2026-10-22 03:58:34“Mom, whatever is inside you, fight it!”
Awesome reached for Lyra, but a violent surge of black energy erupted from her body and hurled him across the chamber. His back slammed against the console, forcing the air from his lungs as golden cracks spread across the floor beneath him.
Lyra remained motionless amid the destruction, her silver hair floating around her face while her black eyes watched him with cold amusement. The smile stretching across her lips belonged to someone Awesome had never known.
“You always were a disappointing child,” she said.
Her words wounded him more deeply than the impact against the console. Awesome struggled to his feet, refusing to accept that the woman standing before him was the same mother whose memories had haunted him.
“You told me you wanted to save me,” he said.
“I told you what you needed to hear.”
Behind her, his father's enormous shadow leaned over the two identical boys. The original boy knelt beneath the golden light connecting their bodies, fighting to free himself from its grip. Each pulse of the light dragged another fragment of Awesome's identity toward the other vessel.
The system flickered before his eyes.
[MATERNAL CONSCIOUSNESS INTRUSION: 42%.]
[REUNIFICATION PROTOCOL: 68%.]
[HOST IDENTITY STABILITY: 19%.]
“Professor Elara!” Awesome shouted. “Tell me how to stop this!”
Elara dragged herself away from the damaged console, blood running from a cut above her eyebrow. After examining the readings, her expression shifted from alarm to horrified understanding.
“Lyra isn't being possessed,” she explained. “The system is using her consciousness as a bridge.”
Awesome stared at her. “What does that mean?”
“It means the woman standing in front of you might not be your mother at all.”
Lyra tilted her head, her smile widening as she regarded Elara.
“Clever girl. You've finally learned something.”
Before Elara could react, the floor opened beneath her feet. Mechanical restraints shot upward, wrapped around her wrists and ankles, and dragged her toward the central platform.
Awesome raised his marked palm and shouted, “Bind!”
Golden chains erupted from the air, but they dissolved before reaching Lyra. The backlash threw Awesome off balance, forcing him to catch himself against the console.
“You cannot command what created you,” Lyra declared. “The authority recognizes its rightful master.”
The original boy suddenly grabbed the glowing connection between them with both hands.
“Awesome, listen to me! Your mother is dead!”
Awesome froze, struggling to comprehend what he had just heard.
“What did you say?”
“The woman you remember died before the academy transferred your consciousness. This thing has been using her memories to control the system!”
Lyra's expression hardened. “You don't know what you're talking about.”
“I know because I was there when you killed her!”
The chamber trembled as the boy pulled at the golden connection. Blood streamed from his nose, but he continued resisting until a sharp crack echoed through the room. For one precious moment, the light connecting him to Awesome weakened.
Then their father's shadow moved.
A massive armored hand struck the original boy, smashing him into the fractured floor. The shock wave shook the chamber, and the boy lay motionless beneath the broken tiles.
Awesome felt the connection tighten again.
“Get away from him!” he roared.
Ignoring the pain spreading through his body, Awesome charged toward Lyra. Instead of attacking her directly, he studied the golden symbols beneath her feet. His ability to analyze magic had always revealed patterns that ordinary mages overlooked, even when he lacked the mana required to cast conventional spells.
As he concentrated, the truth gradually emerged.
The symbols were not arranged like a spell. They formed a circuit, transmitting commands through Lyra's preserved consciousness and disguising their source behind her memories, emotions, and voice.
Awesome followed the circuit until his gaze settled on a small black crystal embedded beneath the central platform.
“There you are,” he whispered.
The system immediately flooded his vision with warnings.
[UNAUTHORIZED ANALYSIS DETECTED.]
[WARNING: SOURCE IDENTIFICATION PROHIBITED.]
For the first time, Awesome smiled. The system had never forbidden him from examining magic unless he was approaching something it desperately wanted to conceal.
“Professor, break the restraints!” he shouted.
Elara struggled against the metal bands. “With what? My hands?”
“Your magic!”
“My magic is connected to the same circuit!”
“Then overload it!”
Understanding flashed across Elara's face. She closed her eyes and drew every remaining trace of mana from the chamber's failing protective barriers. The restraints around her wrists glowed white before shattering beneath the pressure, releasing her as the chamber lights exploded one after another.
Awesome seized his opportunity and pressed his marked palm against the black crystal.
“Analyze!”
The world stopped as information flooded his vision.
[PRIMARY COMMAND: PRESERVE MATERNAL AUTHORITY.]
[SECONDARY COMMAND: ELIMINATE UNAUTHORIZED CONSCIOUSNESS.]
[ORIGINAL COMMAND AUTHOR: LYRA VOSS.]
Awesome's blood turned cold. His mother's memories had not merely been stolen by the system. Lyra herself had created the command.
A memory unfolded before him, revealing the chamber years earlier, when its walls were pristine and two identical children slept inside separate glass chambers. One vessel glowed with golden light, while the other remained surrounded by darkness.
“If the authority awakens inside the wrong vessel, we may lose both boys,” a younger Elara warned.
Lyra watched the sleeping children without showing any emotion.
“Then the replacement must be destroyed before it remembers what it is.”
The memory shifted. Lyra stood beside the original boy's chamber, pressing her hand against the glass.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I cannot let you wake up knowing what you are.”
A command appeared in the memory.
[ORIGINAL CONSCIOUSNESS: SUPPRESSION AUTHORIZED.]
Awesome staggered away from the crystal. His mother had ordered his death and attempted to erase the original boy, sacrificing both children to prevent something neither understood.
Yet another figure stood behind Lyra, concealed beneath a dark cloak. Although the system could not identify the stranger's face, the symbol marked on the figure's hand was unmistakable.
It was the same symbol Awesome carried.
“No,” he whispered.
The black crystal shattered beneath his palm, releasing an explosion of golden fire. The connection between the boys snapped, hurling Awesome against the wall as his father's armored shadow roared and began disintegrating. Elara's remaining restraints dissolved into ash.
Lyra collapsed onto the floor.
Awesome crawled toward her, uncertain whether he should help her or flee before she could hurt him again. Her eyes gradually returned to their natural color, and tears gathered as she recognized him.
“Awesome?” she whispered.
He stopped beside her. “Are you really my mother?”
“I tried to protect you.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
Lyra opened her mouth, but she offered no answer.
Behind him, the original boy rose unsteadily. His black eyes remained fixed on the shattered crystal, and the hatred that had consumed his face gave way to something far more disturbing.
Recognition.
“The crystal was never controlling her,” he said.
Awesome turned toward him. “What do you mean?”
The boy pointed at Lyra.
“She was controlling it.”
Before Awesome could respond, Lyra began to laugh. Black symbols spread across her skin as her body slowly lifted from the floor.
“You finally understand,” she whispered. “I didn't build the system to protect my sons.”
The chamber doors slammed shut, sealing them inside.
“I built it to keep something inside you.”
Awesome's marked palm burned so fiercely that he collapsed to his knees. A final warning appeared before his eyes.
[SEALED ENTITY AWAKENING.]
[HOST IDENTITY: AWESOME.]
[CONTAINMENT FAILURE: 100%.]
Then a voice emerged from deep inside his chest.
“Thank you, Mother.”
Awesome recognized the voice immediately.
It was his own.
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Chapter 21: The Identity Before the First Witness
“Awesome, don't touch him!” his mother screamed.Her warning came a heartbeat too late.The stranger standing at the center of the memory archive lunged toward Awesome, extending his fingers toward the young man's chest. Awesome twisted sideways, attempting to avoid the contact, but the stranger's fingertips brushed his shoulder and released a violent burst of golden energy that hurled him across the chamber.Awesome struck a floating crystal with enough force to shatter it. Thousands of fragments scattered around him, each one reflecting a different image of his face as they spun through the air.In one fragment, he saw himself as a frightened child crying beneath a hospital lamp. Another showed him standing outside the Global Academy of Higher Magic while students laughed at his inability to cast even the simplest spell. In a third reflection, he wore a crown of black fire and stood before a crowd of kneeling figures whose faces had been erased.Awesome pushed himself upright, winci
Chapter 20: The Mother Behind the Forbidden Door
“Awesome, don't let your father open that door!”Lyra Voss's warning rang through the narrow gap just as Awesome's father reached for the silver handle. He stopped so abruptly that Awesome nearly collided with him, while Lyra's fingers tightened around the edge of the door until her knuckles turned white.Another violent tremor shook the passage, sending dust and fragments of ancient stone cascading from the ceiling. The silver door shuddered in its frame, and something on the other side struck it with enough force to make the handle rattle.“Lyra?” Awesome's father whispered, staring at the trembling fingers visible through the gap.“Move away from the door!” she shouted. “He has already found the archive!”A deafening impact struck from within the chamber. The silver door buckled outward, and black symbols crawled across its surface, swallowing the ancient Voss crest one line at a time.Awesome seized the handle before his father could stop him.“Mother, what is happening in there?”
Chapter 19: The Identity My Mother Tried to Erase
“Get away from him!” Elara screamed as Awesome's body jerked violently above the abyss.The moment the system declared his compatibility with the First Witness complete, black symbols spread across his skin, crawling from his chest toward his throat like living veins. His fingers curled involuntarily, and a strangled cry escaped his lips as an unseen force began pulling his consciousness away from his body.His father lunged toward him, desperate to break the connection, but an invisible wall struck him before he could get close enough. The impact sent him crashing onto the broken floor, and he slid toward the fissure until his fingers caught its jagged edge at the last possible moment.“Awesome!” he shouted, struggling to pull himself away from the crumbling ledge. “Whatever it tells you, do not surrender your identity!”Awesome tried to answer, but his mouth opened without his permission.“Identity is a temporary arrangement,” another voice declared through his lips.Although the wo
Chapter 18: The Name That Should Never Be Spoken
“Awesome Voss, come down and meet the person you were created to replace.”The voice had barely finished speaking when the final containment anchor shattered beneath the academy.Awesome felt the connection inside his chest tighten violently, as though invisible hooks had sunk into his ribs and were dragging him toward the widening crack in the floor. His boots scraped across the broken tiles while he struggled to resist the pull, and Elara seized his wrist with both hands, desperately trying to keep him from being dragged into the darkness.“Awesome, fight it!” she shouted, her fingers trembling as the force pulled them closer to the fissure. “Whatever that thing is showing you, you cannot trust it!”Black light surged from beneath the floor, swallowing the remaining fragments of the containment symbols. Elara's grip began to slip, and Awesome reached desperately for her other hand, but his body had already crossed the edge of the widening abyss.His father lunged forward and caught
Chapter 17: The Thing Buried Beneath the Academy
The first scream erupted from beneath the infirmary, followed by a violent tremor that threw Professor Elara Veyne against the wall and sent Awesome crashing onto his hands and knees.Before anyone could recover, the floor split open between them. Black light surged through the widening crack, illuminating the shattered tiles with pulsing veins that resembled something alive beneath the academy’s foundations. Somewhere below, metal groaned against stone, and the entire building shuddered as though an enormous creature had rolled over in its sleep.“Everyone, get away from the floor!” Awesome’s father shouted.He seized Awesome by the collar and dragged him backward just as a black tendril burst through the broken tiles. It whipped through the space where Awesome’s head had been, struck the ceiling with enough force to shatter several support beams, and disappeared into the darkness above. Pieces of plaster and stone rained down around them as Awesome struggled to regain his balance.H
Chapter 16: The Boy Fighting for My Body
“Stop him!” Elara screamed as Awesome’s body slammed against the stone floor.A violent surge of black energy erupted from his palm, tearing through the chamber and throwing everyone backward. His father struck the wall with a strangled cry, while the original boy grabbed the edge of the shattered containment platform to keep himself from being swept into the open shaft beneath it. Elara reacted immediately, raising a protective barrier around them, but the force struck its blue surface with such violence that deep cracks spread across it.Awesome could hear everything happening around him, yet he could not move a single muscle.Something had taken control of his body.His fingers scraped against the floor as his right arm rose without his permission. The black mark on his palm widened, exposing thin golden lines beneath his skin that twisted toward his wrist like living threads. His left hand remained pressed against the stone, trembling as he fought to resist the invisible force con
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