn't tell. Her status bar was hidden. Her body ached, neural signals misfiring with every strike.
Finally, she spun low, slicing through the doppelgänger's midsection. The phantom flinched, glitching. Its form shattered into static and dissolved—but not before whispering:
"The more you remember, the less you belong here."
Then silence.
Her heart pounded.
This wasn't just a memory vault. This place was feeding off her identity. Reshaping the narrative of who she was. Testing her boundaries between self and system.
She moved forward.
The city shifted as she walked—buildings warping, streets folding. She passed holograms of old chat logs with Rei. Memories from before the fall. His voice echoed through the alleyways.
"You said we'd always log out together, Ayame…"
She closed her eyes, forcing the system to mute environmental data. It barely helped.
Then she found it.
A cathedral in the heart of the warped city. Floating above it, suspended in glitch-fire, was a massive door made of pure code. The Key Fragment in her inventory pulsed brightly.
A console materialized at the gate.
INSERT MEMORY KEYWARNING: FULL ACCESS MAY RESULT IN IDENTITY UNRAVELING
She placed the fragment in.
The door rumbled.
From behind, a presence emerged.
She turned to see—Riven. Or what looked like him.
But his eyes glowed with the same red as the Null Entity from before. His body was… fractured, twitching slightly like a puppet pulled by invisible threads.
"You found it," the fake Riven said.
"You're not him," Ayame growled.
"No," it hissed. "But I remember him. Just like I remember you."
It lunged—and this time, it brought backup. Figures—dozens of them—crawled from the city walls. All of them were past party members Ayame had fought beside. People she'd forgotten. People she'd let die in failed raids. All back. All corrupted.
Each face was someone she had once cared about.
Now they came for her.
Ayame stood her ground, every muscle tense, her mind a storm of memories and adrenaline.
They came at her like echoes from a broken past—distorted versions of old friends, twisted by code and malice. Their faces flickered between kindness and rage, their weapons dragging behind them as if burdened by regret.
One of them was Kai—the healer who sacrificed himself during the Tower Collapse raid.
Another was Mina—her first guild leader, who vanished during the rollback patch.
And behind them… was Riven's replica, arms spread like a conductor of the dead.
"You walked away from all of us," it hissed. "And now you return, wearing the skin of a savior?"
Ayame tightened her grip. "I didn't come to save the past."
With a burst of momentum, she launched into the swarm. Her blade flashed with brilliant azure light—an overload technique she'd developed but never used: [Soul Fracture].
It cut through the illusions, severing memory from code. The echoes wailed as they shattered like glass, each blow freeing a fragment of her guilt, her loss, her regret.
But there were too many.
The fake Riven grabbed her by the neck, lifting her off the ground. "You can't fight the truth. You are part of this loop."
Ayame choked, eyes dimming. Then she remembered something Riven—the real one—had said in the memory vault:
"The system mirrors what you bring into it."
She forced her neural link to spike.
A command input appeared.
Override Active MemoryCommand: RECONSTRUCT CORE SELF[Enter]
She jammed her finger into the air, smashing the command into being.
A pulse exploded from her chest.
The world stilled.
Every enemy froze. The corrupted Riven blinked, confused—just in time for Ayame's blade to pierce his chest. Data exploded from the wound, turning him into a collapsing star of raw code.
The cathedral door creaked open behind her, revealing a corridor of pure white light. No more distortions. No more memories.
Only progress.
Ayame stepped forward.
Black Core Key Fragment Integrated2/3 CollectedDestination: Ashen Labyrinth
Her HUD stabilized. Health restored. Neural sync: 100%.
She took a breath.
The real Riven's voice crackled through her comms again, alive and intact. "Ayame… you're still alive?"
She smiled weakly. "Barely. I think I just fought every version of my past."
"And?"
"I won."
Static silence. Then Riven's voice, low and reverent.
"Then you're ready for the next phase."
She walked into the light. Behind her, the world of Protocol: Endborn collapsed into itself, sealed once more—until the next player dared to face what they'd forgotten.
But Ayame was no ordinary player.
She was the anomaly.
The avatar who refused to be deleted.
And the final boss was still watching.