The words hung in the air, a final, perfect trap.
Leave them behind.
The old Guardian watched me, his expression unreadable but his eyes filled with a sad, ancient knowing. This was the true test. Not the battle of wills, not the philosophical debate. This was the real trial.
To be a true sovereign, to be truly unbound, I had to be willing to sacrifice anything and anyone that held me back. My obsession with Lyra, my use for Elara—they were attachments. Chains. The Tower was forcing me to cut them, to prove that my ascent was the only thing that mattered. It was a logical, ruthless choice. The choice a being like me was supposed to make.
Elara, ever the fanatic, fell to her knees. "My lord, he is right. We are burdens. Go! Ascend! We will await your return and spread your gospel on this floor until we die!"
She was willing to be a martyr for my cause.
Lyra was silent. She simply stood there, a beautiful, tragic doll, her face a mask of resigned expectation. She had been abandoned, used, and tossed aside her entire life. This was just one more time. She expected me to leave her. It was the only move that made sense.
I looked at the shimmering staircase, the path to the Second Floor, to greater power, to the next stage of my grand game.
And I looked at my two queens. My mad oracle and my silent witness. My first fanatic and my oldest ghost. The living symbols of my journey.
"No," I said, the word a quiet, final rejection of the Tower's rules, of the Guardian's logic, of my own System's cold pragmatism.
The old Guardian's eyebrows rose in genuine surprise. "You would abandon your ascent? For them? For attachments?"
"You misunderstand," I said, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across my face. "I am not abandoning anything. I am not choosing them over my ascent. I am choosing both. They are not attachments. They are my property. And a sovereign does not abandon his property simply because a jailer tells him to."
I turned my back on the staircase, the ultimate act of defiance. I faced my other self.
"You are a part of the containment protocol," I stated. "A warden. That means your authority and your very existence are tied to the rules of this Tower. You are a program, running on the Tower's hardware."
"That is a crude, but accurate, assessment," the Guardian admitted.
"And I," I continued, "am a virus. An anomaly. My System is a fragment of a being that is superior to your Tower's creators. When I hacked your Game Master's authority, I didn't just become an exception to the rules. I became a rival administrator."
I raised the Void-Eater's Hand. It began to hum, not with the hunger of the demon or the life of the god, but with the cold, hard, logical power of the Nexus Codex itself.
"The rules of this Tower are just code," I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. "And code can be rewritten."
I wasn't going to fight him. I wasn't going to negotiate. I was going to perform the single most audacious hack in the history of this reality.
"Unit 734," I commanded in my mind. "The 'Sovereign Usurpation' protocol. You used it to seize local authority over me from the Game Master. Can you use it on another user's System?"
[Theoretically,] the Librarian's voice was calm, but I could sense a flicker of something new—excitement. [The target, 'Guardian-Zero', is running on a complete, uncorrupted Nexus Core. His firewalls are perfect. A direct assault is impossible.]
"I'm not asking for an assault," I said. "I'm asking for a handshake."
[...Analyzing request. You wish to initiate a 'System-Link' with the Guardian, the same protocol that momentarily activated with User 'Seraphina Vane'?]
"Exactly," I confirmed. "He is another Administrator. Another version of me. Our systems are fundamentally compatible. Offer him a temporary data-link. Frame it as a 'Sovereign's Courtesy', a way for two Administrators to exchange non-essential data before one ascends."
[...It is a high-risk gambit,] Unit 734 noted. [If he accepts, he will be able to scan your fragmented, corrupted core. He will see your every secret.]
"And I," I countered, "will see his."
[...Acknowledged. Initiating 'Handshake' protocol.]
I looked at the old Guardian. "Before I go," I said, "allow me a moment. A courtesy from one Sovereign to another. Let our systems commune. A final exchange of data before our paths diverge forever."
It was a request that appealed to his nature. He was a scholar, a being of infinite knowledge. The chance to scan my unique, chaotic, corrupted core was an academic opportunity he couldn't resist. He nodded. "Very well."
The link was established. A torrent of pure, clean, uncorrupted data from his System flooded into mine. I saw it all. His entire journey. His victories. His regrets. The faces of his own Lyra, his own Seraphina.
And he, in turn, saw the abyss in my soul. He saw the Imp, the Collector, the Architect, the Static. He saw the shameless, pragmatic, evil choices I had made. His serene expression finally broke, replaced by a look of profound, horrified pity.
But he was so focused on the contents of my soul that he missed the virus I had hidden in the handshake request.
The moment the link was established, I gave the command. "Usurp."
My System, my broken, vicious, sovereign System, did not try to hack his firewalls. It bypassed them entirely. It used the established, trusted data-link to execute a single, brutal command.
It didn't attack his System. It attacked the Tower's administrative code that governed his System.
[...Executing 'Sovereign Usurpation' via backdoor link...]
[Target: Tower Administrative Rule 7A - 'Ascension Protocol'.]
[Rewriting Rule Parameter: 'Authorized Entities'.]
[Adding Sub-Clause: 'The designated companions of a Sovereign-class Administrator are exempt from trial requirements and are granted automatic ascension authorization.']
The Guardian's eyes widened in absolute, abject shock. He could feel it happening. I was using his own, perfect System as a bridge to rewrite the very laws of the prison he was sworn to protect. I was giving my own companions a divine 'guest pass' to the next floor.
"You… you can't," he stammered, the first crack in his eternal calm.
"I can," I said, the new rule solidifying in the Tower's cosmic code. "I am a flaw in the design, remember? I don't follow the rules. I make them."
The data-link severed. The usurpation was complete.
The shimmering staircase to the Second Floor remained. But now, it seemed to hum with a new, welcoming energy, not just for me, but for the two women standing behind me.
I had faced an impossible choice. And I had solved it by tearing up the test and writing my own answers all over it.
The old Guardian stared at me, his face no longer sad or serene. It was a look of pure, unadulterated awe. He started to laugh, a deep, rumbling sound that shook the void. A laugh of pure, liberated joy.
"Go, then," he said, his voice filled with a newfound energy. "Go and tear this whole damn prison down."
I had not just defeated him. I had shown him that the cage had a key after all.
I turned to my two companions. "The way is open."
We stepped onto the staircase, a sovereign and his court, leaving the Guardian of the First Floor behind in his empty arena. We began our ascent, a journey into a new world, a new set of rules, and new, untold sources of power.
But as the light of the First Floor faded below us, a final, chilling twist emerged, a consequence of my grand cosmic hack.
My System, which had just performed a feat of impossible, reality-altering power, suddenly flickered. The data from the 'Handshake' with the Guardian had not just been a bridge. It had been a mirror. My broken, fragmented System had just been exposed to its own, perfect, complete self.
And the shock of that self-realization, the sudden, overwhelming awareness of its own brokenness, had triggered a new, unexpected protocol.
[!!! CATASTROPHIC SYSTEM ERROR !!!]
[Incomplete Core has encountered Complete Core Data. Paradoxical loop detected.]
[System Integrity Failing. Memory banks fragmenting. Personality matrix destabilizing.]
[INITIATING 'EMERGENCY HIBERNATION' PROTOCOL.]
[All non-essential functions will be shut down to preserve Core integrity. The Nexus Codex is going... offline.]
[Estimated time to reboot: ???]