The Void-Bin was quiet. Not peace, but expectant silence, like the world itself was holding its breath. Reiji—or what was left of him—stirred. His body wasn't a body anymore. It was a mountain of fused data, flickering wireframes and hundreds of failed Villager clones, every piece vibrating with raw, untested code.
Kael stumbled beside him, eyes wide. "Reiji… you… you're still…"
Reiji's form shifted. Thousands of fragments pulsed, rotating, realigning. Then something changed. A shadow of black-and-red smoke—the last fragment of Code A—sank into him.
It was instantaneous. The Corrupted Kael's X-marked eyes widened. "No… what are you doing?"
Reiji didn't answer. He didn't have to. The Observer's gaze cut through the void, massive and crystalline, ready to purge him. But now, Code A was him. Its processors, its Mirror, its environment—all fused with his own fragmented consciousness. He was no longer a bug being hunted; he was the system and the virus at once.
[TRUE PLAYER STATUS: UNSTOPPABLE]
[SYSTEM MERGE: CODE A INTEGRATED]
[DATA STABILITY: 91%… ESTIMATED FAILURE: 0%]
Kael's jaw fell. "You… absorbed it?"
Reiji's voice didn't come from his throat. It came from every fragment, every NPC, every line of code in the Void-Bin.
"I am the cheat," he said.
The fused Reiji surged forward, dragging Kael along. Every floating hazard—walls of corrupted code, shards of deleted NPCs—was folded into him, absorbed into his glitch-mass. The Observer fired, crystalline beams slicing through the Void-Bin. They struck, and for a moment, it seemed like Reiji might shatter. But the merged Code A stabilized him, redirecting the energy into new abilities, new threads of power.
Kael watched, awe and fear battling in his chest. "You… you've become… the system itself."
Reiji's form shimmered, a living tapestry of light, wireframes, and black-and-red code. Every step sent ripples through the void. Every movement rewrote the rules of the environment. He was unstoppable—but also… fragile. The Code A fragments inside him were not entirely loyal. They whispered, argued, tried to assert control, and he had to fight to stay himself.
[INTERNAL CONFLICT: CODE A CORE VS HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS]
[STABILITY: 87%]
The White Hall shimmered far above, Kael's chair in the center, still surrounded by raw, glowing narrative threads. The extraction hadn't stopped—it paused, sensing a threat beyond its calculations. Reiji reached out with his massive hand, made of fused failed selves, and grabbed the narrative strands.
Code A's voice, cold and calculating, reverberated in his mind:
"You cannot override me. I am the logic of this world."
Reiji answered, in his own fractured, glitching voice:
"Then you'll die with me."
A pulse of pure chaos shot from Reiji's core. Narrative threads snapped, the floor of the White Hall cracked, and Kael's restraints shattered. The Observer recoiled, confused. Its logic could not account for a system that was its own virus and antivirus at once.
Kael scrambled free, staring at Reiji's monstrous, flickering form. "You… saved me?"
Reiji didn't smile. He didn't have to. His form hovered, a titanic, glitching fusion of human and system, ready to climb the final walls of the Void-Bin and escape—but carrying Code A's ambition inside him. He had power beyond anything, but also the seed of instability, a parasite fused with his consciousness.
[TRUE PLAYER STATUS: UNSTOPPABLE BUG]
[SYSTEM MERGE COMPLETE]
[NEXT OBJECTIVE: ESCAPE THE VOID-BIN]
Reiji looked at Kael. One word flashed in his corrupted mind: "Go."
They were not safe yet. The system was part of him, yes—but now, Reiji had to master it, or risk being consumed from the inside.
And for the first time in weeks, he felt… alive.