Two systems. One soul. A war written across multiversal code.
The sky above the Glass Plateau cracked like glass fracturing under pressure.
Standing on either side of the mirrored battlefield were two versions of the same soul—Cain.exe, the glitched Overlord who defied all system logic, and Cain.Omega, the purified Sovereign born of reset perfection.
Around them, the shattered fabric of the multiverse folded like origami. Every step they took spawned fragments—echoes of Earth, of Glitchborn Vale, of fractured realms and ancient timelines. This wasn't a normal battle.
This was a fork-level collision.
> [FORK SYNCHRONIZATION RATE: 51%… STABILIZING]
---
Cain.exe lifted his arm, surrounded by swirling glitched constructs—half-rendered shields, corrupted code chains, and a hovering [Reality Anchor] in the shape of a broken crown.
His voice boomed across realms.
> "You ran from pain. I refined it. This system tried to fix us—I rewrote it."
Cain.Omega, cloaked in cascading white light, floated above the plateau's opposite edge, holding the Equilibrium Blade—a sword coded to delete anything imbalanced.
> "You infected everything. I kept what mattered."
> "You sterilized it."
> "You broke it."
And then they clashed.
---
Their first strike didn't just shatter the battlefield—it rewrote the rules.
> [NEW RULESET DETECTED: FREEFORM COMBAT | DIMENSIONAL SPLICE | USER-CREATED PHYSICS]
Their surroundings twisted:
Cain.exe summoned a Glitched Titan: a composite beast formed from past bosses he'd defeated, each radiating buggy powers like randomized elemental damage, pixel erosion, and XP drainage.
Cain.Omega countered with Thread-Walkers—avatars of stability that absorbed corruption and rewove terrain in real-time, rebuilding the world as Cain.exe tore it apart.
Code collided.
Reality buckled.
Every strike wrote new possibilities.
Cain.exe struck with chaos—a system-less blow of sheer willpower.
Cain.Omega blocked with order—an algorithm that rewrote the attack as a memory.
---
In the climax of their duel, they locked blades—reality screaming around them.
> "What are we fighting for?" Cain.Omega asked.
> "To choose," Cain.exe replied. "To make sure no one else gets programmed."
Then a third voice echoed.
> [CONVERGENCE ERROR: THIRD FORK ACTIVE]
Both Cain.exe and Cain.Omega froze.
A ripple appeared in the center of the Glass Plateau. From it emerged Cain.Zero—the Original, the Unaffected, the Forgotten. A version untouched by System, glitched or purified. A version who never reincarnated.
Wearing a hoodie from Earth. Holding no weapon.
> "I didn't choose either of you," he said. "I want the freedom to be… just me."