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> Codex Alert:
Core Collapse Imminent. All systems in jeopardy. Initiating Terminal Protocol.
Warning: Oversight Invasion Unstoppable.
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Reality had become a labyrinth of venomous wires, corrupted code, and broken promises. Auron could feel it—the Devourer was feeding, consuming, twisting his thoughts, rewriting his very existence. Every pulse, every breath, was a war against the poison that threatened to rip him apart.
Kiera's voice cut through the static.
"Auron!" She was running toward him, her figure flickering like a broken signal. "Snap out of it, damn you! This isn't you!"
He looked at her, his eyes bleeding with glitch-light, a tortured smirk tugging at his lips.
"Not me?" His voice was hoarse, corrupted by the venomous power coursing through him. "You don't know what I am anymore, Kiera."
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Outside the Codex…
The world was crumbling. Buildings warped and dissolved into the air. People dropped to their knees, staring at the sky as the Codex's infection spread like wildfire. The very fabric of reality was twisting, collapsing into a singularity of error. The time loop was growing tighter, squeezing the breath out of everything.
Veyren stood in the center of the chaos, watching the scene unfold. He had known this day would come, but even he couldn't have predicted the sheer magnitude of it.
"It's too late," he whispered to himself.
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Inside Auron's mind…
The walls of his fractured mind were collapsing. Every step he took, every thought, was like walking through quicksand. The Devourer's presence inside him was a thick, suffocating cloud of rage and hunger, gnawing at his consciousness.
"Auron," Kiera's voice again, but this time it was more desperate. "Fight it. Don't let it control you!"
He chuckled bitterly, though the sound was laced with a dark edge. "You think I can fight it? I am it. The virus, the poison… it's me now."
The air around him shifted, distorted, as the Devourer's voice bled through his mind, a low, guttural growl.
> "Let go. Embrace the corruption. The system is mine."
But Auron resisted. His hand clenched into a fist. "I'm not your puppet anymore," he growled, his voice breaking through the darkness. "I'll tear you apart if I have to."
The Devourer laughed—a sound like static, an abyssal echo that vibrated in Auron's soul.
> "You can try. But it won't matter. You are already broken."
Auron staggered, feeling the venom spreading like wildfire through his veins. His vision blurred, the edges of reality warping as his body trembled with the overwhelming force of the system's corruption.
But then—
A moment of clarity.
A single thought pierced through the madness, a memory from long ago, from before all this—when he had been human.
Kiera's face. Her voice. Her belief in him.
That's what I'm fighting for.
In an instant, he reached into the dark, pulling the remnants of his humanity back to the surface.
The Devourer screamed.
"No—!"
But Auron was already rewriting—his body, his mind, the system around him. The code bent and twisted to his will as he fought to regain control.
And in that moment, he realized something.
He wasn't fighting the Devourer.
He was fighting himself.
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Outside the Codex…
The world was on the brink of collapse, but something shifted.
The codex sky flickered, the pulse of the Devourer dimming for just a fraction of a second.
Veyren's eyes narrowed, his hand outstretched. He could feel it—a shift in the energy, like the air had thickened. Something was happening inside the Codex.
"I knew you weren't finished yet," he murmured, stepping forward.
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Inside Auron's mind…
Auron's hands were trembling as he fought to keep control, his body wracked with the overwhelming pull of the Devourer. But he stood tall, even as his form flickered, torn between light and shadow.
"You will lose," the Devourer spat. "You're already broken. The poison is too deep."
Auron closed his eyes, drawing in a steadying breath. "Maybe I am broken. But I'll be the one to decide if I'm beyond fixing."
With that, he shattered the Devourer's grip on his mind, forcing the corrupted code into a crumbling heap of fragmented data. The world around him twisted, unraveling like an unspooled thread, as he wrestled with his own soul.
---
And then—
The punchline hit like a thunderclap.
Auron's voice rang out, crisp and sharp.
"You're right. I am broken. But you know what they say about broken things?"
His eyes burned with defiance as he glared at the remnants of the Devourer.
"They can still cut."
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