The Data-Wastes ended abruptly at a wall of vertical light that stretched to infinity in both directions. This was the Great Firewall, the most sophisticated defensive algorithm ever compiled. It didn't just block intruders; it audited their existence.
[ZONE: THE GREAT FIREWALL]
[SECURITY LEVEL: SYSTEM-ROOT]
[ACTIVE PROTOCOL: EXISTENTIAL VERIFICATION]
"The sensors are screaming," Mateo whispered, his Synapse-Hub sparking with blue static. "The wall is scanning our history. If it finds even one contradiction in our 'Data-Life,' it will execute a hard-delete."
"A contradiction?" Bjorn asked, his grip tightening on his axe. "I'm a Viking who survived a digital apocalypse. My whole life is a contradiction."
"Exactly," Kenji said. He stood before the wall, the Star of Remembrance pulsing with a deep indigo light. "The Firewall is looking for 'Clean Code.' It wants entities that make sense. But we're made of scrap, frost-silk, and ghost-data. We are the ultimate 'Invalid Input'."
A massive, glowing eye manifested within the wall of light. It was the Firewall Guardian Unit: INTEGRITY.
[TARGET: UNIT INTEGRITY (RANK 80)]
[ACTION: AUDITING ENTITY... KENJI TANAKA]
A beam of white light hit Kenji. Instantly, his vision was flooded with his own memories—the Gutter, the smell of grease, the weight of the First Star, the moment he almost died in the Steam-Wastes. The beam was trying to find a "logical error" to justify his deletion.
[SCAN RESULTS: MULTIPLE LOGIC ERRORS DETECTED]
[ERROR 01: RANK 0 LOCKET WITH RANK 70 POWER]
[ERROR 02: RECURSIVE IRON FUSED WITH ORGANIC SILK]
[VERDICT: HARMFUL DATA. INITIATING QUARANTINE.]
The light turned from white to a searing, burning gold. Barriers of solid "Code-Glass" rose around the Scrap-Venture, attempting to trap them in a pocket dimension of frozen time.
"I've spent my whole life being told I don't belong," Kenji roared, his Density Soul flaring. He didn't try to break the glass with force. He used [Binary Injection].
He reached into the "Errors" the System had just identified. Instead of hiding his contradictions, he amplified them. He took the "sentiment" of the Rank 0 Locket and the "chaos" of the Ghost-Code and slammed them into the Firewall's scanners.
"You want a clean scan?" Kenji shouted. "Take the weight of the Forgotten!"
[SKILL ACTIVATED: PARADOX BURST (RANK 1)]
The indigo light of the Seventh Star surged. Kenji wasn't just hitting the wall; he was overloading its processing power with the sheer complexity of his existence. The Firewall couldn't "verify" him because he was evolving faster than its clock-speed could track.
[SYSTEM OVERLOAD: BUFFER OVERFLOW]
[INTEGRITY.EXE HAS ENCOUNTERED AN UNRECOVERABLE ERROR]
The Guardian's eye flickered, its iris shattering into a thousand digital shards. The "Code-Glass" prison didn't just break; it inverted, turning into a bridge of "Unchecked Data" that led straight through the Firewall.
"Mateo! Punch it!" Kenji commanded.
The Scrap-Venture roared across the bridge. As they crossed the threshold, the Firewall shrieked a sound like a billion hard drives failing at once.
[LEVEL UP: 72 -> 76]
[NEW TRAIT: UNVERIFIABLE]
[EFFECT: STEALTH ENHANCED AGAINST SYSTEM-BASED SENSORS]
On the other side of the wall, the world changed again. The white void was gone. They were in a dark, silent space filled with floating, glowing architectural blueprints. In the center sat a tower that looked like a needle made of pure obsidian and frozen lightning.
"The Architect's Spire," Elara whispered.
"No," Kenji corrected, his violet eyes fixed on a single, flickering point at the very top of the tower. "That's the Source-Throne. He's not just living there. He's compiling the final revision right now."
A notification appeared in the center of Kenji's vision. It wasn't a system alert. It was a private message.
[MESSAGE: YOU ARE LATE, SCRAPSMITH. THE FINAL FORMAT IS AT 98%. I HOPE YOU BROUGHT SOMETHING WORTH RECYCLING.]
"Ninety-eight percent," Mateo choked out. "Kenji, if that hits one hundred, every layer the Gutter, the Jade Empire, everything gets wiped and replaced by a static, perfect world. No more free will. No more scrap."
"Then we have two percent to finish this," Kenji said, drawing his Void-Weaver Blade. "Everyone to the bridge. We're not docking. We're ramming the front door."