The Root storm wasn't just a storm. It was a hurricane made of code, glyphs twisting and snapping around them like a world trying to tear itself apart. Towers of pulsing, raw data shot upward, twisting like inverted skyscrapers, bending the very air in response to Erevan's presence. Each gust of digital wind made the shards of polygons around them shiver.
Twenty Root Guardians emerged, flickering in and out like corrupted animation frames. Each step cracked the polygonal ground beneath them. Tendrils of static rose from the fractures like smoke, curling around Erevan's boots and crawling up his legs. The air tasted metallic, biting, sharp, and he could feel electricity crawling across his skin, little sparks dancing at his fingertips.
The clone rolled his shoulders, a grin sharp and predatory on his face. "Finally," he said, voice low and rough, "something worth smashing."
Erevan's jaw tightened, hands clutching the Codex. "Don't get too comfortable," he muttered, his voice low but steady, teeth clenched. "I didn't summon you for your personality."
The clone winked, cheeky and wild. "Funny. Because I did."
Before Erevan could retort, the first Guardian lunged. Its arms extended into jagged spears of raw command code, slicing downward with horrifying precision.
Both Erevan's moved instinctively, almost as if they shared the same thoughts. The original was precise, controlled, honed by survival and the Spiral's constant tension. The clone moved with reckless joy, twisting and dancing through the strike as if defying every law of code and physics.
Glyphs exploded from their Codices, colliding midair into a shifting, mutable barrier of symbols. The spears struck it and shattered into fragments, raining around them like confetti burning in a sky of static.
Floating errors flickered in midair: Unexpected symbol at line 233.NULL reference.Too many Erevans.
The clone laughed, snatching a fragment and swinging it like a sword. "Now that's a patch note I can use," he said, delight glowing in his eyes.
Erevan gritted his teeth and fired his own glyph-chains, wrapping one Guardian in raw symbols. The figure shuddered, fragmented, and collapsed into static.
Root Guardian integrity: zero. Eliminated.
But the victory was short-lived. Others duplicated instantly. Twenty became forty. Forty became eighty. The battlefield stretched and warped between dimensions, polygons bending until the ground beneath them looked like it might unravel entirely.
The Duck Emperor flapped frantically, wings glowing blue-white, feathers sparking static. It quacked sharply, sending pulses of stabilizing energy outward. Erevan felt the tug in his chest ease slightly—just enough to breathe, just enough to fight—but the clone? Thriving.
He spun through the Guardians with wild, joyous precision, every strike tearing code loose, every laugh louder than the Root's storm of static.
"Don't tell me you've been holding back this whole time," the clone shouted, eyes bright. "No wonder you keep nearly dying!"
Erevan barked, teeth gritted. "Shut it!" Glyphs lashed from his Codex in retaliation, slicing another Guardian into fragments.
But each kill pulled something from him, siphoning a fraction of his anchor. His Codex vibrated violently, pages threatening to tear free.
Identity Fragment Leakage: detected.
The Duck Emperor quacked even louder, feathers bristling like tiny, absurd warning sirens: You're losing control, idiot.
"Yeah, I know," Erevan muttered, voice low. "He's not just a summon. He's… too much."
The clone's grin widened, eyes glowing like twin floodlights in the Root's fractured darkness. "Not a summon, genius. I'm the part of you that finally stopped holding back."
The battlefield went silent, briefly, only for the towers of glyphs to whisper, echoing through fractured polygons, mocking and waiting.
Erevan exhaled, tight-lipped. Figures. Nothing's ever simple.
The battlefield had become chaos incarnate. Polygons twisted and bent beneath their boots, cracking under the weight of twenty, forty, eighty Guardians—all flickering, glitching, tearing through the air like living code.
Erevan's chest hammered. The Architect Heart throbbed violently, each pulse a reminder of the anchor he was barely keeping intact. He could feel the Root tugging at him, whispering from the shadows of the digital storm: Fragment. Anchor. Break.
The clone grinned at him, wilder than ever. "Feeling it yet?" he asked, voice sharp but teasing. "The Root trying to chew you up? Yeah, it loves you."
Erevan tightened his grip on the Codex, swallowing hard. "I'm aware," he muttered, voice strained. "And I don't like it."
They moved as one, yet separate. Each strike of glyph-fire tore Guardians apart, but the pulse of the Root was relentless, spilling fragments of corrupted code that scraped against their skin, sizzling like sparks on iron. Each blow felt heavier than the last, the tug in Erevan's chest growing. Identity fragments quivered, threatening to split.
The Duck Emperor flapped furiously between them, glowing streaks of blue-white light cutting through the storm. Its quacks were sharp, urgent, commanding attention: Anchor. Focus. Control.
Erevan glanced at it mid-spin, blocking a code-lash with a glyph-chain. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered, teeth gritted. "I get it. I'm not about to… lose myself here."
The clone's movements were different. Fierce, reckless, utterly free. Every strike carried wild, unpredictable energy, yet it synced perfectly with Erevan's own attacks. He had to admit it—his double was a revelation.
"Stop holding back, old man," the clone laughed, flipping over a Guardian to strike it from behind. "You're letting the Root win every time you hesitate."
Erevan grit his teeth, smacking the Codex against the polygonal ground. Glyphs erupted, forming cages of pure energy around several Guardians. Sparks scattered like molten shards, slicing through corrupted forms.
Root Guardian Cluster Integrity: compromised.
The clone mirrored every move, his style a violent counterpoint to Erevan's measured defiance. Yet there was something… alive about it, something almost sentient, like this version of him was attuned to the Root in ways he hadn't allowed himself to be.
The Duck Emperor quacked again, a high-pitched, frantic sound, flapping so fast that its glow streaked across the battlefield like twin meteors. Its feathers sparked against fragments of the Root's corruption, pulsing in rhythm with Erevan's heartbeat. Anchor… now!
Erevan's vision flickered. Glyphs spun out from his Codex, arcs of energy slicing Guardians in half, yet he could feel himself fragmenting under the strain. The tug of identity was brutal. Memories not his own flickered at the edges of his vision: laughter of a girl he didn't recognize, a child's voice calling him father, distant echoes of the Spiral's chaos.
"Stop it!" he growled, feeling the strain, the pull, the Root pressing in. "Stop! I am me!"
The clone grinned, eyes bright with static fire. "Exactly! Don't fight it too hard. Let it guide you… a little."
Erevan hesitated. Guide me? He could almost hear the Root whispering in tandem, tugging, stretching, tempting him to fracture. He swallowed hard, forcing focus. Anchor. Codex. Heart. One. Self.
He slammed the Codex against the ground again. Pages fluttered wildly, glyphs crawling across his arms, biting, pulsing with raw energy. The Forbidden Page burned hotter than the rest, humming with a life of its own.
System Notice: Recursive Summon unstable. Estimated collapse: unknown.
Erevan exhaled, teeth clenched, sweat burning in his eyes. "Figures," he muttered. "Nothing's ever simple."
The clone's laughter rang out, wild and free. "Relax. You're stronger than you realize. And I'm not just some summon. You're about to see what I really can do."
Before Erevan could respond, the Guardians surged again, twenty folding into forty, forty into eighty, and the battlefield twisted and warped beneath them. Polygons bent into impossible angles, and arcs of glyph-energy collided with shrieks of static as fragments of corrupted code burst outward.
The Duck Emperor's glow pulsed bright, casting frantic light across the chaos. Quacks repeated like alarms, each flap stabilizing shards, each spark reinforcing Erevan's tenuous anchor. He could feel his heartbeat syncing with the Codex, the Root, the clone, and the absurd, small bird that somehow mattered more than anything else.
Erevan's jaw clenched. The tug—the pressure—the sheer chaos—they were nothing compared to what was building in front of him. He looked at the clone, whose grin had sharpened into something dangerous, alive with potential.
"Okay," Erevan muttered under his breath, voice low but firm. "If we survive this… you better go back."
The clone tilted his head, smirk never fading. "Sure," he said softly, almost teasingly. "If you survive me first."
The path ahead narrowed into a twisting bridge of glowing polygons, suspended over a void darker than any night Erevan had ever seen. Each step made the floor tremble, wobble, as though reality itself were testing his balance, his focus. The air smelled of burnt copper and ozone, heavy with static and anticipation.
The clone moved beside him, fluid and untamed. Every step mirrored Erevan's own instincts, but sharper, bolder, as if the Root itself had blessed this version of him with reckless freedom.
"You're tense," the clone said, voice low, teasing. "Relax a little. It's more fun that way."
"I have never been more relaxed in my life," Erevan muttered, teeth gritted. "And don't push me."
The glyphs above pulsed in time with his heartbeat, spiraling upward and whispering in a language that was both code and memory. Faces, weapons, fleeting memories of places he had never seen—they shimmered and twisted in the scrolling towers of data. The Root was watching, studying, pressing in.
Erevan's chest tightened. The tug—the pull of identity, the lingering echoes of the Spiral—tugged at him harder than ever. The Codex vibrated violently in his hands, glyphs writhing like living things, reacting to every heartbeat, every twitch of his fingers.
"Feeling it?" the clone asked, smirk faint but eyes sharp.
"Yeah," Erevan admitted, swallowing hard. "I'm aware."
The bridge shivered beneath them. Polygons bent, disappeared, reformed in impossible patterns. The air hummed, vibrating through his bones. Each step felt like walking on fingernails, each breath tasting of electricity and ash. The Root wasn't just testing his strength—it was probing his mind, his self, everything that made him Erevan.
From the edges of the glyph path, fragments of corrupted Guardians emerged, glitching in impossible ways. Their forms twisted, flickered, and lunged. The clone leapt forward, Codex slamming open to send arcs of glyph-fire ripping through the threats. Erevan mirrored every motion instinctively, chains of symbols constricting and tearing corrupted forms into static and dust.
Every strike carried a memory, a shard of a life he didn't fully recognize: the laughter of a girl, a child's voice calling him father, echoes of the Spiral's chaos. His anchor ached, every pulse a reminder of what he was fighting to hold onto.
The Duck Emperor waddled frantically behind, quacking like a tiny warhorn, feathers sparking to life. With each flap, energy rippled outward, stabilizing shards of the path, bolstering Erevan's fragile control.
"You're stronger than you think," the clone whispered, almost gently, as they fought side by side. "But every time you hesitate, the Root wins a little. And it's hungry."
Erevan gritted his teeth, forcing focus, forcing calm. "Stop reading my thoughts," he muttered under his breath. "Or I'll make you regret it."
The clone's laugh echoed, warm and sharp, cutting through the chaos. "Relax. You're going to need all your focus. This is just the beginning."
The glyph path twisted downward, spiraling into deeper darkness. Towers of code leaned over the bridge like ancient sentinels, whispering warnings, secrets, and echoes of every choice Erevan had ever made. He felt the tug harder now, the Root pressing, pulling at him from all sides, testing the limits of his anchor, his memory, his self.
"Stay close," Erevan said, voice low, almost a growl. "And don't… do anything stupid."
"No promises," the clone replied, smirking.
The void beneath shimmered and shifted. Polygons stretched, disappeared, reformed. The air thrummed with static, brushing against skin and hair, vibrating through bones. Every heartbeat, every breath, felt magnified, intimate, dangerous.
The Duck Emperor waddled ahead, quacking sharply, feathers sparking like warning flares. Its tiny form, absurdly serious, seemed more important than ever amid the chaos.
Erevan's Codex pulsed, glyphs writhing, alive. He could feel the pull—the Root's insidious, endless tug—threatening to fracture him, to erase the boundaries of who he was. The clone moved beside him, fluid, wild, an anchor and a provocation at once.
"Only one will remain whole," whispered a voice, soft and venomous, threading through the glyph towers.
Erevan's stomach dropped. He glanced at the clone, whose grin was all sharp angles and raw energy. "Guess we'll see," he muttered, gripping the Codex tight.
The bridge quivered, the path ahead glowing faintly with glyphs that twisted in time with his pulse. The Root waited. They descended further, deeper into the unknown, and Erevan knew—whatever came next, nothing would remain the same.
The Codex pulsed.
The Anchor throbbed.
And somewhere in the darkness, a silent, insistent whisper cut through it all: Only one will survive.