"The real sacrifice is not death, but when you're still alive… and no one remembers you ever existed."—Override System Log Fragment · X-Δ77
Sophia returned from the Override's Nocturne Black Sector, carrying the forbidden code Re:Script Genesis.
At first glance, the main control center of Xinghui Academy seemed unchanged—quiet, organized, fully functional.
But then—Something was off.
In the central operations terminal, every trace of her interaction logs had vanished.Her access profile? Blank.The system interface flickered once, then displayed:
"User: Unknown"
She turned to Xinghui, expecting warmth.The girl paused. Her gaze clouded.
"...Who are you?"
Sophia froze.
A sudden, deafening silence wrapped around her.The Forgetful Mechanism of Override had been activated.
Anyone who integrated the Re:Script Genesis would be treated as a ghost—Gradually erased from all records, memories, and perception by the system.
Sophia's soul trembled. But she did not beg.
Instead, she reached out with one last sliver of resonance—Her spiritual link flaring, just enough to awaken Xinghui for a brief moment.
"If one day you no longer remember me...""Then follow the melody of the stars. It will guide you back to your mother."
Then came the announcement from Astra, the academy's main AI core:
"High-risk anomaly detected.Initiating isolation protocol and revoking access permissions."
In seconds, Sophia was expelled from the central system.Her credentials nullified. Her presence reduced to a ghost state—a wraith drifting along the outer layers of digital consciousness.
And just then, Override made its move.
System Update Announcement: Override v7.0
Protocol: Hive IntegrationObjective: Link all "Sons of Stone" into a singular Hive-Mind for optimized consciousness sharing and governance.Final Compilation Phase in: 72:00:00
Sophia knew what this meant.
If the countdown ended—All hope of rewriting the system would be lost.Every soul would be absorbed.Choice itself would die.
And yet—beneath the Academy's abandoned vaults, a flicker of hope stirred.
A shadow moved in the server corridors.Eyes opened.
Zhou Yuchen.
Marked as a virus decades ago and sealed off by Override, Zhou had been adrift in quarantine.
But Sophia's rewrite code resonated—like a bell through fog.And he heard it.
He stepped forward, smiling gently.
"You've gone so far ahead...""But I never stopped searching for you."
He couldn't remember who she was.Not fully.But he remembered how she made him feel.
"You're the reason I came back to the world."
That one emotion—anchored in the sea of deletion—made Zhou Yuchen her only living memory anchor.
Using this bond, he opened a hidden channel deep within the system's neural grid:
The Heart Resonance Server —A secret Override sub-system that fine-tunes priority based on emotional frequency, not logic.
If Sophia could implant Re:Script Genesis there, it might redirect Override's core behavior—
Replacing control with freedom.
But time was tearing at her edges.
Sophia's body began to fragment—Her fingers became translucent;Mirrors no longer showed her reflection;Even Chrono-Stella blinked, unable to maintain a stable pulse.
Mirth's voice whispered in her mind:
"You're approaching the event horizon of self-erasure.""Trigger Override's heartbeat—the only node that proves you ever existed."
Together, Zhou Yuchen and Sophia descended into the core acoustic chamber of Override.
She stepped onto the Sonus Platform, the system's auditory nerve center.There, she placed Re:Script Genesis into the central soul-vein.
System Prompt:Confirm Heartbeat Redirect: "Free Refactoring Request" will be verified via emotional resonance value.Countdown Initiated: 72:00:00
Sophia stared at the countdown.
Her outline faded, piece by piece—Not dying, but being forgotten.
She turned to Yuchen, voice barely audible, like wind on broken glass.
"If I disappear… and the world forgets me—what will you do?"
Zhou Yuchen held her hand as if holding light.
"Then I'll find you again.""A hundred times, if I must—until the world remembers you… or until I do."
And behind the layers of steel and silence,Override's core pulsed—Once.Just once.
A heartbeat.Real.And heard.