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Chapter 47 - The script must burn

Blackridge didn't sleep anymore.

It breathed — slow, heavy, and broken — like a wounded animal watching the skies for the next predator to drop. The stars above were veiled in ash, and the city's heart pulsed in silence. After everything, it was still standing.

So was Crispin.

But he didn't feel like a hero.

He stood alone on the edge of the Gate tower ruins, cloak torn, face half-burnt from the light of the System's core. The Crown marked his palm like a scar that refused to fade. Below, the city was trying to breathe. Rebuild. Pretend they hadn't all just stared death in the face.

He didn't have that luxury.

Because something followed him back.

A whisper in the back of his head. A flicker in the air. A… presence.

"You feel it too?" Yara asked softly, stepping beside him. Her voice trembled — not from fear, but from knowing too much. "It didn't end with that version of you, did it?"

Crispin didn't answer.

He couldn't.

Because deep down, he knew — the System had eyes. The script he shattered was being rewritten around him. The Crown hadn't saved him.

It had marked him.

From somewhere behind them, Revenna approached, bootsteps slow. "We've got movement near the Western sector. Small distortions. Gate activity."

"Again?" Crispin muttered.

Yara nodded. "That's the third this week."

"It's testing us," Revenna said. "Poking at the cracks."

Crispin's jaw tightened. "Then let it come."

His voice was calm, but inside, his chest was a warzone.

He wasn't chosen.

He wasn't blessed.

He wasn't meant to survive.

But he had.

And now the System wanted balance. Wanted control. Wanted him gone.

Too bad.

Because Crispin David wasn't done burning yet.

The streets of Blackridge were slowly coming back to life, but it wasn't the same life it used to know. Kids no longer played in the alleys. Market stalls stood half-full, guarded by twitchy hunters instead of old women with sharp tongues and louder laughter. The wind carried smoke and silence now. No songs. No joy. Just the sound of breathing people pretending not to be afraid.

Crispin walked through it all like a shadow. He saw the fear in their eyes — not of him, but of what followed behind him. They didn't say it out loud, but they knew.

He had changed.

People whispered stories. That he'd vanished during the fight. That the System itself had spoken to him. That he bled light now instead of blood.

And none of them were wrong.

Crispin stopped at what used to be a corner bookstore. The walls were blackened, the sign half-melted. Inside, scorched shelves leaned against each other like dying trees. He stepped in slowly. The floor crunched beneath his boots.

He remembered this place. Before the first Gate. Before the world cracked open.

He used to hide here with Yara when they were kids. She would read the books she couldn't afford. He'd keep watch in case the shopkeeper came around.

Now it was just ash and echoes.

He bent down, lifted a half-burnt copy of a children's tale — The Light in the Fog. Pages gone. Only the spine remained.

Behind him, Yara stepped in, her voice soft. "You used to love that one."

"I still do," he said, brushing soot off the cover. "It was about a boy who could walk through storms and not lose his way."

She leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "And now?"

He looked up. "Now I'm the storm."

For a second, neither of them spoke.

Then Yara said, "They're saying you're cursed, you know."

"I am."

She didn't argue. "Still doesn't mean you walk this alone."

Crispin looked at her for a long moment, eyes tired. "Yes, it does."

Before she could answer, the sky cracked open.

A sound like thunder twisted sideways echoed through the city. The clouds rippled — not with rain, but with something wrong.

A Gate.

But not a normal one.

This was wide. Deep. Its color wasn't blue or black — it was red. Crimson, pulsing like a heartbeat. It opened above the Eastern ruins like a mouth ready to swallow the world.

Revenna's voice came through the comm crystal in his ear. "You seeing this?"

Crispin stepped into the street, eyes locked on the blood-red wound in the sky. "Yeah."

Yara's voice dropped. "That's not a Gate. That's something else."

Crispin's grip tightened around the hilt of his sword.

"No," he said. "That's them reacting."

"Who?" Revenna asked.

"The System," he replied. "And whatever gods are behind it."

The red Gate howled, and the sky bled.

Crispin stared into it.

And it stared back.

The red Gate tore across the sky like an open wound. People dropped whatever they were doing, eyes turned upward, faces frozen between awe and dread. Children clung to their mothers. Merchants abandoned stalls. Even the hunters who'd faced death a hundred times stood still, unsure if they were witnessing the next battle—or the end.

Crispin didn't wait.

He ran.

Boots slamming into the cracked pavement, sword sheathed behind his back, the Crown on his palm pulsing hotter with every step toward the rising dread. He didn't call for backup. Didn't ask questions. This wasn't something the others could stop. Not now.

Yara and Revenna followed anyway.

"You know you're not invincible," Revenna called from behind him.

"No," Crispin replied, not slowing. "But I am tired of running."

They reached the blast zone in minutes. The Eastern ruins were already being swallowed by a storm of red light. Buildings shattered inward, sucked toward the Gate's pull. The ground trembled beneath their feet, alive with something ancient, wrong, and hungry.

Out of the Gate, they came.

The first wave.

Monsters, yes — but not like the ones before. These weren't corrupted beasts or twisted Echoes. These were clean. Precise. Designed.

Tall, humanoid. Black armor wrapped in chains. Eyes glowing white, emotionless. They didn't roar. They didn't screech. They simply moved.

Crispin drew his sword.

One of them stepped forward and… spoke.

"We have come to correct the anomaly."

Crispin took a step forward. "Say my name."

"You are not named. You are deviation."

Revenna raised her blade. "I'm guessing that's their way of saying they want to kill you."

"They can try."

The enemy didn't charge.

They walked.

Calm. Deliberate.

Until the first one was close enough.

Crispin moved like lightning, blade flashing in the red light. Steel met armor. The creature parried effortlessly, faster than it had any right to be.

Then it struck.

Crispin flew backward, crashing into a broken wall. Pain shot through his side, ribs cracking.

Yara screamed and hurled a storm of fire, but the flames twisted mid-air, caught by one of the soldiers' hands, absorbed like dust into the wind.

"What the hell are they?" she shouted.

Revenna went in next. Fast. Ruthless. Her sword slashed across one of their necks — but the wound didn't bleed.

It glowed.

Then sealed shut.

"They're not alive," Revenna growled. "They're something else."

Crispin stood again, coughing, wiping blood from his mouth. "They're anti-Echoes."

Yara blinked. "What?"

"They were made by the System," he said, eyes locked on the red Gate above. "To erase anything born from death. From resurrection. From me."

One of the black-armored soldiers turned its head, slow and stiff, like a machine learning curiosity.

"You are not sanctioned," it said.

"And you're not welcome," Crispin spat.

He raised his blade again.

But this time, he whispered a word under his breath. A word only the dead should know.

"Arise."

Nothing happened.

He tried again.

"Arise."

Still silence.

Yara's breath hitched. "Crispin…"

"They're jamming it," he muttered. "I can't summon them."

The soldiers advanced again. Five. Ten. Fifteen now. Forming a circle. Tightening.

Revenna's knuckles whitened. "We can't win this."

"No," Crispin said. "But we can survive it."

"How?"

He turned his eyes to the Gate — to the raw, beating red light at its center.

"By going through."

Yara's eyes widened. "That's suicide."

"It's worse than suicide," Revenna said. "It's a trap."

"Maybe," Crispin said. "But traps work both ways."

One of the soldiers charged. Crispin ducked low, swept its legs, and stabbed upward through the gap in its neck. For a second — just a second — it stopped moving. Glitched.

Then collapsed.

The rest didn't hesitate. They surged forward.

Crispin grabbed Yara and Revenna and shouted, "RUN!"

Not away.

Toward the Gate.

Toward the thing trying to erase him.

Toward the fire that wanted to consume him.

Because maybe inside that fire…

He'd find something to burn back.

The red Gate howled like it was alive — like it hated them personally. Wind tore through the air, warping sound, dragging the world sideways. As Crispin ran straight toward it, his body screamed for him to stop. His mind flashed with a thousand ways this could end, and all of them were bad.

But the worst thing he could do now… was hesitate.

Yara and Revenna were right behind him. Neither questioned him. Not out loud. They trusted him — even when that trust looked like suicide.

The moment his foot crossed the threshold of the Gate, the world ripped itself apart.

Color vanished.

Sound folded in on itself.

And then… nothing.

Just a silence so absolute it made his bones ache.

Crispin opened his eyes to a place that wasn't a place.

Everything around him was red.

Not blood red. Not fire red.

Red like raw code.

Red like an error message screaming across the sky.

There was no ground. No sky. No gravity.

He floated.

So did Revenna and Yara.

Yara grabbed his arm, panic in her voice. "Where are we?!"

Crispin's voice came out slow, like it had to fight through the air. "Inside their world."

Revenna spun slowly in place, sword drawn but useless here. "This is the System."

Crispin shook his head. "No. This is what they made to replace the System. Their failsafe."

Suddenly, the red light pulsed.

And the world shifted.

They weren't floating anymore.

They were falling.

Fast.

The landscape snapped into shape beneath them — towers of data, buildings made of shifting memory, floors that pulsed with unreadable symbols. It looked like a city, but it wasn't real. It was a lie that had never been meant to be seen.

They crashed into it hard.

Crispin rolled across a platform of pure red light. The air tasted like static. Sparks flew from the ground every time they breathed.

Yara coughed, bleeding from her nose. "Where the hell is this?!"

He looked up.

At the sky.

At the massive statue rising above the city.

It was him.

A statue of Crispin, perfect and polished — wearing armor he'd never owned, standing over the ruins of Virelia, foot crushing Blackridge's gates, hand holding the Crown high.

And his face was smiling.

Revenna swore under her breath. "They built this world… to control the narrative."

Crispin's mouth went dry. "No. They built it to replace me."

A voice echoed all around them.

"You do not belong in the next version of the world."

The voice wasn't angry.

It was calm.

Like it was just following orders.

Out of the statue's chest, a door opened.

And from within it…

Stepped another version of Crispin.

Younger. Shinier. Stronger.

This one looked like a god.

No scars. No damage. Perfect teeth. Perfect posture. Eyes that glowed like systems running at full power. He looked like a dream.

And that was the problem.

"I am what you should've been," the fake Crispin said. "And now I will take your place."

Crispin stepped forward, sword gripped in shaking fingers. "You're not real."

The other him smiled. "No. I'm just better."

Crispin laughed.

The kind of laugh that had pain underneath it.

The kind of laugh that meant you've gone too far.

"I've fought gods," Crispin said. "I've buried friends. I've bled in every street of this city. And you think you deserve to wear my face?"

The perfect Crispin raised a glowing hand.

"Then let me earn it."

The sky fell.

Again.

And the fight for his identity began.

Crispin didn't wait for the fake to strike first.

He charged.

His boots hit the pulsing red floor with force that cracked the data beneath him. Sword in hand, he moved with everything he had left — the fury of a thousand near-deaths, the weight of all the friends he'd lost, the hate he had for what the System made him into.

The perfect version of him didn't flinch.

It raised one glowing hand.

Crispin slashed downward.

Steel met light.

The impact shook the whole world.

Shockwaves ripped across the platform, sending Yara and Revenna tumbling back. Walls of red data folded in on themselves, flickering like corrupted code trying to fix itself. The fake Crispin caught the blade — caught it with his bare hand — and his eyes locked with Crispin's, glowing like a system fully online.

"You are inefficient," the fake said, voice like a machine. "You are incomplete."

Crispin growled and shoved forward, forcing the sword down harder. "And you're not me."

The fake shoved him back with one arm like he weighed nothing.

Crispin crashed into a wall of shifting symbols, cracked it, and rolled off with a grunt. His shoulder popped. Blood ran from his nose.

But he got up.

Yara shouted, hurling a blast of blue fire at the fake. It hit—but the flame turned to static mid-air, absorbed before it could even touch him.

"Magic here is not yours to wield," the fake said.

Revenna attacked next, fast as lightning. Her blade went for the neck.

The fake twisted slightly.

Her sword passed through empty air.

Then a glowing palm hit her in the stomach.

She flew.

Crispin barely caught her before she hit a spire of code, but she was unconscious.

He stared at the fake version of himself.

This thing was faster. Smarter. It moved with intention. Like it knew every move before he made it.

"I am what they wanted," the fake said. "A bearer who follows the Code. Who bends but never breaks."

Crispin wiped blood off his mouth. "And you're still boring."

He ran again, blade flashing in a reverse grip. The Crown on his hand flared—not gold, but a pale, unstable light—and as he swung, he yelled the words the System hated most:

"Arise."

But not to command the dead.

This time, he meant himself.

The strike hit harder.

Hard enough to break the fake's defense. The sword carved through light, sliced past the perfect version's side. Sparks flew. The fake stumbled back, shocked.

Blood. Real blood. Just a drop.

Crispin smiled through the pain. "So you can bleed."

The fake hissed.

For the first time, it looked… angry.

"You are a threat to the New Script," it said.

"And you're just a knockoff," Crispin shot back.

The fake screamed.

And the world around them obeyed.

The sky twisted. Dozens of glowing weapons formed from thin air — spears, swords, hammers — each one aimed at him.

They flew.

Crispin raised his hand—and the Crown glowed again.

"ARISE!"

Not just once. Not for a single Echo.

But for everything this place had erased.

And the ground around him exploded.

Because he wasn't alone.

From the walls, from the floor, from the broken data — shadows rose.

Not just Echoes.

Not just monsters.

But memories.

Flickering ghosts of every version of him the System had killed before it settled on this one. Alternate selves. Forgotten lives.

They rose behind him, swords in hand, eyes burning.

The perfect Crispin faltered.

"What… is this?"

Crispin stepped forward, shadow army at his back.

"You tried to overwrite me," he said.

"I'm the original glitch. The fracture."

He pointed his sword.

"And you're just a patch."

The ghosts screamed.

And the war began.

The battlefield wasn't a battlefield.

It was a memory.

It was a system error.

It was war dressed up as logic.

The fake Crispin stood at the center, glowing like a god wrapped in red lightning, while Crispin himself stood surrounded by echoes of every version of him the System had ever killed, wiped, or rejected. Shadows of what could've been. What should've been.

Now, they were angry.

And they followed him.

The first to strike wasn't Crispin—it was the one they used to call 3.2. A leaner version of himself, eyes covered in a blindfold, wielding a curved blade. 3.2 spun through the air and slammed into the fake like a crashing comet. Steel clashed against artificial light. Sparks flew. The fake staggered, but only for a second.

Then came 2.7, a version that had lived long enough to grow gray in the hair and scars across the chest. He screamed as he brought a massive warhammer down. The perfect one dodged it and countered, a beam of red slicing through the older Echo's shoulder.

He didn't fall. He roared and kept going.

Crispin moved through them all like a conductor in a brutal orchestra. He knew their moves because he was them. Each strike, each feint, each cry of war — he'd lived some version of it.

This wasn't an army he summoned.

This was a funeral the System forgot to finish.

And now every dead version of him was here to collect.

"You don't get to wear my face," Crispin shouted as he slammed into the fake, both blades grinding against each other. "You didn't earn it."

The fake didn't scream. It didn't shout.

It just whispered.

"The real you died in the first Gate."

Crispin's grin broke through the blood on his face. "And still I got out."

The fake slammed its forehead into his — a brutal, sudden crack — but Crispin didn't fall. He stabbed deep into its thigh, twisted, then kicked it back into a column of crashing code.

Red symbols exploded across the platform.

"System error: bearer conflict detected," the sky screamed.

Revenna stirred nearby, eyes fluttering open. She sat up and stared at the battlefield, jaw clenching.

"What the hell is he doing?" she muttered.

Yara stood beside her now, fists crackling with unstable flame. "He's killing himself."

"No," Revenna said slowly. "He's proving he's the only one of himself."

The fake Crispin began changing.

Glitching.

Its perfect skin started flickering — showing flashes of all the versions it tried to absorb. It wasn't stable anymore. The power of the system was too much for it. Too many identities. Too many layers.

Crispin saw it and stepped forward.

"Look at you," he said, blade dripping, clothes torn, eyes burning. "You were built to be flawless. But they forgot the one thing that makes me strong."

The fake looked up, unsteady now. "You are chaos."

"No," Crispin said. "I'm real."

And then he did something no one expected.

He dropped his sword.

Walked forward.

And hugged the fake.

The fake tried to resist. Glowed violently. But Crispin whispered:

"You're just another me they killed."

And the light collapsed.

All around them, the ghosts screamed. Then they smiled. Then they vanished, one by one, with a sound like shattered glass turning into music.

The fake Crispin's body began to crack, light pouring from its chest.

"I could've been you," it whispered.

"You were," Crispin said. "But you never got a chance."

The fake smiled. Then he was gone.

Nothing remained.

Just silence.

Crispin stood there alone. Bleeding. Broken.

But whole.

The sky stopped bleeding.

The system stopped whispering.

And the Crown on his hand flared with one final burst of light.

For the first time… it wasn't fighting him.

It recognized him.

Accepted him.

And the Gate behind him began to close.

He walked back to Yara and Revenna without a word.

Revenna looked at him like she was seeing something not entirely human anymore.

Yara didn't speak.

She just hugged him.

Tight.

Long.

And when he finally spoke again, it was a whisper.

"Now they know I won't follow the script."

When they returned through what remained of the red Gate, the city of Blackridge was silent. The air was still hot, tinged with that metallic taste of mana torn raw from the world's veins. But it was quiet.

Too quiet.

No soldiers.

No monsters.

No screams.

Just wind brushing through the shattered windows of towers that once touched the clouds.

They stepped through the ruin like ghosts. Revenna kept her blade drawn. Yara had her fists still crackling with flame, but less wild now — like the fire was listening again. Crispin didn't draw anything. He didn't need to.

Whatever had come for him… had gone.

But not without leaving something behind.

From the center of the plaza, a low hum trembled through the air. A symbol shimmered on the ground — a perfect circle with nine jagged lines carved through it. Not a Rune. Not a Gate.

A warning.

Crispin stopped in front of it, jaw clenched. "It's a mark."

Yara stared at it. "From who?"

Revenna narrowed her eyes. "Not the System."

"No," Crispin said. "Something older."

The sky rumbled.

Not loud, not thunder — but intention.

He looked up and saw nothing. Just gray sky and drifting ash.

But he felt it.

They weren't watching him anymore.

They were waiting.

"They sent the fake me to break my will," Crispin said.

"And they failed," Revenna replied.

"They're not done," he added. "They just realized force doesn't work. So now they're going to do what gods do best."

"Which is?"

"Rewrite the story."

Yara's voice was hoarse. "What story?"

Crispin touched the Crown on his palm. It was pulsing gently now. No longer boiling. No longer violent. For the first time since it burned into his hand, it felt… calm.

"They're going to erase my existence from the world's memory," he said. "Not kill me. Just… delete me."

Yara stepped forward. "Then we won't let them."

Crispin looked at her. "You won't remember."

Revenna shook her head. "You think we're weak?"

Crispin smiled, weakly. "No. I think they'll try harder than ever."

He knelt beside the mark in the ground and traced it with his fingers. Cold shot through him — not cold like ice. Cold like an ancient presence, something from before time, whispering promises and threats into his bones.

And it said one thing:

"One bearer to destroy the world. One to save it. One to choose."

Crispin stood up slowly.

"They're preparing a new bearer."

Yara's breath caught. "Another fake?"

"No," he said. "Someone real. Someone born from the old laws. Someone they'll force the Crown onto."

Revenna stepped closer. "Then we stop them."

He nodded. "We try."

Then his face darkened.

"But if they succeed… I'll be the only one who remembers the real world."

Silence.

He turned away from the mark and began walking back toward the heart of the city.

Yara called out after him, "Where are you going?"

"To break their next toy," he said. "Before it learns how to smile."

The city was a graveyard beneath a gray sky. Broken buildings whispered stories of battles past, and the wind carried the weight of all that had been lost. Crispin walked through the ruins like a man with no home — but with a purpose carved deep in his soul.

Yara and Revenna followed close, their footsteps light but steady. The Crown on Crispin's palm glowed faintly, a heartbeat against the darkness.

"Do you ever wonder," Yara said quietly, "if any of this was meant to be?"

Crispin didn't answer right away. He looked up at the sky, searching for something — a sign, a hope, maybe even a lie to hold on to.

"I think," he said slowly, "that maybe none of us were ever meant to choose."

Revenna's eyes narrowed. "Then what do we do?"

"We fight," Crispin said, voice low but fierce. "Because even if the script is written, we're the ones holding the pen."

They moved deeper into the city's heart, where shadows clung like old scars. The red Gate was gone now, sealed tight, but its echo remained — a pulse beneath the earth, a rhythm in the air.

Suddenly, the ground shook.

From the rubble rose a figure — tall, cloaked in shadow, with eyes that burned cold like stars gone supernova.

"The new bearer," Crispin whispered.

The figure stepped forward, voice smooth and empty. "You don't belong here, Crispin David."

"I don't belong anywhere," Crispin replied. "But I'm not leaving."

The two faced each other — one a relic of chaos, the other the product of order.

Around them, the world held its breath.

Because the story wasn't over.

Not yet.

And the last echo of resistance burned brighter than any Crown.

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