Lucid Key Fragmentation Detected]
Soulthread Load: 91%
Cognitive Desync: Moderate
Warning: Timeline bleed-through imminent.
It happened in the middle of the night.
No attack.
No message.
Just… disconnect.
One moment I was checking field diagnostics.
The next, I blinked—
And the sky wasn't broken anymore.
It was black.
Clean.
Whole.
I stood in a different version of the Graveyard.
One where the scars had healed.
Where the flames were cold.
Where the system didn't shudder when I breathed.
Then I saw him.
Me.
Sitting on a throne of silence.
[Entity: TREY // DESIGNATION: NULL-KING]
Class: Lucid Override (Future Instance)
Thread Health: Absolute
Emotion Sync: Offline
He didn't look at me.
Just kept watching the dead wind pass.
The world bent around him like a loyal servant.
Like it had no choice.
I stepped forward. "What… are you?"
He blinked once. "A possibility."
I felt my threads screaming in protest—like even being near him was wrong.
He finally turned toward me.
Same face.
Same eyes.
But no guilt.
No fear.
No choice.
"You gave them the right to choose."
"And when they couldn't handle it… they broke."
"So I made the final rewrite."
"I became the system."
I tried to speak, but my mouth was sealed with command lines.
His voice echoed louder than sound:
"The Engine doesn't fear chaos. It fears mercy."
"That's why it created me. To finish what you started—and erase what you regretted."
A vision hit me—
Trinity turning to ash, smiling as she dissolved
Orion stabbed through by an unthreaded player
Echo-13 overwritten by her own code
Me—standing over a world with no flame left to burn
And then:
[Core Overload]
Reconnection to active thread required
Do you wish to return?
Y / N
The Null-King raised his hand.
"If you say no… this ends pain. Purpose. Chaos."
His voice softened.
"I can make it quiet."
My hand hovered.
The thread inside me ached.
The system offered an end.
But I'd rewritten it once already.
I could do it again.
Y
[Thread Reintegration Successful]
System Memory Reclaimed: "Terminal Echo"
New Trait Gained: Paradox Mark – Immune to future self overwrite for 3 uses
Warning: Future presence confirmed. The Null-King is real.
I woke to Trinity shaking me.
"You were glitching. Hard."
I sat up, breathing fast.
Orion looked at me grimly.
"You saw him, didn't you?"
I nodded.
And said the words I didn't want to believe:
"I'm not the only me in the system anymore."
"And if I don't finish this right…
I become him."