The tip of the rusty sword descended.
This was it. The ignoble end. Paralyzed by a war within my own soul, about to be killed by the broken toy I had so carelessly discarded. It was a pathetic, ironic death.
The psychic agony was absolute. The three fragments were tearing at the seams of my consciousness. My own Nexus Core fought to assert its dominance. Seraphina's Gacha shard, cold and logical, resisted with the weight of ancient law. And Lyra's fragment, the wild card, lashed out in a chaotic, terrified frenzy. It was a three-body problem in the landscape of my mind, a battle with no victor, only annihilation.
Lin Feng's face was a mask of grim, empty satisfaction. This was the only victory he had left.
As his blade began to pierce the skin over my heart, the Nexus Codex, in a final, desperate act of self-preservation, initiated a protocol I had never seen before. The text burned in my mind, a stark, white lifeline in a sea of torment.
[!!! SOVEREIGN CORE PROTOCOL INITIATED !!!]
[A THREE-WAY INTEGRATION FAILURE IS IMMINENT. HOST ANNIHILATION IN 3... 2... ]
[EMERGENCY OPTION: 'FORCED DELEGATION'.]
[Description: You are the Main Core. You can temporarily cede the battle for integration to one of the lesser fragments. You may force a 'Duel of Dominance' between the two foreign fragments. This will free a fraction of your will to deal with the immediate physical threat. WARNING: The victor of the duel will absorb the loser, becoming a significantly more powerful entity. Choose your champion wisely.]
A choice. A terrible, beautiful choice.
Do I bet on Seraphina, the cold, ancient agent of my creator, whose victory would make her an even more terrifyingly complete opponent?
Or do I bet on Lyra, the chaotic, hateful wild card, whose victory was unlikely but might create a more unpredictable, and thus exploitable, rival?
There was no time to think. Lin Feng's sword pushed deeper.
I made the only choice a pragmatist could. I chose the path of immediate survival.
"Delegate," I screamed in my mind. "Force the duel. Seraphina versus Lyra. Now!"
...COMMAND CONFIRMED. FORCING DUEL OF DOMINANCE.
The effect was instantaneous and agonizing. I felt a psychic 'snap' as the Nexus Core forcibly disengaged from the two warring fragments, shoving them together like two scorpions in a bottle. The pressure on my mind didn't vanish, but it lessened by a crucial, fractional amount. The all-consuming agony became a manageable torment.
It was enough.
My muscles unlocked. My body screamed in protest, but I could move.
With a surge of pure, desperate will, I activated the Void-Eater's Hand. I didn't try to block the sword. I didn't try to dodge.
I caught the blade.
My gauntlet-clad hand closed around the rusty, Qi-infused steel, inches from my heart. The metal groaned, screeching in protest as the 'Devour' function flared to life. I wasn't just stopping the blade. I was eating the energy reinforcing it.
Lin Feng's eyes went wide with shock. He pushed, pouring his remaining Qi into the strike, but it was like trying to fill a bottomless hole. My gauntlet drank the energy, the raw life force, the very concept of his attack.
"My turn," I rasped, my voice a strangled growl.
I yanked the sword from his grip and threw it aside. My other hand, my flesh and blood hand, shot out and clamped onto his face.
He was weak, his power spent on that one, final attack. He was a cultivator, but he was also just a man, and he was no match for my raw, physical strength. I slammed his head back against the crystalline rock, the impact cracking the stone.
"You were a good dog," I hissed, my face inches from his. "But it's time to be put down."
I activated 'Devour' through my palm. Not his Qi. Not his spiritual energy. His life force. The raw, biological energy that kept his heart beating.
He screamed, a thin, reedy sound as his body began to wither. His skin grew pale, his muscles trembled and atrophied. He was aging years in a matter of seconds, his vitality being siphoned directly into me, replenishing the energy I was losing to the psychic battle still raging in the background.
This was the true power of a Sovereign. Not fighting. Consuming.
But as I was draining the life from my half-brother, a new crisis erupted. The psychic duel between the two women had reached its climax. I could feel it through the fractured link. Seraphina's will, ancient, disciplined, and backed by the logic of a reincarnator, was overwhelming Lyra's chaotic, emotional frenzy. She was going to win. She was going to absorb Lyra's fragment and become immeasurably more powerful.
This was the price of my survival. A price I was willing to pay.
And then, something impossible happened.
Lyra's fragment, the wild card, the piece of the Lottery Wheel, did something illogical. It stopped fighting. It didn't surrender. It… opened itself. It dropped all its defenses and willingly, eagerly, merged with Seraphina's Gacha shard.
It was a psychic Trojan Horse.
Seraphina's will, expecting a final, desperate struggle, instead found an open door. It surged forward to consume and assimilate. And in doing so, it was infected.
The data-siphon screamed a series of alerts in my mind, detailing the catastrophe that was unfolding within my greatest rival's soul.
[!!! CRITICAL EVENT - SERAPHINA VANE !!!]
[System Fragment 'Gacha of Fate' has successfully assimilated System Fragment 'Lottery Wheel - Shard (Chaotic)'.]
[WARNING! WARNING! A 'LOGIC VIRUS' HAS BEEN INTRODUCED INTO THE HOST SYSTEM!]
[The assimilated fragment was not a standard component. It was a 'Glitch Protocol' byproduct. Its core programming is not 'Logic', but 'Chaos'.]
[Seraphina Vane's System is now critically corrupted.]
[Her 'Reincarnator' trait is in conflict with the Chaos data. Her 'Agent of the Architect' authority is in conflict with the Unbound data.]
[Her core personality matrix is destabilizing.]
Across the clearing, Seraphina's body went rigid. She let out a single, sharp cry, a sound of pure, unadulterated confusion.
I had won. In a way I could never have planned. My insane gambit with the Lottery Wheel had created a weapon, and Lyra, in her final, desperate act, had just delivered it directly into the heart of my enemy's operating system.
I had just crippled a god's chosen agent.
I was so focused on this staggering victory that I almost forgot about the dying man in my grasp. Lin Feng was a husk, moments from death.
But just as I prepared to drain the last dregs of his life, a final, reality-bending twist unfolded.
The gateway, the shimmering portal to the Higher Realms, which had been a passive backdrop to our struggle, suddenly flared. The beacon Seraphina had created sputtered and died.
The Architect was not coming.
The gateway itself seemed to shrink, to compress, its vast, shimmering surface focusing down onto a single point.
Onto Lin Feng.
A beam of pure, white, dimensional energy shot from the gateway and struck his dying body. It wasn't an attack. It was… a retrieval.
The world's 'Corrective Force', denied its chosen hero Valerius by the palace's disappearance, and denied its demonic tool Lin Feng by my actions, was making its final, desperate move. It was yanking its last remaining asset off the board before he could be deleted.
Lin Feng's withering body dissolved into particles of light. His soul, his very existence, was being pulled through the gateway, away from this world, away from me.
And as the last mote of his being vanished, the gateway itself, its purpose served, collapsed with a sound like shattering glass, leaving behind nothing but the scarred, empty earth.
The escape route was gone.
And the system delivered the final, chilling verdict.
[WORLD ANNOUNCEMENT]
[The World-Breaker Anomaly, Lin Feng, has been forcibly 'Ascended' by the World's Will.]
[The Wager of Realms is now void. There are no longer two designated rivals in this realm.]
[The Architect's primary agent, Seraphina Vane, is critically compromised.]
[The Sages' 'Path of Balance' has been rejected.]
[A new, singular 'Primary Anomaly' has been designated by the consensus of all cosmic forces.]
[Congratulations, Kaelen Ravencrest. You are now the sole, undisputed, final boss of this entire world.]