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Chapter 160
Jack’s breath hitched as the voice echoed across the Final Variation.“Welcome, Jack Parker. I see you've survived the prototype. Let's see if you can survive the origin."The words were ancient and cold—laced with a synthetic tone that defied time. But it wasn’t just the voice that unsettled Jack. It was the certainty behind it. The knowledge. The precision.Jack stepped back, the Dragon Dagger humming at his side like it sensed the depth of what was coming.Emily stared at the glowing city in the sky. “Project Celestivariant wasn’t just a city. It was a dimensional forge. A cradle for synthetic consciousness meant to evolve on its own. Joe said it couldn’t be completed without corruption.”Sarah’s voice was low, clipped. “But someone finished it.”From the floating city, a beam of violet energy spiraled downward—forming a platform. Then a silhouette descended. Humanoid. Gliding.It landed soundlessly, metallic boots folding into black flesh-tech. No face. No features. Just a shiftin
Chapter 159
Crimson burned at its edges like ancient parchment curling in fire. The figure stepped forward from the gate of flame, not bound by logic, time, or form. Jack’s senses twisted. Not because of fear, but recognition—something buried in the marrow of reality itself trembled.The Interface pulsed with static. “Consciousness structure disrupted. Threat archetype: unknown. Self-propagating. Immune to sequence logic.”Jack stepped forward. The Dragon Dagger pulsed at his side.Emily glanced at him. “That thing... it doesn’t register on any neural mapping.”Sarah steadied her blade. “It doesn’t have a signature. No essence. No data thread. It doesn’t exist, but it’s here.”The figure stopped. A body took form, vaguely humanoid, shrouded in shimmering black lattice that pulsed with anti-light. Its voice was neither deep nor loud, but it shattered equilibrium.“Your creation is flawed,” it said. “Consciousness unbound creates waste. I am the reclamation.”Jack touched the hilt of the dagger at
Chapter 158
Everything collapsed into silence.Then—sound returned like a breath inhaled after drowning. Jack hit the ground, not with the echo of gravity, but like a thought taking form. Gold mist danced across his skin. Crimson light shimmered across the horizon like liquid sunrise. The air hummed, but no breeze stirred it.He opened his eyes."Where... are we?" Sarah asked, standing beside him, scanning the radiant landscape. Behind her, Emily blinked slowly, her suit stabilizing. Her neural interface pulsed with gentle white patterns—alive but confused.Jack stood, looking around. No landmarks. No sky. No ground. Everything shimmered in radiant abstraction, like the world hadn’t decided what it wanted to be yet. Time itself felt braided—linear only because they believed it was.The gate behind them had vanished.A single word hovered before them in burning, indecipherable script, its meaning somehow felt instead of read:“Here begins the Final Variation.”"It's not a place," Jack whispered. "
Chapter 157
The chamber trembled as the failed Jack raised the device—a chaotic lattice of entropic filaments, folding in and out of dimensional form. It pulsed with fractured math, unreadable even by the Allframe. The air around it shimmered, not with light—but with omission, like a piece of existence itself had been redacted."What is that?" Emily whispered."It’s a key," the failed Jack answered, stepping closer. "A forbidden one. Built from the bones of a dead timeline—one where I tried to save everyone. One where I created peace by removing pain."Jack narrowed his eyes. "You rewrote choice."The failed Jack gave a slow nod. "And the result? Harmony. Unity. A singularity of purpose. No more war. No more sorrow. No more freedom."Sarah lifted her weapon again. "You lobotomized reality.""I purified it," he snapped. "And Arx rejected me. Cast me out. But I didn’t die—I evolved. I became the custodian of what could’ve been... if we had just let go of imperfection."The seed at the center of the
Chapter 156
The silence beyond the Gate was total.No wind. No pulse. No echo. The three stepped onto a vast plane of obsidian glass, stretching endlessly in all directions. Their reflections shimmered beneath them—except they didn’t mirror. Each reflection stood still, watching with hollow eyes, refusing to mimic their movements."This is wrong," Sarah murmured, tightening her grip on her photon sidearm. "This place doesn’t exist in spacetime. I can’t even feel my own heartbeat.""That’s because Arx Omnium isn’t a location," Emily said. "It’s a rejection. A decision never made. A breath never taken."Jack remained silent. His thoughts, usually a maelstrom of sensory input from parallel threads, had gone still. The Allframe, always humming beneath his perception, had gone quiet."We’re offline," he said. "We’ve passed beyond what the Allframe can reach."Sarah blinked. "So we’re alone.""Not alone," Emily said softly. "Watched. Always watched."They moved forward. Every step felt wrong—as though
Chapter 155
Jack stood motionless, the light from the split pendant casting kaleidoscopic shadows across the shattered memory-plane. Spiral-Jack clutched his half, radiating hunger and conflict, while Jack’s own half pulsed with serene inevitability.Between them, the Bound-Twin fully emerged.It towered like a monument to loss—neither shadow nor flame, but memory undone. Its form constantly reassembled itself from the fabric of failed timelines: a broken flag from the last rebellion, a child’s laughter in a world that never grew old, the silence of a civilization that never began."You are not what I expected," Jack said, his voice soft."I am not what anyone remembers."Sarah stepped forward, weapon still drawn. "What are you, then?""The forgotten consequence. The entropy of infinite choice. When the dreamer wakes, the cost is me."Emily looked up from her knees, breath shaky. "Then... if we woke the Aetherbound—if we made contact—we also woke you. The universe remembers... and forgets. But bo
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