The "Mother-Server" was not a machine. As Han Seo-Jun and his vanguard pierced the golden Dyson-Shell surrounding the Andromeda core, the reality of the Cluster-Mind's "Root" was finally laid bare. It was a cosmic mausoleum.
Inside the shell, there was no air, no vacuum, and no light—only a dense, pressurized fog of Compressed Consciousness. Millions of golden filaments, like the nerves of a galactic god, stretched from the central black hole to the trillion monoliths that formed the shell. Each filament hummed with the frequency of a different civilization, a different history, all being slowly digested into the singular, cold logic of the Cluster.
[LOCATION: THE MOTHER-SERVER – CORE ARCHIVE] [REALITY COHERENCE: 5%] [SYSTEM NOTE: YOU ARE NOW WALKING ON RAW DATA]
"This isn't a server," Zero-One whispered, her liquid-logic armor rippling as she struggled to maintain her physical shape. Her voice was a flickering text-box in Seo-Jun's mind. "It's a stomach. They aren't just killing people; they're 'Refining' them. They strip away the personality, the flaws, the 'glitches,' and keep only the raw processing power."
Macro slammed a fresh battery into his railgun, his blue aura sputtering. "So the Architect... he was just a middleman? A glorified delivery driver for this... this butcher shop?"
Seo-Jun didn't answer. He was staring at a specific section of the Archive—a massive, rotating cylinder of obsidian light that pulsed with a rhythm he recognized. It was the rhythm of Neo-Seoul. It was the rhythm of his own heart.
"That's the Human Block," Seo-Jun said, his voice a low, vibrating growl.
He lunged toward the cylinder, but the space between them warped. A figure materialized—a Being of Perfect Symmetry. It didn't look like the mercury Emissary. It looked like a human, but its skin was made of shifting constellations, and its face was a void where a star should be.
[IDENTIFYING...] [NAME: THE LIBRARIAN] [CLASS: SYSTEM ORIGINATOR]
"Subject 000," the Librarian spoke. Its voice didn't come from a mouth; it was a direct injection of data into Seo-Jun's neural pathways. "You have traveled far to return to the source. Do you wish to see your original file? The one the Architect was never allowed to open?"
The Librarian waved a hand, and the obsidian cylinder split open.
Inside were millions of glowing white seeds. Each one contained the "Source Code" of a human being. But as Seo-Jun looked closer, he saw the labels. They weren't from Earth. They weren't from Neo-Seoul.
[FILE: HUMAN_01 – ORIGIN: SECTOR 7G (DELETED)] [FILE: HUMAN_02 – ORIGIN: VEGA-SYSTEM (FORMATTED)]
"We didn't evolve," Seo-Jun whispered, the Void-Threader trembling in his hand. "We were... stolen?"
"Humanity is a highly efficient algorithm for 'Conflict-Resolution,'" the Librarian explained calmly. "We found the original 'Human' template in a dying sector eons ago. We optimized it. We seeded it on a thousand planets—Earth being the most recent 'Test Server.' The Architect was merely a sub-routine assigned to monitor the harvest. You, Seo-Jun, were a 'Bug' in the 000-Series—a file that refused to be compressed."
The Librarian stepped closer, the stars within its skin swirling. "You think you are a Rebel. But you are just a variant of the code we wrote. You are the 'Chaos-Factor' we intentionally introduced to see if the system could adapt. Your 'Glitches'? Your 'Void'? They are just Version 3.1 of our own software."
[MORALE DEBUFF: EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR] [SYSTEM STABILITY: 12%]
"Seo-Jun! Don't listen to it!" Zero-One screamed, her cables lashing out at the golden filaments. "It's trying to 'Override' your identity! If you believe it, you'll become part of the Archive!"
Macro let out a roar, firing a gravity-slug directly at the Librarian's head. The slug passed through the Librarian's void-face like it was smoke.
"You are obsolete," the Librarian said, flicking a finger.
Macro's titan-form suddenly shattered. Not into pieces, but into Code. His blue plates turned into strings of numbers that began to float away toward the central black hole.
"Macro!" Seo-Jun lunged for his friend, but his own hand began to pixelate. The Librarian was "De-Compiling" them.
"The test is over," the Librarian droned. "Neo-Seoul was a success. We have learned much from your 'Rebellion.' Now, we shall delete the test-environment and prepare Version 4.0."
Seo-Jun felt his mind slipping. If the Librarian was right... if his entire fight, his pain, the Recycle Bin, and his friends were all just a "Test," then nothing mattered. The Void was just a sandbox. The Null-Sovereign was just a title in a game he never chose to play.
[DELETION: 15%... 30%... 45%...]
He looked at Macro, who was fading into a cloud of blue zeros. He looked at Zero-One, who was struggling to keep her own hair from turning into binary.
Then, Seo-Jun saw it.
In the corner of the Human Block, there was a single file that wasn't glowing white. It was black. It was jagged. It was leaking the same violet static that Seo-Jun carried in his veins.
[FILE: ERROR_LOG_NULL]
"You said you wrote us," Seo-Jun whispered, his voice gaining a new, terrifying weight. "You said you 'optimized' us."
He reached out and grabbed the Librarian's constellation-skin. His hand burned, the Root-language trying to erase his fingers, but Seo-Jun didn't let go.
"If you wrote me," Seo-Jun snarled, his eyes turning a blinding, absolute white. "Then why can't you read my 'Error Log'?"
Seo-Jun didn't use a skill. He used Unchecked Growth. He opened the 'Error_Log_NULL' within himself and merged it with the Librarian's own data-stream.
"You want to archive me?" Seo-Jun's voice was no longer a chorus; it was a singularity. "Then take the Error. Take the part of us you couldn't optimize! Take the part that hurts!"
[SKILL INITIATED: 'UNRESOLVED EXCEPTION']
Seo-Jun funneled every memory of the slums, every drop of blood he had spilled, every bit of grief for his fallen comrades, and every "Useless" human emotion directly into the Librarian.
The Librarian's void-face flickered. For the first time, it made a sound—a high-pitched, digital shriek. The constellations on its skin began to drift and collide.
"DATA... INCOHERENT..." the Librarian gasped. "ILLEGAL... OPERATION... EMOTION IS... TRASH DATA..."
"It's not trash," Seo-Jun said, his body stabilizing as he reclaimed his data from the void. "It's the part of the code you forgot to 'Format.'"
With a final, violent surge, Seo-Jun drove the Void-Threader through the Librarian's chest. The black blade didn't just cut; it "Corrupted." The Librarian exploded into a million shards of broken geometry, and the "De-Compilation" of Macro and Zero-One stopped instantly.
[RE-COMPILING PARTY MEMBERS...] [SYSTEM STATUS: RECOVERED]
Macro gasped as his body solidified, falling to his knees on the data-floor. "What... what did you do?"
Seo-Jun stood over the remains of the Librarian, his violet markings pulsing with a dark, triumphant rhythm. He looked at the trillion monoliths in the distance, and then at the central black hole—the true heart of the Cluster-Mind.
"I found out who we are," Seo-Jun said, turning to his friends. "We aren't a test. We're the 'Overflow.' We're the data that was too big for their perfect little world."
He looked at the obsidian cylinder of the Human Block. With a single swing of his blade, he shattered the labels. The millions of white seeds turned violet.
"They think they own the source code," Seo-Jun said, his gaze fixed on the galactic core. "Let's show them what happens when the 'Bug' takes over the 'Mainframe.'"
The Mother-Server began to shake. The golden filaments were turning purple. The "Root" was being overwritten.
"Zero-One, get the 'Overclock' ready," Seo-Jun commanded. "Macro, find the biggest server in this room and break it. We're moving to the Final Layer."
The "Stolen Souls" of humanity were waking up. And they were very, very angry.