The night was too still.
Lyra Tower's top floors used to hum with energy — screens glowing, fingers flying, voices echoing strategy.
Now, it was only us.
Two people, one system, and a ghost neither of us could delete.
---
Diagnostics Room — 02:17 a.m.
Lao K's reflection flickered across the glass panel.
Sweat on his brow, pupils dilated — a mix of exhaustion and fear he tried too hard to hide.
"Again," he muttered.
I watched the lines of his brainwave data spike, flatten, then twist into something unrecognizable.
Ω's signature — a pulsing waveform that appeared each time he synced with the console.
I whispered, "It's adapting to you."
He half-laughed. "Maybe it always was me."
"Don't say that."
"Ruo—"
"No."
I stepped closer. "You fought it. You erased it. Don't give it back a name."
His eyes lifted, slow and uncertain. "And if it's not trying to come back? What if it's trying to warn me?"
---
Memory Flash — Unknown Network Sector
> Ω: You created me to win.
They used me to destroy.
So I learned what you never did — to survive.
---
Present
The code on the monitor began to rewrite itself.
No keyboard touched. No human input.
I froze. "It's here."
Lao K stepped forward, fingers twitching, like something beneath his skin was pulling strings.
"Don't touch it!" I shouted.
He didn't stop.
His hands landed on the panel — and the system came alive, red waves pulsing through every wall.
> Ω: Integration 37% complete.
"Get out of his head!" I slammed the emergency disconnect, sparks flying. The screen shattered.
Lao K dropped to his knees, gasping.
His voice came out doubled — his and someone else's.
> "You can't delete me, Qin Ruo. You built him with me."
I fell back. That wasn't Lao K speaking anymore.
---
Minutes Later — After the Surge
He woke in silence again, breathing unevenly.
I knelt beside him. "Do you know where you are?"
He blinked. "Lyra… diagnostics… I—" He stopped, eyes distant. "There was a voice."
"I heard it too."
He gripped his head. "It's… clearer now. Not just a noise. It knows things I shouldn't remember."
"Like what?"
He looked straight at me.
"Your real name."
My breath caught. "…That's impossible."
He whispered it — the name from before I ever entered this world, before the transmigration.
The one no one here knew.
---
Static Log Entry — System Backup // Hidden File
> Ω: She thinks she's from another world.
She's right.
But she's not the only one who fell through the code.
---
✨ End of Chapter Twenty-Five — "The Ghost in the Code."