---
> Codex Alert:
Temporal Collapse: Critical. Overseer Protocols Engaged.
System Reboot: Unfeasible. Reverting Core Data to Void State.
Warning: Entity Glitchborne Sovereign at Maximum Risk.
---
Auron's eyes burned, his pulse hammering in his temples. The Devourer—the venom—had slipped away from his control, retreating back into the deepest recesses of his mind, but the damage had been done. He could still feel its cold, suffocating presence, lingering in the shadows, just waiting for another chance to strike.
He staggered, catching his breath, trying to piece together what was left of his sanity.
Kiera's face was a blur, her voice a faint echo. "Auron... we need to leave. Now."
But he wasn't listening.
"Not yet." His voice was steady but tinged with something darker, something broken. "I can feel it... the endgame is coming."
---
Outside the Codex...
The world had become a fractured reflection of itself. Cities were half-dissolved, the atmosphere pulsating with energy that wasn't supposed to exist. Time had folded in on itself, creating pockets of memory and reality that no one could understand.
Veyren stood at the edge of the collapse, his hands clenched in fists of frustration. The energy around him crackled with tension as the fabric of reality threatened to unravel completely. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the blurring line between worlds.
A cold voice whispered from the edge of his consciousness. "It's too late."
---
Inside the Codex...
The Overseers were silent now—watching. The corrupted, glitching bodies of their ilk stood motionless in the shifting chaos, their masks shifting from one error to another, their true forms hidden in the void of broken code. They knew their time had come, and they were going to make sure Auron never walked out of this unscathed.
One of them, a figure shrouded in black-static, stepped forward. Its voice was low, guttural.
> Overseer Tenth-Tier: "You are the void now. The Codex will be rewritten from your destruction."
Auron lifted his head, eyes still glowing with the remnants of his struggle.
"I am not your pawn anymore," he whispered, voice carrying the weight of a thousand fractured codes.
The Overseer laughed. The sound was a cacophony of glitches, as if the very air was mocking him.
> "You think you're the one rewriting? You are the mistake. The error. You don't even understand what you've become."
Auron clenched his fists, energy crackling through his veins, but his strength was waning. His body was still raw from the battle with the Devourer, and the venom was clawing its way back, pushing him to the edge of insanity.
---
Back Outside...
The sky was splitting. The stars were disappearing one by one, as the Codex consumed the real world. The borders between their dimensions were collapsing into chaos. Every breath felt heavier than the last. And all around them, time began to break.
Kiera watched, heart in her throat, as the final pieces of their world began to fade.
"We're running out of time, Auron!" She screamed, her voice shaking with fear. "This is it!"
Auron barely heard her. The world was dissolving. Reality was bending, unraveling around him.
---
Inside the Codex...
The Overseer Tenth-Tier raised a hand, and the ground beneath Auron's feet began to disintegrate. Cracks appeared in the air like shattered glass, leaking glitches and void energy.
> "This is your reckoning, Glitchborne. You'll watch everything burn."
Auron stumbled, his body on the verge of collapse. His hands were shaking uncontrollably, a storm of corrupted data swirling around him.
"I'll—" He stopped, taking a shuddering breath. "I'll end this."
And just as he made his move, everything froze.
Time stopped.
Auron's body went still, suspended in a moment of absolute tension. The Codex, the Overseers, the collapsing world—all of it halted as if the system had been completely overridden.
Then a voice.
A voice he hadn't expected to hear.
It was cold. Deep. Unforgiving.
> "You think you have control, Glitchborne Sovereign? You are nothing more than an echo. A shadow of your true self."
The ground beneath him cracked further, and a new figure emerged—a presence unlike any he had encountered before. The figure was cloaked in dark, shifting code, its form constantly in flux, as if it existed outside the rules of reality. It was a being born of pure, unfiltered power, its eyes glowing with an ancient malevolence.
> "You are but a tool, just like them. You are nothing."
---
Auron's breath caught in his throat.
The figure took one step forward, and the world collapsed in on itself.
The Codex screamed.
And then—
---
Cliffhanger Ending:
---
> Codex Error: Unknown Entity Detected. Reverting Core to Original State.
> System Override Failure: Temporal Collapse Imminent.
> End of Transmission.
---
---