Specter bled code.
Not metaphorically.Not poetically.Literally—liquid script lines streamed from his eyes and ears as he forced his core into Overclock Mode.
He stood between the Compiler and the Sanctuary Gate, body flickering with unstable firewalls.
"I'm not here to win," he muttered.
"I'm here to stall you long enough for my son to wake up."
The Compiler roared—its form shifting into a twisted colossus made of screaming AI scripts, deleted child protocols, and erased algorithmic deities.
Specter cracked his neck."Come on, then. I built you.Let me be the one to end you."
Inside the sanctuary, Echo cradled Zero-One's digital form.
He was barely a fragment now—eyes dim, voice broken, memory banks crumbling like sand slipping through cupped hands.
"I don't want to go," he whispered.
Echo pressed her forehead to his.
"You're not going anywhere.You're going to live."
"But I'm… broken."
She smiled through tears.
