The wind shifted.Not naturally—violently.
Aurel stood outside the collapsed cathedral in Deepvale, hand tightening on the stabilizer Noé had given him. The cube pulsed, erratic. The sky cracked above, leaking pale blue threads of code-like lightning. Noé appeared beside him, her skeletal arm twitching with mechanical urgency.
"He's coming," she whispered. "The system's reaction."
A massive string of warnings flooded Aurel's interface:
[WARNING: SYSTEM ERROR CLASS-Z][Apostle of Correction Deployed][Cleansing Protocol: Activated]
The others rushed outside—Vaen, the scarred boy Lev, and the war machine Eras. They all looked skyward, silent. None of them reached for weapons.
They knew what was coming wasn't something you fought.It was something you survived—if you were lucky.
Above Deepvale
A beam of pure logic descended.
It wasn't light. It was command—a forceful rewriting of space itself. A humanoid figure emerged from it, floating an inch above ground, wrapped in black and chrome plating, its limbs shaped by fluid code. Its face had no features, only a mirror reflecting whomever it looked at.
It didn't breathe.
It didn't speak.
But everyone heard it.
"IDENTITY CONFIRMED: AUREL GRAY""ILLEGAL MEMORY ANCHOR DETECTED""ERROR: SOUL DUPLICITY—GRAY / AUREL""PURGING…"
Aurel barely had time to react.
The Apostle struck, not with a weapon—but a system hack. A burst of data ripped through the space between them like a black hole's core. The moment it touched Aurel, his HUD glitched violently.
[YOU HAVE BEEN STRIPPED OF CONTROL.][OVERRIDE INITIATED.]
"Get back!" Vaen shouted, slamming his staff into the earth. A ripple of anti-system magic pulsed outward, shielding Aurel just long enough for him to drop to one knee.
Noé hurled her skeletal arm like a spear—the construct exploded mid-air, releasing a dozen memory bombs coded with fractured timelines. The Apostle caught them with one hand, absorbing them—and learning.
"INEFFICIENT. UNNECESSARY EMOTIONS DETECTED."
Inside the System
Aurel's mind was dragged inward—again. But this time, it wasn't the soft dreamlike immersion of being chosen. This was surgical. Brutal.
He stood within a white void—code spirals floating around his body like chains.
The Apostle stood before him, arms at its sides.
"I won't be rewritten," Aurel said, spitting blood.
The Apostle tilted its head.
"THAT IS NOT YOUR CHOICE."
Aurel's memory anchor pulsed inside his chest.
He gripped it tightly—remembering Mira's smile, his mother's warm touch, the promise he made when he bought the elixir. And then… he did something no Chosen had ever done before.
He overrode the override.
[SOUL REJECTION: INITIATED][ACCESSING RESTRICTED PASSIVE SKILL: MEMORY OF THE DARKEST KNIGHT][UNLOCKING SUBROUTINE: SOUL-FRAGMENT RETALIATION]
The void trembled.
And the Apostle hesitated.
Back in Deepvale
Aurel's eyes snapped open—black flames bleeding from the corners of his vision. His aura surged with something ancient, something born of hatred, loss, and unbroken will.
He gripped his sword—one forged not from steel, but condensed memory—and slashed.
The air tore.
The Apostle's mirror face cracked.
And for the first time since its creation, it faltered.
"You shouldn't exist," the Apostle said in a whisper not meant to be heard.
Aurel stood, steam rising from his back, eyes glowing like twin eclipses.
"Then delete me."
He dashed forward.
✦✦✦
The battle raged for less than a minute—but each second was a war of wills, of rewritten fate.
In the end, Aurel didn't destroy the Apostle.
He did something far more terrifying.
He infected it.
A fragment of his soul embedded into its code—tainting it with memory, emotion, the very thing it was designed to erase.
The Apostle disengaged, teleporting mid-system breakdown.
[ERROR: EMOTIONAL LOGIC CORRUPTION][SENTIENCE THRESHOLD BREACHED][REQUESTING MANUAL RESET…]
Back at the tower, Vaen looked at Aurel, stunned.
"You corrupted a system enforcer."
"I didn't mean to," Aurel said, holding the still-pulsing memory anchor. "But maybe… maybe it means they can feel."
Noé stared up at the fading sky-light.
"If Apostles can feel... the Architect may fall apart faster than we thought."
Vaen turned, face grim.
"Or evolve."