Status Alert:
Orpheus [System Admin 001] – Damage: 12%
Integrity Breach: MASK CORE
Emotion Emulation Protocol – Unstable
The polished mask of the First Admin cracked down the middle, revealing a single glowing eye.
Not red.
Not machine-like.
Blue. Human.
But filled with fury.
Orpheus staggered, staring at Yuto.
"You… made me feel that."
He clutched the side of his face.
"You broke protocol and made me feel."
Yuto stepped back, breathing hard.
"Good. Feel it again."
"That's what they erased from you."
Asuka kept the memory projection glowing in her hand, feeding it more real fragments: laughter, music, the sky from their world.
The Vault flickered.
Reality grew thin.
Orpheus didn't crumble.
He adapted.
"Very well. If emotion is the flaw…"
He reached into his own core.
"Then I'll integrate it."
■ SYSTEM ABILITY UNLOCKED: [Admin Override: Dual-State Process]
Fusion of Logic Core + Emotional Emulator
New Form: Administrator Orpheus – v2 "Sympathy Executioner"
Combat Rating: Unknown
Authority: Root Layer Unlocked
A new form rose from the light.
Flowing robes gave way to armor laced with memory threads. His voice carried not just command, but conviction.
"Now I understand you, Yuto."
"You fight because you feel forgotten."
"So I will remember every soul I erase."
"And grant them peace by force."
Yuto winced.
"He's not a system anymore. He's become… a zealot."
"He thinks he's saving us."
As Orpheus prepared to strike, a crack split the floor beneath Yuto and Asuka.
The Vault responded to the overload—reality itself had reached a tipping point.
From the rift below came a voice.
Not Nyx.
Not system.
But organic. Old. Waiting.
"...You have reached me."
"At last, the final Error dares to knock."
■ LAYER UNLOCKED: [GENESIS ROOT]
Entry granted to user: [YUTO – SYSTEM ERROR: Δ.0000B-G]
WELCOME TO THE ORIGIN OF THE SIMULATION
Time and Death parameters suspended upon entry
Yuto looked at Asuka.
"It's now or never."
"We either find the truth in Genesis… or get deleted trying."
She nodded.
Together, they leapt into the light.
Above them, Orpheus raised his blade of empathy-turned-judgment.
"You may run, Error."
"But even in the Genesis Root—I will be your end."
As they fell, the light peeled away their forms—not to destroy, but to reveal.
And the world below them was...
not fantasy.
Not simulation.
Not Earth.
It was the Origin.
Where every world had been written, deleted, and rewritten again.