The Icarus-01 sub-shuttle breached the surface of the Atlantic like a bullet, metal groaning as it escaped the crushing depths. But inside the cockpit, the silence was louder than the ocean.
Arthur sat in the pilot's seat, his hands frozen on the controls. His eyes weren't just glowing; they were vibrating, flickering between the gold of the Architect and a chaotic, static-filled violet.
[STABILITY: 38% – DANGER ZONE]
[ACTIVE BUFF: OVERSEER'S MULTI-THREADING (PASSIVE)]
[ACTIVE DEBUFF: SCHISM (THE VOICES)]
"It's cold," a voice whispered in Arthur's ear—a woman from a 19th-century simulation.
"Where is my son?" a man barked from a deleted 2012 timeline.
"DELETE HIM BEFORE HE DELETES US," a chorus of a thousand voices screamed in unison.
[The Shattered Mind]
"Arthur! Look at me!" Sarah grabbed his shoulders, shaking him.
To Arthur, Sarah didn't look like a person anymore. His Architect Eyes were malfunctioning. He saw her as a collection of polygons, a list of genetic code, and a series of "Potential Deaths."
PROBABILITY OF SARAH VANCE DYING IN THE NEXT 5 MINUTES:14%
CAUSE:Heart failure due to proximity to Fragment 5.
"Get away from me," Arthur rasped. His voice sounded like three people speaking at once. He pushed her back, not with his hands, but with a sudden burst of kinetic force that dented the bulkhead.
"You're hurting her, Boss!" Elena's voice came over the radio. She had finally woken up at the safehouse, her voice groggy but clear. "I don't know what you did to my head, but I can see your bio-signs. Your brain is hitting 105 degrees. You're melting!"
[The Internal Firewall]
Arthur collapsed to the floor of the sub. He needed to lock the voices away. He closed his eyes and entered his Mental Landscape.
In his mind, he was standing in a vast, white library. But the shelves were falling over, and millions of black, ink-like shadows—the "Ghosts" of the Forge—were tearing the pages out of his memories.
[SKILL: REALITY EDIT – COMMAND: 'PARTITION SOULS']
Arthur didn't try to kick them out. He couldn't. Instead, he began to build "Cages" within his own subconscious. He visualized the library transforming into a high-security prison. He forced the voices into cells, locking them behind bars made of his own willpower.
"You think you can hold us?" the Oracle's voice echoed through the hallway. "We are the history you tried to erase. We are the 'Original' world."
"Then stay in the past," Arthur growled, slamming the final "Mental Door" shut.
[STABILITY STABILIZED: 42%]
[NEW TRAIT: COLD LOGIC – Empathy reduced by 50% permanently.]
[The Sky-City Beacon]
Arthur stood up. The vibrating in his eyes stopped. He looked at Sarah, who was nursing a bruised arm. He saw the bruise, calculated the healing time (48 hours), but felt no guilt.
"The 6th Fragment has moved," Arthur said, his voice as flat as a machine's.
"Where?" Sarah asked, her voice trembling. She looked at him with a mix of loyalty and genuine fear.
Arthur pointed toward the East. Across the ocean, toward Asia. Through the clouds, he could see a massive, floating structure—a city built on gravity-defying platforms, hidden from the world by a permanent "Stealth Patch."
[LOCATION: NEO-SEOUL – THE CLOUD DISTRICT]
[TARGET: CORE FRAGMENT 6/7 (THE CHRONO-GEAR)]
"The Architect is tired of playing hide and seek," Arthur said. "He's congregating the remaining fragments in the most defended place on Earth. He wants to force a 'Final Update'."
[The Final Warning]
As the sub-shuttle's autopilot set a course for the East, a holographic screen flickered to life on the dashboard. It wasn't the Man in White. It was a video file, timestamped: JULY 14, 2025 (THE ORIGINAL TIMELINE).
The video showed a younger Arthur Vance, his face covered in soot and blood. He was standing in the middle of a burning city, holding all seven fragments.
"If you're watching this," the Past-Arthur said to the camera, his eyes filled with madness, "it means the reset worked. But don't be fooled. I didn't reset the world to save it. I reset it because I wanted a second chance to do it right. This time, don't let the 'Man in White' stop you from becoming the King. He's not the villain. I was."
The screen went black.
Arthur looked at his own reflection in the cockpit glass. For a split second, his reflection didn't move when he did. It just stood there, wearing a chrome crown, and winked.