Chapter 15: Warden of Deletion

---

The wind didn't howl. It screamed.

Reven stood on a desolate cliff carved from fragmented polygons, the world beneath him reduced to cascading lines of collapsing code. Giant memory pillars rose like ancient ruins—each one humming with traces of dead quests, abandoned classes, deleted players.

And in the center of it all stood him.

Tall. Silent. Wrapped in a cloak that shimmered between admin-grade black and static white. His face hidden behind a visor shaped like a coffin lid, its surface constantly wiping clean.

His tag glitched but never disappeared:

>

Reven took a breath.

The system air tasted sharp, like electric dust.

> "You're not just another Cleaner," he muttered.

The Warden tilted his head.

> "Correct. Cleaners delay. Wardens end."

With that, the ground trembled.

The air behind the Warden cracked open into a spiraling vortex—inside were thousands of nameless faces, screaming silently. Deleted NPCs. Erased players. Memory echoes.

Reven narrowed his eyes.

> "You're feeding on what was never meant to be forgotten."

The Warden replied, voice like static metal.

> "I am mercy. Without deletion, the system collapses beneath what should never exist."

> "Ava isn't a bug. She's a person!"

> "She is incomplete data. So are you."

He raised one arm—and the world responded. A ring of deletion beams spiraled into the sky, encircling Reven.

> [ALERT: Total Memory Format Protocol — Initiated]

[You have 90 seconds to escape layer or be purged]

Reven's hand instinctively reached toward the glowing symbol now branded on his wrist—a remnant from the Lower Library. Nihilos responded.

> [Override Engaged — Subclass: Nullbyte Drift Sync Active]

[Echo Skill Activated: Soul Fragment Transfer — Ava_27 locked at 16.1%]

[Auto-backup: Failed]

[Override Clash Detected — Warden Authority vs Nihilos]

The timer dropped faster now—89, 86, 80.

Reven ran.

But the Warden didn't chase. He walked.

Each step rewrote the terrain behind Reven. Mountains folded inward. Code bled from the sky like rain. Old weapons in Reven's inventory turned to ash.

> [Weapon: Glitch Fang – Deleted]

[Item: Ava's Hairclip – Corrupted]

[Warning: Inventory instability increasing]

Reven grit his teeth. He needed anything to fight with.

Then, the voices came—whispers from inside the memory pillars.

Old players. Dead logs. Beta testers whose names were scrubbed from the update files.

> "Use me…"

"Take my class…"

"They forgot us… but you remember…"

"Let us fight… one last time…"

Reven reached out and grabbed one of the pillars as the Warden raised his arm again.

> [CLASS FRAGMENT ABSORBED: Warlock of Burnt Echoes]

[Temporary Skill: Ash Chain — Bind system-grade AIs for 3.4 seconds]

He activated it without hesitation.

Chains made of charred code exploded from his hands and wrapped around the Warden mid-cast. For the first time, the Warden stopped.

> "That data was… deleted."

> "No," Reven growled. "You just buried it."

He rushed forward, using the chain like a blade.

Every hit peeled code from the Warden's body—but it was regenerating too fast.

> [Chain Duration: 3… 2… 1…]

[Link Broken]

The Warden raised both arms. Reality around them collapsed into a glowing deletion void.

Reven's options were vanishing.

But then—his HUD pulsed red.

> [New Request Received: AVA_27 — "Let me help."]

[Authorization Fragment Injected]

[Memory Dive: Synchronized Split Field Enabled]

For a moment—just one—he saw Ava.

Standing beside him.

Her eyes glowing the same pale blue as his.

> "Let's break the lie."

Together, they charged.

The Warden's blade came down—

And Reven raised his hand—

> [Override: "Rejection of Finality" — ACTIVATED]

[Warden Deletion Command: DENIED]

[New Protocol: Duel Memory-State Initiated]

The light exploded.

And the cliff was gone

While the corrupted cliffside crumbled behind the defeated Warden's code, far beyond the collapsing simulation...

The real world pulsed with sterile light.

Deep inside EvoCore Corporation's underground facility, rows of reinforced test chambers lined a glass-walled corridor. Scientists in black coats moved between terminals, silent, focused, afraid.

In one chamber floated Officer Saito — unconscious, his neural feed glitching faintly. His data had become infected since the Shibuya breach.

In the other, in the very center of the chamber—

Floated Yuto.

Eyes closed.

Breathing slow.

Tubes connected to his spine, skull, and chest. The capsule's biometric monitors blinked rapidly. Something was changing.

> "Subject Reven showing brainwave spikes," one tech muttered, wide-eyed.

"Dream-layer and real-layer are syncing too fast... this is beyond recursion."

"He's not dreaming anymore," another whispered. "He's remembering."

On screen: flashes of Ava. The Warden. Nullbyte code unraveling.

The lead researcher stepped forward, arms crossed.

> "Prepare for a mental isolation reboot. Before he—"

BANG.

The lights above dimmed.

Inside the fluid-filled glass chamber, Yuto's eyes opened.

Sharp. Aware.

His breath caught.

His palms hit the glass as he looked around—truly awake for the first time in what felt like eternity.

No headset.

No simulation UI.

No mission prompt.

Just—

A room full of strangers.

And a cold truth gripping his bones.

> "...This is the real world."

He looked down at his wired body, horrified.

And whispered:

> "How long have I been here...?"

Alarms screamed.

The control room burst into chaos.

Yuto, the boy they thought was trapped in the system, was awake.

And now—he knew.