The world had stopped.
Kei floated inside a white void. No sky. No ground. No sound.
Just silence.
His hand still touched the core—a swirling mass of blue light, data fragments, and… memories. Not just his. Everyone who had ever entered the Prison of Time had been recorded, coded, and stored inside this heart.
And now, Kei was connected to all of it.
> [NEUROMANCER: FULL ACCESS GRANTED]
[DO YOU WISH TO REWRITE THE PRISON?]
His breath caught in his throat.
This wasn't just a command. It was a universal reset. The prison's timelines, loops, and rules could be completely erased or reshaped. He could free everyone. Or destroy everything.
But then, another presence stirred behind him.
The Faceless Man, still glitching, half-formed, floated in.
"You think it's that easy?" His voice wasn't threatening now—it was… sad. "You're tampering with something not meant to be controlled. You rewrite this prison, you'll break time itself."
Kei turned, fists clenched.
"Then I'll rebuild it."
The Faceless Man drifted closer. "Do you even know who I am anymore, Kei?"
Kei narrowed his eyes.
And then, the core reacted. Memories surged.
And Kei saw it.
The Faceless Man wasn't just a guard. He was the first prisoner. The first Neuromancer. The system couldn't delete him, so it made him the warden. A being with no identity, no past, no face.
A shell.
And Kei was walking the same path.
> [WARNING: USER IDENTITY AT RISK]
[OVERLOAD INCOMING. CHOOSE YOUR TRUTH.]
The system pulsed violently, and suddenly—three options floated before Kei:
1. Free Everyone: Destroy the prison, erase its structure, and send all prisoners—including the Faceless Man—back into the real timeline. No more loops. No more control.
2. Rewrite the Prison: Become the new Core. Rule over time itself. Maintain order, but at the cost of his humanity.
3. Merge with the Faceless Man: Fuse with the source code and become a singular being of balance—neither warden nor prisoner. Something… new.
Time was frozen. He could think forever. But not choose forever.
Kei stared at the options.
His heartbeat was the only sound.
He clenched his fist and whispered—
"I choose—"
Kei looked at the three paths—each burning with consequence.
Free everyone. Rewrite everything. Merge with the warden.
But his lips curled into the faintest smirk.
"No," he whispered. "I choose everything."
> [INVALID CHOICE.]
[ERROR.]
[LOGIC LOOP DETECTED.]
The entire void shook. The core cracked. The system screamed.
The Faceless Man's voice trembled, glitching heavily:
"That's not… possible."
But Kei's eyes burned electric blue. "It is—when you stop playing by their rules."
And suddenly—Kei walked into the core.
Not touched. Not connected. He became part of it. His body pixelated, glitched, and split into fragments. His consciousness wasn't a person anymore. It was a force. A being of choice.
> [NEUROMANCER OVERRIDE: ACCESS GRANTED]
[ALL PATHWAYS SELECTED. MULTIVERSAL THREADING IN PROGRESS.]
All three timelines began to unfold at once.
—In one, Kei freed the prisoners. The world shattered, but the loop was broken.
—In another, Kei became the god of the Prison, watching over timelines, alone.
—In the third, he fused with the Faceless Man, becoming an entity of balance and memory.
But Kei didn't live one of those lives.
He lived all of them. At once.
Every version of himself now existed in a chaotic multiverse—connected by a singular mind.
And in the middle of it all, floating in a void stitched with time-glitches, sat one final lock. One final secret.
A red door.
It had no handle. No key. No code.
But behind it… something moved. Something that had been watching.
And just before the chapter ended—
> [NEW ENTITY DETECTED.]
[NAME UNKNOWN.]
[ALIAS: THE ARCHITECT.]
The door opened a crack.
And a hand reached out.