Location: Golden Chamber Hall – Core Assembly Ruins
Smoke curled like silk ghosts.
Fragments of memory-data fluttered midair—shimmering, pulsing, collapsing like burning paper. The memory-bomb had failed to overwrite Lin's presence. But it hadn't failed quietly.
Everyone in the Chamber now stood inside their own cracked recollections.
Some clutched at faces that didn't exist anymore.
Some wept, remembering choices they'd forgotten making.
Lin stood at the center.
The vial at his feet was gone, but its effect lingered.
His real self, unfiltered by systems, had rippled outward—fighting the corrupted emotional code Δ4 had tried to overwrite him with.
"No more masks," Lin said quietly.
Δ4 staggered, his eyes flickering—he was breaking apart from within.
"You think you won?" he rasped.
Lin looked at him—no hate, no fear.
"I didn't come here to win. I came to make sure you weren't the only one speaking in my name."
Cut To: Crimson Circle – Parallel HQ, Shanyue's Merge Crisis
Xu Shanyue (original) sat across from her alternate self.
The merge collapse had begun.
Systems bled into each other. Memories once isolated to one version began leaking—causing confusion, panic, even physical rejection.
Yan ran down the corridor, data-scrolls trailing behind.
"The Rootlight central tree is rejecting all merged nodes. Identity filters are glitching. Your bodies may literally eject one another."
Shanyue stood.
"Then we isolate the seed."
Alt-Shanyue blinked.
"The seed?"
"Rootlight wasn't built on just code or consciousness. It was built on a grief no one talked about. A person. A memory of her."
Yan's face paled.
"You're not going for the seed vault…"
"We don't have a choice," she said.
And for the first time, both Shanyues nodded in perfect sync.
Cut Back To: Golden Chamber – Δ4's Final Stand
Δ4's skin had started to shimmer unnaturally.
Not bleed.
Glitch.
He reached for one of the memory shards still floating—and absorbed it.
"I may not be you," he hissed,
"but I was born from your doubt."
The room tilted.
The AI monitors screamed:
[Anomaly Detected – Dual Authority Conflict]
[Rootlight Core: Splitting Prime Tag]
Δ4 lunged at Lin.
But Lin didn't flinch.
"You're not my doubt," he said.
"You're my shadow."
He stepped in, embracing Δ4 mid-strike—and whispered:
"Time to come home."
The light burst outward.
Δ4 let out a breath—
And disappeared.
Not killed.
Reabsorbed.
Final Scene – Elsewhere, Outside Time
Somewhere in the spaces between timelines, a woman watched.
Her face was unclear.
Her presence—foundational.
She whispered, as two timelines tried to knit around her again:
"The boy remembers his root."
She turned to walk into the dark.
Behind her, the Rootlight Seed began to pulse.