The path to the ruins of Aemorr was more than geographic — it was spiritual. Every step Lysa and Kael took left behind not only the ashes of the village of Vartren, but also the last illusions that they still belonged to a world governed by understandable laws. Now, everything was distorted code, unstable reality, and something else: a constant whisper, like an underground choir chanting forbidden secrets.

  “Are you sure this is the way?” Kael asked, glancing up at the sky, where dark clouds spiraled in unnatural formations.

  “No,” Lysa replied. “But the Code inside me knows.”

  The trees around them were dead, petrified in grotesque positions, as if they had been frozen mid-convulsion. The air was dense, electrified. The ground was covered in faded runes and symbols eroded by time and neglect. Aemorr wasn’t a place — it was a scar on the world. A place where the System had been forced to retreat.

  Lysa stopped before a narrow but deep crevice in the ground, like a wound that had never healed. From it came a sound like static — not heard, but felt in the veins.

  Unauthorized entry.

  Access restricted: Fragmented Core.

  Status: Forbidden Zone.

  Warning: Risk of reality collapse.

  “Perfect,” Lysa said with a bitter smile. “Exactly where I wanted to be.”

  She jumped.

  The impact was like falling into solid water. Lysa felt the world around her distort, as if her very existence was being examined, rewritten, and tolerated only by a whim of chaos.

  When she opened her eyes, she was in a vast corridor made of black stone and pulsing light. The walls quivered slightly, as if breathing. Ancient symbols — variations of the same code she had seen in the chamber where it all began — covered every inch, glowing in hues of blue, purple, and red.

  Kael landed beside her seconds later, gasping.

  “This... isn’t architecture,” he whispered. “It’s something alive.”

  Lysa nodded. She felt it too. Aemorr was what remained of a system that had nearly broken. A place where the rules of the world faltered. Where the System was wounded — or had wounded something greater.

  And in that space, her own Register seemed unstable.

  LYSA — SYSTEM RENEGADE

  Life Value: 23

  Class: Renegade

  Status: Core Interference.

  Danger: Extremely High.

  Emotional Stability: [monitoring…]

  She shivered.

  “I don’t like this,” Kael said, looking around. “We’re being read by something.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “We are. But I’m reading it back, too.”

  Lysa touched the wall. Symbols lit up under her fingers, rearranging. For a second, she glimpsed... memories?

  A burning tower. Children screaming. A face hidden under a white hood, holding a red crystal. And the scream of something not human — not of pain, but of absolute rage.

  She staggered back, dizzy.

  “This place was an altar,” she whispered. “Or a prison.”

  Kael caught her before she fell.

  “What happened here, Lysa?”

  She looked at him.

  “This is where someone tried to do what I’m doing now. And failed.”

  They moved through the ruins. Corridors unfolded into circular chambers, platforms floated over voids, and in every curve were remnants of broken code. Some inscriptions flickered like dying holograms. Others spoke to her.

  Anomaly 000-1 detected.

  Records corrupted.

  Integration attempt: failed.

  Initiating purge protocol.

  Lysa froze.

  “Something’s coming.”

  Kael had already drawn his twin blades when the ground shattered, and three formless, floating figures emerged from the void. They were shadows — not metaphorically, but literally. Humans who had been absorbed, distorted, and rewritten into pure corrupted command.

  They howled without mouths. Their eyes spun like gears, and their arms ended in claws of code.

  Entity: Execution Fragment

  Value: Variable

  Class: Residual

  Threat: Medium

  Lysa felt the System within her offer a command line — something new.

  Would you like to use “Essence Theft II”?

  “Yes,” she murmured.

  She ran. Kept Kael behind her and dove into the first fragment. The touch was like grabbing molten glass — sharp pain, followed by euphoria. She pulled, not a soul, but a piece of the logic that kept that creature alive.

  She absorbed:

  New Skill: Rapid Adaptation I

  Exp: +14

  Life Value: +2

  Kael was slicing through the second when she sensed the third behind her. She spun her dagger, but before she could strike, the creature exploded.

  Kael looked at her, breathing hard.

  “They didn’t want to fight. They were trying to run from us.”

  Lysa stared at the evaporating remains.

  “Then we’re the monsters now.”

  “We always were.”

  The final chamber appeared like an open wound.

  It was circular, with a pedestal in the center, atop which floated an orb identical to the one she had found in the dungeon. But this one was different — cracked, unstable, surrounded by shards of glass and dried blood.

  Around it, ancient inscriptions flickered with a voice that whispered in unison:

  The System is not one.

  The System lies.

  The System fears.

  Kael looked at it as if beholding a dead god.

  “Is this the core? The thing that corrupted you?”

  “No,” Lysa answered. “This is what tried to stop the System from taking everything. This is what’s left of the first failure.”

  She reached out. The sphere crackled.

  And then she heard it.

  A voice. Clear. Female. And ancient.

  “Lysa... you are the next key.”

  She stepped back, eyes wide.

  Kael turned to her.

  “What was that?”

  “An entity. A consciousness? Part of the original Code. It’s alive, but dormant. Trapped. And it wants... to use me.”

  Kael frowned.

  “Are you going to let it?”

  Lysa looked at her own hands.

  “I want revenge. But if this... is something more? Something bigger? I don’t know.”

  Silence.

  Then, the sphere glowed, and a final message appeared — not for her, but for the world:

  Anomaly Record 000-2 active.

  System Renegade: Ascension Initiated.

  Initiating global counter-hack protocol.

  Deploying Supreme Executor.

  Estimated time: 5 days.

  Lysa fell to her knees.

  “They’re sending something worse than the Auditor.”

  Kael held her.

  “So what do we do?”

  She stood, panting.

  “We find the others. The ones who also failed. The ones who were forgotten. If I’m going to die... I want to be remembered as the one who truly tried to break the System.”