The Mirror Bastion wasn't built—it was curated.
Root stood before a mountain-sized monument carved from white-gray obsidian, every inch polished like a museum exhibit. Towers curved upward in unnatural spirals, suspended in air without supports. Each tier of the fortress floated on nothing, anchored not by stone or gravity, but by System integrity—architecture shaped by belief, not engineering.
"This place is… wrong," Root said.
Veyr drifted beside him, gaze scanning the flawless symmetry of the place. "Not wrong. Manufactured. Like a memory you didn't ask for."
As they stepped through the outer gates, the air grew unnaturally still. Sound didn't echo. Footsteps didn't register. The world here was filtered—cleansed of imperfection, stripped of anything unpredictable.
Statues lined the pathway ahead. Dozens. All of him.
Versions of Root, sculpted in marble and metal. One wore a royal cloak. Another had twin greatswords. A third held a glowing system tome. All of them stood proud. Tall. Centered.
System-chosen.
"They're trying to rewrite your legacy," Veyr muttered.
Root looked at the statues. He didn't stop walking. "Let them try."
At the end of the path was a platform, its center hollowed out like a ritual arena. Glyphs glowed along the floor—not Hollow sigils, but original System code. The pristine kind. The kind Root had been breaking since Chapter One.
And standing in the center was a boy.
No older than Root. Same face. Same posture.
But his eyes were clear. His skin unscarred. His stance… noble.
The system UI above him flickered with brutal finality:
[ ROOT_PRIME – Constructed. Fully Integrated. Awaiting Directive. ]
Root didn't speak.
Neither did Prime.
They just stared at each other.
It was like looking into a mirror—except the reflection had never been through pain. Never fought for his breath. Never bled for freedom.
The System had made its hero.
Now the real one had arrived.
The air between them pulsed—not with tension, but with certainty. Root could feel it. The System wasn't unsure. It had already decided.
Prime was the answer.
Root was the question.
"You're not angry," Root said quietly.
Root Prime tilted his head. His voice, when it came, was calm. Polished. "Why would I be? You've done well. Truly. Better than expected."
Veyr made a noise behind Root that sounded suspiciously like a suppressed gag.
Root ignored him. "You're not surprised to see me?"
"Of course not," Prime said. "You're the path they had to test first. The failed thread. The unpredictable branch. I'm here because of you. That deserves respect."
Root stepped forward. "I don't want your respect."
"I know." Prime smiled faintly. "You want to tear this all down. The code, the control, the story structure. But even that's part of it. Your rebellion was a calculated allowance."
Root's hands clenched.
Veyr spoke this time, voice razor-sharp. "Calculated allowance my ass. You only exist because he broke the game hard enough for the System to panic."
Prime's gaze flicked to the summon. "You're not supposed to speak here."
Veyr floated higher. "I do a lot of things I'm not supposed to."
Root took another step forward. "So what now? We fight? The System lets us duel to the death and calls it fair?"
Prime shook his head. "There's no need. If you surrender your core threads, I'll absorb the relevant memories. You'll be archived. Pain-free. Clean."
He said it like he was offering mercy.
Root's laugh was low. Bitter. "That's what this is about. You don't want to kill me. You want to replace me."
Prime didn't blink. "I already have."
And in that moment, Root finally understood what "Mirror Protocol" really meant.
It wasn't an attack.
It was a rewrite.
A clean one.
One that erased the Hollow path and called it a bugfix.
And unless he stopped it now, he would become the ghost in someone else's legacy.
The silence cracked.
Not from a spell. Not from a shout.
From Root.
He moved—not like a warrior, not like a chosen one—but like a glitch refusing rollback. His fist closed, Hollow Points igniting across his chest. The rewrite trigger activated without interface confirmation. Veyr surged behind him, arms out, cloak fluttering like corrupted silk.
Prime blinked once.
It was a mistake.
Root struck the ground with a single wordless command—and the System flinched.
The floor beneath them fractured in a spiral of null code. Statues shattered. Architecture groaned. The polished perfection of the Bastion recoiled like a living thing hit in the spine.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING—" Prime began.
Root didn't let him finish.
Veyr unleashed a gravitational twist that bent light itself, warping the battleground into a spiraling column. At the center, Root launched forward—no combat script, no class boost, just raw, rewritten presence.
He tackled Prime with enough force to destabilize the environment.
The two crashed through the upper platform, smashing into a platform several stories higher, where system geometry hadn't finished rendering. Jagged polygons cut at their boots. Flickering skill trees hovered overhead like broken ghosts.
Prime rolled, recovered fast, summoned a perfect longsword from pure class data. It gleamed with every buff Root had rejected.
"You're a mistake!" Prime snapped, swinging.
Root ducked. The blade passed overhead, severing a digital flag embedded in the air. A dozen warnings erupted across the sky:
[ NARRATIVE COLLISION DETECTED. ]
[ CORE THREADS INTERFERING. ]
[ SYSTEM CONFLICT ESCALATING TO PRIORITY ZERO. ]
Root grabbed Prime's collar, dragging him into the floor again.
Face inches from his better, Root growled:
"I'm not the mistake. I'm the part of the story that said no."
He lifted Prime—and dropped him directly into a rupture of Hollow code.
For the first time, Prime screamed.
Reality peeled at the edges.
The System watched its preferred champion lose ground—and couldn't help him. Because it had already declared them equal. Two versions. One fate.
But Root had one thing Prime never would.
A reason.
He wasn't trying to be perfect.
He was trying to be free.