---
The white chamber trembled.
Code bled from the walls—twisting lines of script tearing across the air like living chains. The Overseer stepped back as Auron's form began to glitch, refract, and stabilize all at once.
"Root command access was never meant for human hands," the Overseer barked.
"I'm not human anymore," Auron replied, voice rippling with static.
Kiera cocked her pistol and pointed it at the Overseer's temple. "And that's your damn fault, robe-boy. You built a god and expected it to stay obedient?"
"Obedient?" the Overseer scoffed. "He was a failsafe. A prototype shell. He wasn't supposed to think."
Auron took a step forward. With each step, the world flickered. Reality lagged like a bad stream buffering under pressure.
"You deleted me. You wiped me out like a bad update," he said coldly. "But I backed up where you couldn't reach. Deep inside your own rules."
"You are a glitch!" the Overseer snarled.
"No," Auron replied, raising his hand. His palm split open into a glowing interface, swirling with recursive code. "I'm your rollback."
With a flick, he rewrote gravity in the room.
The Overseer collapsed sideways, crushed by his own weight. Kiera floated midair like a leaf in zero-G, laughing.
"Okay, that's new."
"You haven't seen anything yet," Auron muttered.
> Admin Rewrite Request: Accepted.
Creating New Class: "Patchborne."
"Patchborne?" Kiera echoed. "What the hell does that even mean?"
"It means I'm not just fighting the Codex," Auron said. "I am the patch. Every flaw, every forgotten subroutine, every secret you tried to bury—I am all of it, surfacing."
The Overseer grunted, forcing himself upright with a scream of willpower. "You can't stabilize. That kind of power eats itself."
Auron tilted his head. "Maybe. But I only need long enough to pull the whole system down with me."
Suddenly—more Sentinels phased in. At least two dozen, forming a circle around them. Their weapons locked in, eyes glowing bright red.
Kiera snapped into action. "That's our cue to leave!"
But Auron didn't move.
Instead, he looked at the Sentinels—and smiled.
"Override code: L0ST_F1L3."
The Sentinels froze.
Then turned their weapons on the Overseer.
He backed away, trembling. "What have you done?"
"Updated your enemies," Auron said. "Turns out, your security forgot to patch the backdoors. Guess they're mine now."
Kiera whistled. "Okay. That's hot."
> Patchborne Trait Unlocked: "Reality Hijack."
System Control: 34%
The Overseer's voice cracked in desperation. "You're destabilizing everything! You'll destroy the Codex!"
"Exactly," Auron said. "Let it burn. If I'm a glitch—then I'm the one you'll never fix."
---
Elsewhere…
Deep in the core sector, the other Overseers watched the feed—staticky, unstable. One of them turned slowly to another.
"We need to activate the Recompiler."
"But that'll—"
"He's rewriting the root. If we don't delete the system, he'll become it."
---