The simulation labeled "Echo Protocol: Jin Mu — Final Ascension" pulsed like a countdown.
Jin Mu stood in the Void Nexus, the glyph from the Beast God inheritance now fused with the Architect's shard and Luo Feng's anchor. He was no longer a guardian. No longer a shadow. No longer a myth.
He was the convergence.
The Void Engine had accepted him. The Watcher had stepped back. The Architect had vanished.
But the Paradox Order had returned.
A new simulation activated — unauthorized, encrypted, unstable.
It was labeled:
"Echo Protocol: Myth Overwrite — Entity: X."
Jin Mu entered.
The simulation was a mirror of the Virtual Universe — but rewritten. Luo Feng was absent. Jin Mu was erased. And at the center stood a new figure.
Entity X.
Tall. Cloaked. Eyes like voids. Aura like silence.
"You've held the story too long," it said. "Now it belongs to us."
Jin Mu summoned the Sigil. The simulation resisted. Reality bent. The glyph flared.
Entity X raised a hand.
The simulation twisted.
Fragments of rewritten timelines surged — versions where humanity fell, where the Beast God was corrupted, where ascension led to collapse. Each one pulsed with entropy.
Jin Mu fought.
He bent causality. Rewrote probability. Anchored memory. But Entity X adapted. It wasn't a virus. It was a rewrite engine — designed to overwrite myths, erase anchors, and collapse convergence.
Then — a voice.
Luo Feng.
Not in the simulation.
In Jin Mu's mind.
"Don't fight alone."
Jin Mu reached inward.
He accessed the merged thread.
Luo Feng's memories surged — trials, choices, sacrifices. The glyph flared brighter. The simulation cracked.
Entity X staggered.
"You're not one story," it said. "You're two."
Jin Mu stepped forward.
"No," he said. "We're one."
He embedded the glyph into the simulation's core.
The rewrite engine screamed.
The simulation collapsed.
Entity X vanished.
Jin Mu landed in the Void Nexus, breathless.
The Void Engine pulsed.
A message appeared:
"Final Ascension: Accepted. Myth Stabilized."
The Watcher appeared.
"You chose unity," it said.
Jin Mu nodded.
"I chose memory."
Then — a tremor.
A new simulation activated.
Not from the Void Engine.
Not from the Watcher.
Not from the Order.
From the story itself.
It was labeled:
"Echo Protocol: Jin Mu — Epilogue Begins."
Jin Mu froze.
The myth was complete.
But the story wasn't over.