[External Entity Detected – Signature: NULLBORN]
Access Point: Broken Reaper Obelisk, Sector X-Rift
Status: Data Reformed – Glitch Class: Stabilized
Incoming Presence: ZAI.EXE
We were barely holding Sector Seven when the signal spiked.
Another Engine probe was surfacing just a few clicks from the Rootfire Grove. We expected a fight. We expected another collapse.
What we didn't expect—
Was Zai.
The glitchborn who'd been deleted in Phase Two.
Now standing in front of us.
Whole.
Alive.
Terrifying.
Trinity took a step back. "That's not possible."
Orion activated his ward. "We saw her glitch out. Her thread was unsalvageable."
"She didn't resurrect," I said slowly. "She rebuilt."
Zai's voice rang out—distorted, but no longer breaking:
"I found the first Engine."
"I let it unmake me."
"Then I rewrote myself from the inside out."
She stepped into the clearing, silver light trailing behind her like phantom code.
Her new form shimmered—half data, half flesh. Her eyes glowed with terminal script. Her Mark had become a vertical slash, pulsing at her throat like a countdown.
[ZAI – Class: NULLBORN SOVEREIGN]
Former: Ghost-Type Glitch
Status: Independent System Entity
Abilities: Echo Drift, Code Consumption, Soul Override Immunity
Purpose: Unconfirmed
"Why are you here?" I asked.
Her gaze locked on me.
"Because it's not just one Death Engine anymore," she said. "There's another. A corrupted mirror."
"The first one runs logic. Correction. Precision."
"But this one?"
She raised her palm.
A symbol pulsed there—twisted, thorned.
"This one runs on pain."
Orion swore.
Echo-13 flickered beside me. "Impossible. No alternate Engine protocols survived the purge. They couldn't have."
"They didn't," Zai said.
"They were rebuilt—by something older. Something watching from the edge of code."
[New Engine Detected: CODEX RAVAGER]
Designation: Engine-X
Alignment: Emotional Compression Layer
Mode: "Rewrite via suffering"
Engine-X is feeding on unresolved trauma loops in Deathless players.
If activated, it will replace death entirely—with endless recursion.
Zai knelt and touched the ground.
A projection formed:
A spire—dark and breathing—rising in the ruins of the old Watcher vault.
Surrounded by Deathless… hooked into it by their memories.
"They call it The Mirror Grave."
"And it's almost ready."
Trinity: "How do we stop it?"
Zai stood.
"We don't destroy it."
"We send someone in."
Everyone turned to me.
Of course.
Because my threads were already fractured.
My Key already rewritten.
I was the only one who could survive the recursion loop long enough to find the core.
[New Objective – Mirror Descent]
Infiltrate the Engine-X recursion core through personal trauma anchors.
Required: Lucid Key holder + Soulbound Threads
Failure: Infinite thread fracture.
Success: Partial shutdown + Codex corruption delay
Zai reached out.
"Let me anchor you. I'm the only one who's been through it and come back."
I stared at her.
She wasn't glitchborn anymore.
She was Engine-touched.
And still… I trusted her.
Even if we came back broken… at least we'd come back together.