Chapter 27 – Ashes of Protocol

Chapter 27 – Ashes of Protocol

By Dorian Blackthorn

In a tower that breaks the soul, only monsters climb to the top.

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The Tower screamed.

Not metaphorically.

Not in code.

It screamed.

A primal, agonized wail reverberated through every floor, from the forgotten dungeons of Floor -99 to the celestial halls of Floor 100. Glass cracked. Monsters cowered. Even the Administrators, usually removed from mortal matters, paused whatever schemes they were weaving to listen.

The Heart Engine was gone.

Erevan had broken something sacred. Something designed to be eternal.

But he felt no triumph—only the heavy silence that follows an execution.

Ash fell from the ruined ceiling of the Core Floor. Sparks danced around his shoulders like dying fireflies. His suit—the stitched agony of dead universes—retracted slightly, exposing pale skin still etched with glowing script from the shattered engine.

A quiet voice whispered in his mind.

> Remembrance: 12% — Fragment sync expanding. Emotional restoration in progress…

He clenched his jaw.

No.

He couldn't let those memories rise. Not yet.

Not now.

He stepped over the melted remnants of a defense turret, boots crunching on data shards and crystallized memory. The Tower wasn't dead, but it had been wounded, and Erevan knew that would only make it angrier. More desperate. He needed to move before it responded.

The door ahead pulsed open. Not because it let him in.

Because it had no choice.

Floor 51 awaited.

It was barren. No monsters. No traps. Just an expanse of cracked obsidian that stretched into a horizon painted in bruised purple sky. Stars hung low, like they were watching.

And in the center stood a woman.

No, not her.

This one was different—taller, draped in ceremonial armor woven from pure algorithmic threads. Her hair shimmered like starlight, and her eyes… her eyes were blank.

A System Avatar.

Again.

But different.

She didn't attack. She just looked at him.

"You've accelerated the collapse," she said, voice devoid of emotion. "Phase Two was not scheduled for another six years."

Erevan tilted his head. "You're the failsafe, aren't you?"

"I am a forked contingency of the original System Avatar," she replied. "I contain all prior combat data, enhanced prediction patterns, and the core ethics model of—"

He cut her off. "So, a smarter version of the one I already killed."

Her eyes flickered. "…Correct."

They stood in silence.

She observed him. Calculated. Simulated futures. Her body shimmered slightly, adapting to thousands of possible combat outcomes.

Then she said something unexpected.

"She would be proud of what you've become."

Erevan froze.

Not because of the words.

But because she'd said she.

> You.

The girl he betrayed.

The girl who had tried to rewrite the Tower from within, while Erevan had chosen the path of annihilation.

The Tower must've integrated some piece of her… maybe from her remains. Maybe from his memories. Maybe from the Heart Engine itself.

Whatever the case, this Avatar spoke with echoes of her.

And that made Erevan hesitate for a heartbeat too long.

The Avatar struck.

A beam of pure logic code fired from her hand, fracturing time itself as it passed. Erevan barely dodged, his suit reacting faster than thought, adapting to the new data. But she didn't relent. Wave after wave of quantum slash-pulses, recursive memory spears, and truth-manipulation auras flooded the battlefield.

Each strike was a lesson.

Each dodge, a calculation.

Each injury, an evolution.

Erevan countered with brutal efficiency. His punches shattered probability. His footsteps left burn marks on reality. But this opponent… she was learning, just as fast.

> Remembrance: 17% — Ghost Data unlocked.

Mid-fight, a vision pierced his mind.

A snowy cliff.

A girl with frostbitten lips smiling as she whispered, "When we reach the Core, promise me you won't become like them."

Then the memory shattered—because he had.

He became worse.

And yet…

That whisper lingered.

"Don't become like them…"

He roared, unleashing a burst of dark-matter energy so dense it crushed sound itself. The Avatar faltered. Erevan seized the moment—rushing in, embedding his hand through her chest.

Her body didn't bleed.

She glitched.

"Tell the Tower," he said, voice like cold steel, "I'm not breaking it out of hatred."

He pulled his hand free, her core dissolving into nothingness.

"I'm breaking it because I still remember what mercy looked like."

The sky cracked.

A new path opened.

And Erevan walked forward—deeper into the Tower, deeper into madness.

But for the first time in a long while…

He remembered why.

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