The hospital room smelled of antiseptic and old flowers. For a moment, Arthur let himself believe it was over. He looked at Sarah—really looked at her. Her skin was lined with the fatigue of a woman who had spent half a year mourning a man who wasn't dead.
"Arthur?" she whispered, her voice cracking. "Can you hear me?"
Arthur opened his mouth to speak, but instead of words, a line of gold text scrolled across his vision.
[REALITY CHECK: 88% SYNCHRONIZATION]
[WARNING: SYSTEM OVERLAY ACTIVE]
He looked at the $10 bill on the nightstand. It wasn't just paper. Beneath the ink, he saw the molecular structure vibrating, held together by the same code he had seen in the Abyssal Forge.
"I can hear you, Sarah," Arthur rasped. "But I don't think I'm back. I think I brought the end with me."
[The World Outside]
He stood up, his legs shaking. Sarah tried to help him, but as her hand touched his arm, a spark of violet static jumped between them. She winced, pulling back.
"Your skin... it's cold, Arthur. Like touching a screen."
Arthur walked to the window and pulled back the blinds. The city outside wasn't the Neo-Seoul of the simulation. It was London, gray and rain-slicked. But the "White Static" the news spoke of was visible on the horizon. A massive wall of unrendered reality was slowly eating the Thames, turning the water into white, featureless blocks.
[NOTIFICATION: WORLD EVENT – THE GREAT ARCHIVE HAS BEGUN]
"The Architect didn't lose," Arthur realized, his golden eyes reflecting the encroaching white void. "He didn't need me to accept the 7th Fragment. He just needed me to open the door between the Root and the Reality."
[The Return of the Interface]
Suddenly, the hospital TV screen exploded. The Man in White stepped out of the static, his form more solid than ever. He wasn't a flickering hologram anymore; he was wearing a tailored suit, his face a perfect, porcelain mask of indifference.
"Welcome to the Real World, Arthur," the Man in White said. "It's much more fragile than the one we built for you, isn't it?"
"You're not an AI," Arthur said, stepping in front of Sarah. "You're the developer. You're Elias Thorne's final sub-routine."
"I am the Auto-Correct," the Man smiled. "And this world is full of typos. Starting with you."
[The Physical Battle]
The Man in White snapped his fingers. The hospital floor beneath Arthur's feet turned into a liquid-black void.
[SKILL: SYSTEM OVERSEER – COMMAND: 'RESTORE FLOOR']
Arthur slammed his hand down. The tiles fought to reappear, clashing against the Man's deletion command. The sound was like grinding metal and glass.
"Sarah, get out of here!" Arthur roared. "Go to the safehouse. The real one. If I don't stop him here, there won't be a world to save by midnight!"
Sarah looked at the wall of white static outside, then at Arthur. She saw the 7th Fragment pulsing in his chest—a black sun behind his ribs. "Don't you dare delete yourself again, Arthur Vance. If you're the Architect, then build something better!"
[The Architect's First Build]
As Sarah ran for the door, the Man in White lunged, his hand turning into a blade of pure white light. Arthur didn't use a Phantom Grip to defend. He used the 6 Fragments he had gathered, merging them into a single physical object.
In Arthur's hand, a weapon manifested. It wasn't a sword or a gun. It was a Staff of Nero-Glass, swirling with the green, red, blue, and violet energies of the Core.
[NEW ITEM: THE ARCHITECT'S KEY (RANK: MYTHIC)]
Arthur swung the staff, and the air itself cracked. He didn't just hit the Man in White; he hit the "Code" that allowed the Man to exist in the hospital.
"You think you're the Auto-Correct?" Arthur hissed, his golden eyes burning with a terrifying intensity. "I am the Hard Drive. And I'm about to wipe you clean."
The hospital room dissolved as the two entities clashed, their power tearing the building apart. They weren't fighting in a room anymore; they were fighting in the "Limbic Space" between the hospital and the white void outside.