The stars were quiet.
Jin Mu sat alone in the meditation chamber, the glyph from the Beast God inheritance dimming in his palm. The Convergence Signal had gone silent, but the silence felt… heavy. Like the pause before a storm.
He accessed the Void Engine's archive again, searching for anomalies. The system responded slowly, as if reluctant. A new file appeared — not encrypted, not hidden.
"Echo Drift: Probability Degradation Detected."
Jin Mu frowned.
He ran a diagnostic.
His presence in the timeline was beginning to degrade. The longer he stayed, the more unstable reality became. The Sigil pulsed erratically. His memories blurred. His anchors weakened.
He was becoming a paradox.
Not just in name — but in nature.
He closed the file and stared at the stars. Was this the cost of being the shield? To protect the story, must he eventually vanish from it?
Then — a message.
From the Architect.
"Meet me."
She had never sent a direct message before.
Jin Mu followed the coordinates to a simulation chamber shaped like a library — endless shelves of memory, floating books of failed timelines. She stood at the center, her form stable, her eyes calm.
"You're fading," she said.
"I know."
She gestured to the shelves. "These are the stories we tried to rewrite. Every one of them collapsed."
Jin Mu walked among them. He saw echoes of himself — Zhen Mu, Protocols Two through Eight. Each one had tried to protect the story. Each one had failed.
Except him.
"You're the last," she said. "The only one still anchored."
Jin Mu turned to her. "Why call me here?"
She hesitated.
"I want to show you something."
She led him to a sealed shelf — locked with paradox code. She opened it.
Inside was a book.
Blank.
"This is the future," she said. "Unwritten. Unstable. If you fade, it collapses."
Jin Mu touched the book.
It pulsed.
He saw visions — Luo Feng ascending, humanity rising, the Sector Lords falling. But he also saw himself — fading, forgotten, erased.
"I don't want to vanish," he said.
She nodded. "Then anchor yourself."
"How?"
She handed him a shard — a fragment of her own memory. Her origin. Her pain. Her transformation.
"Embed this in the Void Engine," she said. "Let the system remember you."
Jin Mu hesitated.
"If I do this," he said, "I become part of the story."
She smiled. "You already are."
He took the shard.
Returned to the Void Engine's core.
Embedded it.
The system pulsed.
A new file appeared.
"Echo Protocol: Jin Mu. Status: Integrated."
He was no longer a glitch.
He was a guardian.
Back in the simulation chamber, Luo Feng completed his latest trial. Babata cheered. The boy's aura flared. The timeline stabilized.
Jin Mu watched from the shadows.
The Architect stood beside him.
"You're anchored now," she said.
He nodded.
"But the war isn't over."
She smiled.
"No," she said. "It's just beginning."