Chapter 13: The Root of All Errors
The Capital was no longer the city of gold. It was a [DE-RES] nightmare.
Buildings that had stood for centuries were now flickering grids of light. The citizens—the elite who had spent their lives profiting from the "Deletions" of the poor—were now experiencing the horror of instability. Some were missing limbs that had been replaced by floating, unrendered blocks; others stood frozen in place as their "Collision Data" failed, sinking halfway into the marble streets.
"The Cathedral is ahead," Kaelen shouted, his binary eye pulsing with a frantic red light. He was using his charcoal arm to "Stabilize" the air around them, preventing the group from being caught in the localized physics-lags. "But Elara, the security is no longer automated! Valerius has diverted all the remaining power into the Inquisition-Daemon!"
[TIME REMAINING: 18:42:10]
[SYSTEM INTEGRITY: 14%]
Standing before the massive, glowing doors of the Root Cathedral was a monstrosity that shouldn't have existed. It was a towering knight, forty feet tall, but its body was made entirely of "Deleted Data"—a swirling mass of grey faces, broken swords, and flickering scrolls. It was a literal graveyard of everything the System had ever thrown away.
[BOSS IDENTIFIED: THE INQUISITION-DAEMON (ARCHIVE_AMALGAM)]
[LEVEL: ERROR]
[CAPABILITY: INSTANT_DELETION]
"He's using our own history against us," Joran growled, his void-shoulder glowing with a fierce, dark light. He stepped forward, his feet cracking the unstable floor. "Every soul they ever 'Expressed'... they're all in there, forced to serve the Gate."
"Don't attack the faces, Joran!" Elara warned, her voice strained. She was leaning on a staff made of crystallized "Error-Logs." Her silver tattoos were gone, replaced by glowing scars that throbbed with every beat of the world's heart. "If you strike the faces, you're striking the memories of our people! You'll only strengthen the Archive!"
"Then what do we do?" Joran shouted as the Daemon raised a massive blade of flickering static, ready to cleave the bridge in two.
"We give them a [COMMIT_TERMINATION]," Elara said, her eyes spinning in a desperate, kaleidoscopic whirl. "We don't fight them. We set them free."
The Daemon struck. The ground shattered into white pixels.
Joran lunged forward, using his [BUFFER_REDIRECTION] to catch the blade. The impact sent a shockwave through the district, shattering the windows of nearby ghost-buildings. "Architect! I can't hold it for long! The data-load is too high!"
Elara didn't run. She sat down on the vibrating bridge, closing her eyes. She wasn't looking at the Daemon with her eyes; she was looking at its "File-Header."
The Archive-Amalgam was held together by a single, high-level command: [FORCE_APPEND]. The System was forcing these deleted souls to stay together in a single "File" to act as a shield.
It's an unclosed loop, Elara realized.
She reached into her own fractured "Core." She didn't have much power left, but she had the Kernel Fragment of the first Administrator she had defeated. She used it as a "Final Period" (A Full Stop).
> Command: [CLOSE_FILE_STREAM]
> Target: [ARCHIVE_AMALGAM_01]
> Argument: [REST_IN_PEACE]
She fired the command. Not at the Daemon's chest, but at its feet—the point where the "Code" connected to the Cathedral.
The effect was instantaneous. The swirling mass of grey faces stopped screaming. The flickering blade of static began to dissolve, not into pixels, but into soft, white light. The "Force-Append" command was broken. The souls weren't being deleted; they were finally being [SAVED].
The forty-foot knight collapsed, turning into a cloud of glowing embers that drifted upward into the darkening sky.
The Cathedral doors groaned open.
Inside, there was no altar. There were no pews. There was only a vast, infinite hall filled with golden "Threads" that stretched from the floor to a point of light so bright it was blinding. This was the Loom of Reality.
And sitting at the center of the Loom, surrounded by floating screens of red and gold, was Administrator Valerius. He looked older now, his skin translucent, his veins glowing with the blue fluid of the processors.
"You've broken my world, Elara," Valerius said, his voice echoing in a dozen different tones. He didn't look at her; he was frantically typing on a keyboard made of light. "The Capital is falling. The oceans are evaporating. All because you couldn't accept your place as a 'User'."
"My place is to be human," Elara said, stepping into the hall. Kaelen and Joran followed, their weapons ready. "And a human doesn't run on the blood of others."
"Humanity is a bug!" Valerius roared, turning to face her. Behind him, the Loom began to spin faster, the golden threads fraying and snapping. "Humanity is inefficient! I am trying to build a world that lasts forever! A world without errors! A world without you!"
[WARNING: TOTAL REFORMAT INITIATED: 00:05:00]
"Where is he?" Elara asked, her eyes searching the shadows behind the Loom. "The First Architect. The one who left the breadcrumbs."
Valerius laughed, a hollow, terrifying sound. He pointed to a small, withered figure huddled in a cage of glass beneath the Loom. It was an old man, smaller than the Librarian, his body covered in ancient, original code-tattoos that were so complex they hurt to look at.
"He is the 'Source Code'," Valerius hissed. "And I am the 'Update'. To save the world, I must delete the Source."
Valerius raised his hand. A massive, golden "Delete" cursor appeared over the cage of the First Architect.
"Stop him!" Kaelen screamed, launching a burst of static.
But Valerius was at the Root. He was God here. He waved his hand, and Kaelen was frozen in a "Stasis-Field," his charcoal arm turned into harmless glass. Joran tried to charge, but the floor beneath him turned into a "Slide-Surface," sending him crashing into the wall.
Elara stood alone.
"You have no permissions here, Elara," Valerius sneered, the cursor beginning to glow with the power of the final Reset. "You are an unauthenticated guest. Goodbye."
Elara looked at the First Architect. The old man looked back at her. He didn't look afraid. He winked.
And in that moment, Elara saw the final "Error."
The Loom wasn't being run by Valerius. Valerius was just a "Process" running on the Loom. And every process, no matter how powerful, has a [TERMINATE_TASK] button.
"I don't need permissions," Elara whispered, her kaleidoscopic eyes turning a solid, brilliant silver. "I am the System-Crash."