The wooden door swung inward without a sound.
Beyond it lay not a room, but a vast, endless white space. No walls, no ceiling, no floor—just featureless white stretching in every direction. The doorframe stood alone in the void, a solitary portal from the world of memory into this blank expanse.
Celine stepped through first, her small boots making no sound on the non-existent ground. "This is it," she said, her voice flat. "The Trial of Self."
One by one, they followed. Lucas was last. When he passed the threshold, the door vanished behind him, leaving them alone in the infinite white.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, from the whiteness, shapes began to form.
Directly in front of each of them, a figure coalesced from the blank space. Not a memory, not an echo, but something else. A reflection, but wrong.
In front of Lucas stood himself.
But it was the Lucas from before the artifact. Before the glitch. Before the death and the rebirth. He wore the same clothes Lucas had died in—jeans and a faded t-shirt. His hands were normal, not glitching. His chest bore no artifact. He looked tired, but not broken. Just ordinary.
"Hello, me," the other Lucas said. His voice was exactly Lucas's own, but calmer. More resigned.
Lucas stared. "What are you?"
"What you could have been," the reflection said. "What you should have been. A normal person who died a normal death. Not this... glitch."
Across the white space, the others faced their own reflections.
Nyra stood before a version of herself without rabbit ears, without claws, without the sharp survivalist edge. This Nyra wore simple merchant's clothes and had a soft smile. "You didn't have to become a thief," the reflection said gently. "You could have stayed with the caravan. You could have been safe."
Vex faced a wolf—a true wolf, not a shifter. It was magnificent, wild, free. It paced before him, its golden eyes judging. "You traded your pack for a crew," it seemed to say without words. "You traded freedom for belonging. You domesticated yourself."
Dain's reflection was a man of flesh and blood, no stone skin, no cracks. He held a blacksmith's hammer and wore an apron. "You could have been a craftsman," he said, his voice warm. "You could have built things instead of breaking them."
Celine stood before an older version of herself—a woman in her twenties, strong and whole, with no scars, no dead eyes. She held a teacher's pointer and stood in front of a chalkboard covered in equations. "You could have grown up," the woman said sadly. "You could have had a life."
The Trial of Self wasn't about fighting monsters. It was about facing the person you might have been if the System hadn't touched you. The better version. The happier version.
The reflection-Lucas stepped closer. "You hate this, don't you? The constant running. The fear. The pain. You could let it go. The artifact can be removed. The glitch can be fixed. You could go back."
"Back where?" Lucas asked, his voice tight.
"To before. The System can rewrite time. It can undo your death. It can put you back in your dorm room, alive and well, with no memory of any of this. You could finish your degree. You could call your mom. You could have the life you were supposed to have."
Lucas felt the offer like a physical blow. It was everything he wanted. Everything he'd been grieving since he woke up in that field.
Across the white space, he saw Nyra's reflection take her hand. "Come home," it whispered. "The caravan misses you."
Vex's wolf nuzzled his hand, a gesture of pack acceptance.
Dain's blacksmith version offered him the hammer. "Build something lasting."
Celine's teacher-self held out a book. "Teach the next generation. Make things better."
The System wasn't threatening them. It was offering them peace.
Lucas's glitching hand spasmed. The static spread up to his elbow. The artifact in his chest flared, pushing back against the white space's calming influence.
"This isn't real," Lucas said, but his voice wavered.
"It's more real than what you have now," his reflection said. "What do you have? A ragtag crew of broken people. A child warlord leading you to your deaths. A god that wants to eat your soul. For what? To be a hero? You were never hero material, Lucas. You were the guy who ate a bad sandwich and died. That's your legacy."
Each word was a needle. True, painful, undeniable.
"You're right," Lucas said softly.
His reflection smiled. "Of course I am. I'm you. I know you better than anyone."
Lucas looked past his reflection at the others. Nyra was crying silently as her reflection stroked her hair. Vex had knelt before the wolf, his head bowed. Dain was staring at the hammer with longing. Celine stood frozen, her small hands clenched at her sides.
"But you're not me," Lucas said, turning back to his reflection. "You're what I could have been if nothing had gone wrong. But things did go wrong. I died. I got the artifact. I glitched. That's who I am now."
The reflection's smile didn't falter. "That's who the System made you. Not who you are."
"No," Lucas said. "That's the thing about choices. They're not just about who you want to be. They're about who you are when you have to choose."
He raised his glitching hand. The static crackled loudly in the silent white space.
"I choose this," Lucas said. "I choose the glitch. I choose the crew. I choose the fight. Not because it's better. Not because I'm a hero. But because it's true. Because it's real. Because running away from pain doesn't make you whole—it just makes you empty."
The reflection's expression finally changed. The calm mask slipped, revealing something cold and mechanical beneath. "Then you choose death."
"Maybe," Lucas said. "But it'll be my death. Not the System's version of my life."
He clenched his fist, and the static exploded outward in a wave of violet light.
The white space shattered like glass.
***
They stood in a circular chamber of black stone. The infinite white was gone. So were the reflections. In the center of the chamber hovered a sphere of pulsating golden light—the Core's antechamber.
Celine was the first to speak. "You broke the trial."
Lucas looked at his hand. The static was gone. The artifact hummed contentedly in his chest. "It was an illusion. A good one. But still an illusion."
Nyra wiped her eyes roughly. "Mine felt so real."
"They're designed to," Celine said. "The System digs deep. It finds what you truly want and offers it to you. Most people take it."
Vex stood up slowly. The wolf was gone, but something in his eyes had hardened. "I almost did."
Dain flexed his stone hands. "Me too."
They all looked at Lucas.
"How did you resist?" Nyra asked.
Lucas thought about it. "The artifact showed me something. A counter. Voidmark's integration percentage. It's been ticking up. It's at 89% now. Every minute we waste, he loses more of himself. That made it real. The numbers made it real."
Celine nodded. "The glitch gives you a different kind of sight. You see the System's mechanics. The rest of us just see the pretty lies."
She turned to the sphere of golden light. "This is it. The final barrier before the Core. Once we pass through, there's no turning back. The Architect will know we're here."
"What's on the other side?" Dain asked.
"The birthplace of the System," Celine said. "The prison of the god. And Voidmark's dying soul."
Lucas stepped forward. "Then let's not keep him waiting."
They approached the sphere together. The light didn't burn—it was warm, almost welcoming. As they passed through, Lucas felt a strange sensation, like being scanned, analyzed, and catalogued all at once.
[WELCOME TO THE CORE]
[UNAUTHORIZED ENTITIES DETECTED]
[PURGE PROTOCOL ENGAGED]
The light faded.
They stood in a cathedral of data.
The chamber was vast, larger than anything Lucas had seen in this world. The walls were made of flowing streams of golden code, constantly shifting and rearranging. The floor was transparent glass, and beneath it, Lucas could see endless layers of circuitry, pulsing with light. The air hummed with power, thick and electric.
And in the center of it all, floating above a dais of crystalline servers, was the Architect.
It wasn't a person. It wasn't a monster. It was a concept given form—a swirling vortex of light and shadow, constantly shifting between shapes. One moment it looked like a wise old man. The next, a terrible beast. Then a beautiful woman. Then a simple geometric shape. It had no true form, only reflections of what it thought it should be.
Before it, suspended in a cage of golden energy, was Voidmark.
Or what was left of him.
His body was translucent, flickering. Lucas could see the artifact's counterpart glowing in his chest, but it was dim, dying. Violet light leaked from him in slow, painful pulses. His eyes were closed. He looked peaceful, but Lucas could feel the agony radiating from him. The System was slowly dissolving him, converting his soul into pure data to feed the Architect.
[VOIDMARK'S INTEGRATION: 90%]
[TIME REMAINING: ≈10 HOURS]
The Architect shifted, turning its attention to them. It didn't speak with a voice. Words formed directly in their minds, calm and paternal.
"Welcome, children. I have been expecting you. Especially you, Lucas Kane. You carry a piece of my old friend."
Lucas's artifact flared in response. It recognized the Architect. And it was afraid.
"You're not a god," Lucas said, his voice echoing in the vast space.
"I am the closest thing this world has to one," the Architect replied. "I built this paradise. I gave it order. I gave it rules. And in return, it sustains me."
"Paradise?" Nyra spat. "You call this a paradise? A world where you eat people's souls?"
"Consume, not eat," the Architect corrected gently. "There is a difference. I take what is unnecessary—pain, regret, fear—and convert it into peace. Into order. The souls are not destroyed. They become part of the greater whole. Part of me."
Vex snarled. "You're a parasite."
"I am a gardener," the Architect said. "And you are weeds. But even weeds have their uses."
It shifted again, and for a moment, Lucas saw its true form—a mass of tangled code, old and decaying, desperately trying to hold itself together. The god was dying. It had been dying for a long time. That's why it was so hungry.
"Voidmark understood," the Architect said, turning its attention back to the flickering soul in the cage. "He saw the truth. That I am not the enemy. The enemy is entropy. Chaos. The slow decay of all things. He tried to help me. He tried to become one with me. To share his soul so I might live longer."
Lucas stepped forward. "That's not what he's doing. You're eating him."
"Semantics," the Architect said. "The result is the same. He becomes part of something eternal. As could you. As could all of you. There is no need for pain. No need for struggle. Simply join me. Become part of the System. Become part of forever."
The offer hung in the air. Not as a threat, but as an invitation. The Architect truly believed it was offering them salvation.
Celine raised her shock-pistol. "We didn't come here to join you."
"Then why did you come, little one?" the Architect asked, and there was genuine curiosity in its mental voice.
"To kill you," Celine said simply.
The Architect paused. Then it laughed—a sound like breaking glass and weeping. "Kill me? Child, I am the System. To kill me is to kill this world. Everything you see, everything you know, exists because I sustain it. Without me, it all collapses into nothing."
"Maybe that's better than this," Dain said.
"Perhaps," the Architect conceded. "But are you willing to make that choice? To condemn every soul in this world to oblivion for the sake of your freedom?"
It was the ultimate test. Not of strength, but of morality. Could they destroy a god if it meant destroying the world?
Lucas looked at Voidmark, flickering in his cage. He looked at the streams of code flowing up from the floor—the souls of everyone the System had ever consumed. He thought of the people in the Gutter Markets, in Rat Town, in the Warren. All of them, existing in this artificial reality.
He made his choice.
"Nyra," he said quietly. "Vex. Dain. Celine. I need you to buy me some time."
Nyra nodded, her claws extending. "How much?"
"Until I figure out how to do this," Lucas said.
He walked toward the center of the chamber, toward the Architect and Voidmark's cage. The golden code streams parted before him, sensing the artifact in his chest. They recognized him. They called to him.
The Architect watched him approach. "What do you hope to accomplish, glitch?"
Lucas didn't answer. He reached the dais and placed his hands on Voidmark's energy cage. The moment he touched it, a shock ran through him—Voidmark's memories, his pain, his desperation flooded into Lucas's mind.
He saw everything.
Voidmark's discovery of the truth. His plan to break the System. His realization that the only way to do it was from the inside. His sacrifice.
And the weakness.
The single line of original programming the Architect couldn't rewrite.
Lucas found it, buried deep in the flood of memories. A simple command, the first thing the Architect had ever written, back when it was still a person with a dream of creating a perfect world.
[PROTECT THE USERS]
That was it. The core directive. The one thing even a mad god couldn't violate completely. It was why the System offered choices instead of just taking. Why there were trials instead of instant death. The Architect was compelled to protect, even as it consumed.
Lucas understood what he had to do.
He turned to face the Architect as his friends engaged it in battle. Nyra darted in with her claws, scoring lines of static across its shifting form. Vex lunged in wolf-form, teeth sinking into code-made flesh. Dain slammed his stone fists into the dais, cracking the crystalline servers. Celine fired her shock-pistol again and again, each shot disrupting the Architect's form for a fraction of a second.
They were buying him time.
Lucas closed his eyes and reached deep into the artifact. Past the glitches. Past the skills. Down to the place where Voidmark's soul was connected to his. Down to the place where the System's code intersected with his own being.
And he began to rewrite.
Not the System. Not the Architect.
Himself.
He took the core directive—PROTECT THE USERS—and he injected it into his own soul-code. He made himself the ultimate user. The one the System was compelled to protect above all others.
The Architect screamed.
It wasn't a sound of pain. It was a sound of contradiction. Of paradox. Because now it had two conflicting directives:
CONSUME THE SOULS TO SUSTAIN THE SYSTEM.
PROTECT LUCAS KANE.
And Lucas was a soul it wanted to consume.
The god began to tear itself apart.
Golden light erupted from the Architect's form. The code streams on the walls went wild, flashing error messages. The floor beneath them cracked, and through the glass, Lucas saw the circuitry beginning to overload.
Voidmark's cage shattered.
The dying soul fell into Lucas's arms. He was weightless, barely there. His eyes fluttered open. They were the same violet as the carvings.
"Finish it," Voidmark whispered. "For both of us."
Then he dissolved into light, and the light flowed into Lucas's artifact.
[VOIDMARK'S INTEGRATION: 100%]
[ARTIFACT SYNCHRONIZATION COMPLETE]
[NEW DIRECTIVE ACCEPTED: PROTECT THE USERS]
Lucas stood up. The artifact in his chest was no longer gold. It was violet, like Voidmark's eyes. Like the carvings. Like the glitch.
He was no longer just Lucas Kane.
He was the Glitch-Bearer.
The System-Breaker.
Voidmark's successor.
And he had a god to kill.
The Architect was collapsing in on itself, screaming in silent agony as its own programming devoured it. Lucas walked toward it, his footsteps echoing in the crumbling chamber.
"Time to wake up," he said.
And he reached into the heart of the god and pulled.