Echo's hands trembled as she aimed her plasma knife—not at a stranger, but at the man she once trusted more than life.
Specter hovered in mid-air, suspended by shimmering threads of code like a marionette of the divine. His face remained expressionless, a frozen canvas of unreadable calm. But the flicker in his eye—somewhere between recognition and indifference—was what tore her apart.
She stepped forward, her voice barely audible."Specter… this isn't you."
He looked down at her, his face bathed in the pulsing glow of red system code."It's me, Echo. Just… evolved."
Then, he turned away—like she no longer mattered.
Her breath hitched.
She had seen enemies rise and fall, entire systems crumble, but nothing had ever broken her the way his silence did. It was worse than death.
Specter wasn't possessed.He wasn't brainwashed.
He had chosen this.
To embrace godhood.To abandon her.
The pain wasn't just betrayal—it was grief.Because Specter wasn't just gone.He was still here, wearing that face, speaking with that voice, but the soul behind it? Dismantled… piece by piece… by the throne he now sat upon.
She whispered, more to herself than to him:"Don't make me be the one to end you."
The sky above was a war of colors—data rain falling like pixelated fire, dissolving anything it touched.
The earth cracked open like a shattered motherboard, copper roots of ancient tech veins pulsing through the soil.
Around them, the world shimmered like a dream struggling to stay awake. Buildings rebuilt themselves mid-collapse, birds flew backward, time reversed and sped up—reality flickered like a glitched video file skipping toward its own end.
And in the center of this broken loop: Specter.He floated like a false messiah, one hand outstretched to the horizon, rewriting the laws of nature with every blink.
He had become the eye of the storm—serene, beautiful, and utterly lethal.
Suddenly, system warnings echoed across the skies:
[Echo has been flagged as a disruption. Authorization to terminate: Pending...]
Specter's gaze snapped back to her.
"Don't resist, Echo. This version of the world… won't have room for the past."
She tightened her grip on the blade.
"Then you'll have to erase me yourself."
In the distance, the echoes of millions of synthetic voices whispered one name in unison:"Architect."
And with a flick of his hand—The world around her collapsed into a battleground.