The remnants of Eidolon stood like a ghost world — fractured lands floating in an abyss, cities turned to dust, and entire zones consumed by glitches, humming with an ominous red glow. The skies above were no longer blue nor gray — they were corrupted, pulsating in eerie patterns, as if the game itself was watching, waiting, breathing.
Sable stood at the edge of a jagged cliff, windless and dead silent. Behind him, the last group of survivors — elite players, once enemies and allies — prepared for what was rumored to be the "Endgame Protocol." But this wasn't a final boss fight.
This… was a reckoning.
After Rei's defeat, the system had triggered a hidden failsafe: a corrupted administrator protocol named "ECHO//ROOT" had been awakened. It wasn't designed for players — it was meant to bury evidence. A kill-switch, meant to wipe the entire server… and everyone still logged in.
Sable had uncovered it during a side quest in the Glitch Graveyard — a region so unstable, even stepping into it caused visual hallucinations and code burns. The truth he found there was simple: Eidolon was never supposed to be released again. It was banned. Shut down by international order after the beta test deaths. But someone — some group — had injected new life into it, corrupted its soul, and dumped the server file anonymously across the deep web. That "final boss glitch" wasn't an accident — it was bait.
Eidolon.exe was a digital trap.
The promised prize — billions in yen — was a front for the real reward: control of the world's most advanced VR warfare engine. A weapon hidden in plain sight. And now, the game was trying to wipe itself clean before the truth got out.
"We're being erased," Rika muttered, gripping her blade as corrupted terrain morphed around them. "The system's deleting every trace of us."
"No," Sable said coldly. "It's deleting the evidence."
He stared ahead. A final path had opened — not a castle, not a throne room. Just a terminal. An ancient, bleeding console hidden beneath the oldest part of Eidolon: The Architect's Core.
Only one person could access it — the player who had triggered the most events, killed the most bosses, uncovered the deepest secrets.
Him.
They descended into the Architect's Core together — Sable, Rika, Kaz, and Yuto. The console flickered as they approached, its screen whispering static messages:
> "Do you wish to rewrite the source?"
"Warning: Pulse Level at Critical Mass."
"You cannot undo what you become."
Sable touched it. And in that moment — his vision split.
He saw everything.
The day of the original shutdown. Rei's creation. The glitch that led to the deaths. The reboot. The files spreading like a virus across the net. The eyes watching it. And he saw himself — not as a player, but as the anomaly. The one the system couldn't classify. The Glitchwalker.
"Your soul is the last variable," a voice whispered — digital, hollow, and terrifying. "Will you delete yourself to save them?"
Sable turned to his friends. They were glitching now — their bodies phasing in and out. The Endgame Protocol had begun.
But he wasn't going to let Eidolon win.
"I'm rewriting this world," Sable said, voice low, eyes glowing. "I'm ending the cycle. Not with power. With truth."
He opened the code editor on the terminal. The screen flooded with corrupted characters. The Pulse surged inside him, threatening to tear his body apart. But his hands didn't tremble.
He started to type.
And the world around him began to shake.
Reality and the game blurred. The server's core screamed. The corrupted sun above shattered, raining red fire across the land. The survivors screamed. But Sable didn't stop. He kept typing.
> "If you're reading this…"
"Then I've broken the cycle."
"And you're finally free."
Rika collapsed beside him. The Pulse started burning his veins. His consciousness flickered.
And just before the system could shut down, one final message appeared:
> "Override Accepted. Uploading New Protocol: Eidolon//Rebirth"
Blackout.
Only silence remained.
To be concluded… in Chapter 50.
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