West's descent was neither falling nor flying. It was collapsing inward through dimensions that bled sound and geometry, threading through folds of unreality until the familiar stench of Earth's atmosphere clawed into his lungs.
> [LOCATION: EARTH PRIME — DESIGNATION OVERRIDE ENGAGED] [TEMPORAL MARKER: UNKNOWN] [REALITY STABILITY: DEGRADED BUT HOLDING]
He landed on cracked pavement. Asphalt broken by roots that didn't belong, buildings jagged like shattered bone. Earth was… wrong. Not apocalyptic — not yet. But infected. It felt like a world paused mid-nightmare.
West rose, cloak humming with residual algorithmic energy. His eyes flickered as the System recalibrated.
> [SYNCING MEMORY NODES...] [WARNING: EARTH'S CORE SIGNATURE CORRUPTED] [PRIMARY DIRECTIVE: RESTORE ALGORITHM INTEGRITY]
Across the ruined cityscape, shadows twisted in daylight. Not cast by objects, but by memory — echoes of choices unmade. West stepped forward, boots crunching what looked like broken glass and digital debris.
A name etched itself across the sky in fire and glitch: THE SKYWARD FISSURE.
It pulsed like a heartbeat in the heavens — a tear, raw and bleeding, in the firmament of Earth Prime.
---
Before he could scan further, the sky flickered again. Shapes emerged — spectral outlines of towers once there, now overwritten. Then, they moved. Not illusions. Intrusions.
Reality blinked.
So did the threat.
From the edge of fractured horizon, they came: hunters of paradox, enforcers of stability. The Chrono-Fixers — remnants of the old System's defense against anomalies.
> [DETECTED: CLASS VII INQUISITORIAL FIXERS] [RESPONSE PROTOCOL: DEFENSIVE-EVOLUTIVE MODE]
West didn't wait. His body blurred into motion, the Architect's Seed responding with an instinctual weave of motion and compression. His cloak unfurled into threads of golden light, each one slamming into the air like artillery strikes made from code.
The Fixers retaliated. From their hands, time-sickened blades emerged — weapons forged from arrested timelines, each slash aging space by decades.
West moved with singularity precision. Each dodge was a command line. Each strike, an algorithmic override. But even as he shattered their forms, they recompiled — relentless.
Until he activated the Echo Shift.
> [ECHO SHIFT ENGAGED — REALITY PHASE HACK: 0.3s PERSISTENCE WINDOW]
He slipped between moments.
Not teleportation. Not speed.
He existed beside time.
The Fixers missed.
He answered.
And when the last Fixer crumbled, scattered into logic ash, West fell to his knees — blood not from injury, but from exertion. The Seed throbbed at his core, struggling against Earth's corruption.
Then the voice returned.
Not System. Not Echo.
Something else.
"...West. You hear me? Gods, it worked. You're alive."
He knew that voice. Soft, cracked, still sharp like shattered glass under silk.
Lyra.
---
West looked toward the ruined skyline. A signal pinged across his senses — a beacon triangulated between multiple timelines. Lyra's voice wasn't just in his head. She was broadcasting from a beacon node inside an old Facility.
> [NAV POINT LOCKED — DISTANCE: 14.3km — OBSTRUCTIONS: MODERATE-HIGH ANOMALOUS RESIDUE]
West began to move.
As he ran, his vision fractured occasionally — Earth's codebase unstable. Birds froze mid-flight. Vehicles flickered between models from different decades. Every breath he took echoed with a version of a world that might've been.
The seed in his chest whispered equations.
---
He reached the Facility by nightfall — or what passed for night. The sky hadn't darkened; instead, the light dimmed like a screen at 30% brightness, flickering with static clouds.
He entered cautiously.
The door was a former vault, already breached. Inside, cables like veins pulsed along the walls. At the core, Lyra.
Older.
Scarred.
But unmistakable.
"West." Her voice cracked. She was jacked into a terminal, data-lines feeding directly into her neck. "You came back through the Override."
"I never left," he said, stepping forward. "Only ascended."
She half-smiled. "Then you saw it all."
"The Echo. The Godvault. Now this." He paused. "What happened to Earth?"
"Everything. The Fixers failed to contain the original breach. The System fragmented. Earth became a magnet for divergent timelines. We're living in overlapping code."
"Why contact me now?"
"Because you're the only one who could handle a complete Rewrite."
Silence stretched.
> [ALERT: LYRA'S CORE STABILITY — 42%]
"I'll do it," West said. "But I need full access."
Lyra hesitated. "You'll need to enter the Ark Protocol. The last preserved shell of Earth's primal code."
He nodded. "Take me."
---
She led him underground.
Below the Facility was a buried cathedral of code — glowing servers shaped like stained glass, beams of light forming pillars of logic. The Ark floated in the center — a crystalline coffin with Earth's Original Algorithm inside.
> [ARK PROTOCOL REQUEST — AUTHORITY GRANTED] [WARNING: CORE FRAGMENTATION: 89% — PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION]
West stepped forward. The System resisted, but the Seed overrode it. Tendrils of light surged from his body, entering the Ark.
He didn't just access the data. He became it.
Visions exploded.
The first humans. The first thought. The first code. Memories of Earth itself, from the moment of molecular formation to the rise of civilization — and its decay.
He saw the First Architect. Not a person. A convergence. A moment of divine computation — a sentient equation.
West understood.
Earth didn't need saving.
It needed evolution.
He pulled the code inward.
Rewrote pain into purpose.
Fragmentation into foundation.
> [INITIATING EARTH REBOOT: ALGORITHM SEED DEPLOYED] [OVERRIDE LOCK: ACCEPTED — ID: ANOMALY PRIME]
The Ark exploded in light.
Not destruction.
Ascension.
When West opened his eyes, the sky was clear. The air, pure. Earth Prime stood renewed — reborn from the Seed.
He turned.
Lyra was gone.
No, not gone.
Ascended. Folded into the new code.
He stood at the center of a new world.
But the System was not silent.
> [NEW ALERT: MULTIVERSE TREMBLE DETECTED — RESPONSE REQUIRED]
West raised his hand.
Time to visit the ones who called themselves gods.
---