Chapter 15: Echoes in the Abyss
The moon hung low and heavy over the city, a pale eye watching from the sky as Victor von Doom returned to his hideout. The weight of the Delta-Four relic fragment in his pocket was heavier than its physical form. It pulsed faintly, syncing with his breathing, as if alive—like a heartbeat borrowed from a ghost.
He shut the door behind him, the faint click resonating in the stillness. Silence fell, but inside his mind, the storm was gathering.
---
Sitting at the cluttered console, Victor tried to isolate himself from the echoing noise — the intrusive memories, the foreign instincts crowding the edges of his consciousness. He activated the mental protocols again, escalating to Level 4.
> [Mental Protocol Level 4: Neuronal Integration — active]
[Cognitive Barrier Reinforcement: at 92%]
The system hummed louder in his mind, a complex symphony of neural fire and psychic feedback. But as he dug deeper, something twisted beneath the surface.
---
Suddenly, the calm shattered.
A voice—his voice but not—whispered in the darkness behind his thoughts.
"You cannot hide the past."
His eyes snapped open, breath catching.
The reflection from the cracked monitor days ago was no longer a trick of light.
It was a presence.
---
Visions flooded him. Not memories, but fragments of a man he could never be: ruthless, merciless, cold—an echo from timelines abandoned, a Doom that had failed, erased, yet trapped in the fractured system like a ghost in the machine.
This other self spoke without words, a psychic resonance vibrating through Victor's skull.
> "I am the shadow you fear—the first wound that comes from second thought."
---
Victor staggered, hands gripping the edge of the console to steady himself.
This was the system's dark core — a composite built on many Dooms, each iteration a stepping stone or a tombstone.
The power wasn't pure. It was a patchwork of ambition, failure, and hunger, swirling in his mind like a storm.
---
In that moment, the woman's face flickered behind his eyelids. Why had she been so wary? Why had she vanished so quickly?
Because she sensed this fracture, this ghost within him.
Not another system user—but something deeper, something dangerous.
---
Victor forced himself to breathe slowly. To focus.
If the system was a prison of fractured identities, then mastery meant confronting those echoes head-on.
> "I am not your prisoner," he whispered.
> "I will bend this fractured past to my will."
---
His fingers danced over the console, accessing hidden subroutines buried deep within the system's code. Data streamed faster than thought.
One line stood out — Project Fracture: System Origin Files.
It revealed the terrible truth: the system was never meant for one soul. It was a vessel built to absorb and recombine multiple consciousnesses in search of perfection.
Victor was the latest vessel—and perhaps the final one.
---
The realization burned.
He wasn't just wielding power. He was balancing on the edge of madness.
The echoes wanted control.
But he would fight.
For control. For identity. For the chance to shape his own destiny.
---
A sharp knock pulled him from his thoughts.
The door creaked open slowly.
No courier this time.
Just the woman.
---
Her eyes met his—steady, guarded.
She spoke softly.
"They watch through you."
Victor nodded slowly.
"I know."
---
The silent understanding between them was heavier than any words.
The fractured system, the relics, the echoes—they weren't just external dangers.
They were war waging inside him.
And the fight had only just begun.
---
Outside, the city breathed on, unaware.
But Victor von Doom — fractured, reborn, resolute — was ready to confront the abyss within.
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