The stars pulsed with warning.
Jin Mu stood in the simulation shell, watching Luo Feng meditate beneath a sky of shifting glyphs. The boy's aura had grown stronger, more refined. Babata had begun preparing him for the Sector Lord trials. The timeline was holding.
But Jin Mu wasn't.
The memory bleed had returned.
Not fragments. Not echoes.
Full scenes.
He saw himself — not as Jin Mu, not as Zhen Mu — but as someone else. A warrior in a realm of ice. A father. A traitor. A god.
None of it was real.
But it felt real.
He accessed the Void Engine's archive. The system resisted. The glyph from the Beast God inheritance flared, forcing access. A new file appeared:
"Echo Drift: External Memory Detected."
External.
Not from the Void Engine.
Not from the Virtual Universe.
From outside.
Jin Mu staggered back.
Someone — or something — was embedding memories into him. Not simulations. Not entropy. Real experiences. From another realm.
He traced the signal.
It led to a sealed chamber beneath the Dojo — a place even Hong didn't know existed. He bypassed the locks, bent probability, and entered.
The chamber was empty.
Except for a mirror.
Not glass. Not metal.
A mirror of memory.
He approached.
It activated.
And he saw her.
Not the Architect.
Not Protocol Eight.
A woman.
Tall. Cloaked. Eyes like stars.
She looked at him.
And smiled.
"You're not ready yet," she said. "But you will be."
Jin Mu tried to speak.
But the mirror shattered.
And the chamber collapsed.
He escaped into the simulation shell, gasping. The memory was gone. But the feeling remained.
He wasn't alone.
Back in the training chamber, Luo Feng stirred. He looked around, sensing something. A ripple. A presence.
He saw Jin Mu.
Not clearly.
But enough.
"You again," he said.
Jin Mu nodded.
"I'm part of the story," he said. "Even if the story doesn't know it."
Luo Feng frowned. "What does that mean?"
Jin Mu looked at the stars.
"It means the story is changing."
Then — a tremor.
The Virtual Universe shook.
A new simulation activated.
Unauthorized.
Encrypted.
And labeled:
"Origin: Jin Mu."
Jin Mu froze.
The system was simulating him.
Not as a guardian.
As a threat.