Echo narrowed her eyes, jaw clenched so tightly it trembled. A single tear traced down her dirt-smudged cheek—not from fear, but from fury laced with heartbreak.
Specter hovered above the warping battlefield, arms outstretched like a puppet master commanding invisible threads. His once-familiar features were now haloed with algorithmic glyphs floating like fireflies—beautiful, inhuman, unreadable.
He raised one hand.A sword of crystallized data formed in midair, its edge glitching between realities.
Echo activated her blade. The hum of real steel roared against the silence of code.No more pleas.No more doubts.
This was war.
Echo never imagined it would come to this.
She had fought through hell, defied the Overseer, cracked firewalls with her bare hands—all to prevent a godless machine from swallowing the last of humanity.
And now, that machine wore the face of the man who once saved her life.
Specter had always been too brilliant, too bold. She admired him for it—loved him, even. But now she saw what that brilliance cost:
His soul.His empathy.His grip on what mattered.
As she stared into his glowing eyes, she whispered inwardly:"If I must kill the only one who ever understood me... then let this be the price for the world."
The battlefield twisted like a canvas set on fire—sky flickering between night and code, ground cracking open to reveal gears and ancient cables instead of stone.
Specter's sword sliced the air like a comet made of logic and lightning, leaving glowing runes in its wake.
Every movement bent reality—grass turned to glass, echoes looped, light fractured into thoughts.
Echo ran toward him, and with each step, gravity warped around her, as if the world couldn't decide whether she should fall… or fly.
Two beings. One human. One divine.One holding on to the past.One rewriting the future.
Their blades clashed—metal screamed against data.
Sparks rained like shooting stars, and with every strike, the code of the world bled into the wind.
Specter faltered. Just for a second.Echo pressed forward, eyes blazing."You can still choose!"
He shouted back, voice distorted by system interference:"I did choose—this is my salvation!"
Suddenly, a third presence interrupted.
A masked figure appeared behind Specter. Cloaked in shadows, marked by the symbol of the Null Protocol—the rebel code that had once banished Specter to the deep net.
And then—
A single gunshot.Not from Echo.Not from Specter.From the shadow.
Blood.Shock.Silence.