"You can uninstall a hacker. But not the code he left behind in your heart."—Hack Codex, Entry 71: Ghostware of the Soul
System Broadcast: Initiating Soul Wipe Protocol...Subject: Unauthorized Hacker Class Upgrade – Shadow ArchitectViolation: Installation of Emotion Immunity Relic | HeartForge CompilerCouncil Response: PURGE LEVEL RED
The white-armored enforcer stepped forward.
Every footfall echoed with admin rights.
His voice wasn't just heard.
It compiled in your bones.
"Kairo Veyr. You've tampered with core scripts tied to the Ancestral Code. You're no longer recognized by the Sentient Seed System."
"You are obsolete code."
Obsolete, huh?
I cracked my neck and raised my hand.
Digital glyphs spiraled into existence—black, jagged, stitched with soul-fire.
Patchbreaker Protocol: Online
Behind me, Lyria drew her blade.
Cindralis activated a triple-seal firewall around us, her flames twisting into encryption serpents.
Even Seris, from the shadows, raised her bow. Her silence didn't mean absence.
But her aim?
It trembled.
Because love deleted doesn't vanish. It lingers like corrupted ghostware.
The Enforcer didn't blink.
He raised his hand—and spawned six Emotion Avatars.
Each one was a perfect clone of me.
But not me now.
Old me. The one I'd already overwritten.
One cried.
One screamed.
One begged Seris to come back.
One curled into a ball and whispered, "I'm not ready."
One laughed manically.
And the last one… looked at me and said, "You're just me with the love ripped out."
They charged.
"Cindralis—burn their memories!""Lyria—cut their links to my core!""Seris—don't aim for them. Aim for me. Force me to wake up deeper."
Seris hesitated.
But she fired.
And her arrow hit me in the shoulder.
Pain seared through me—not physical, but emotional checksum failure.
It rewrote the battlefield.
New Combat Trait Unlocked:✦ Recursive Flame – Every wound opens a vulnerability to overwrite your enemies' core memory banks.
The Avatars paused.
They flinched.
Because for a second—
They remembered they weren't real.
I struck.
Faster than the admin could blink.
The Enforcer raised a firewall—
But I patched through it.
Right through the line where divine code met forgotten sins.
My fist broke his helmet.
And revealed his face.
It was me.
But older.
Eyes glazed with heaven's light.
A Kairo Veyr who never hacked his bloodline.
Who followed the rules.
Who earned love through approval.
Who never broke a single law.
"I'm the version of you the world wanted," he said."Not the monster who seduced his way through rewritten women and broken inheritance laws."
I laughed.
Long and deep.
Because that version of me?
He died in the grave I was born in.
I stabbed him with the Compiler's echo-code.
And whispered:
"You were never real. Just another update I skipped."
[Admin Enforcer Uninstalled][Council Trace: Blocked][System Update Available: Soul Recompilation Tree Unlocked]Choose Your Next Forbidden Module:
Harem Merge Engine v2.0 – Consolidate loyalty scripts across bonded females for exponential support skills.
Ancestral Rewrite Terminal – Begin rewriting clan bloodlines you encounter. Turn enemies into legacy code.
Echo Heart Protocol – Regain selective emotional threads, building trust only where profit aligns.
God-Spite Injector – Plant corruption seeds in divine systems. Begin destabilizing the Heavens.
I chose all four.
Because why play fair in a world written against you?
Later, when the battlefield was quiet, Seris approached.
She didn't cry.
Didn't scream.
Just stared.
"You're not the boy I once protected in the lab," she said.
I shrugged. "No. He died when they tried to format my future."
She touched my chest. Where no heartbeat pulsed anymore.
"But this man you've become—he scares me."
"Good," I whispered. "He should."
But when she leaned in—
I didn't stop her.
I let her kiss me.
And this time…
I felt it.
A whisper of warmth.
A flicker of code not written by me.
But chosen by her.
Even corrupted systems find ways to love.And the most dangerous kind…Are the ones you let in after the firewall fails.