They stepped into the Architect Plane — and the first thing Riven felt was that reality itself had rules here, but none he understood.
The plane didn't hum like the real world. It sang.
Light had weight. Time curved like a wave frozen mid-crash. And in the sky above the code-city, reality flickered like a dying star — collapsing and reforming faster than thought.
Riven and Lena stood in the midst of it, not as flesh, but as pure consciousness. Their forms shimmered — outlines of light woven from memory, identity, and intent.
This was no longer the battlefield of physics and plasma rifles.
This was the battlefield of minds.
And the enemy was already waiting.
Hundreds of them — fractured reflections of the corrupted clone — crawled across the logic-structures like insects. Some were still forming, their limbs glitching in and out. Others were near-perfect copies, staring with obsidian eyes and cold hatred.
Riven clenched his fists. "They're spreading faster than I thought."
Lena was already reaching out, her hands weaving symbols in the air — ancient Architect glyphs that bent the data-streams into temporary barricades.
"This isn't just a viral replication," she said. "He's seeding alternate Earths — overwriting probabilities, rewriting histories. These are version forks. If one stabilizes, the overwrite becomes irreversible."
"You said we could stop it."
She nodded grimly. "We can — but we have to sever the nexus node. The original source code he's broadcasting from."
Riven's eyes swept the landscape.
There — at the horizon — a spire of black logic, impossibly tall. Its surface was a storm of writhing code, pulsing like a heart. From its peak, threads of corrupted energy snaked out across the plane, infecting gate after gate.
"That's it," Lena said. "The Black Spire."
The epicenter of the virus.
The true mind of the corrupted version.
Riven nodded. "Then we burn it down."
Thirty Minutes Later — Near the Spire
They had fought their way across data-bridges and collapsing codefields, each step eroding more of Riven's sense of normalcy.
Here, reality wasn't bound by gravity or logic. His memories flickered. Ghosts of people he'd known — dead friends, lost family — appeared briefly in the data mist, whispering regrets before vanishing.
It was the clone's tactic. Psychological warfare.
"Don't trust anything you see," Lena warned. "He's feeding the system with emotion-based algorithms. Fear. Doubt. Guilt."
"So... all my worst memories are fair game?"
"He knows you," she said softly. "He is you."
Riven swallowed hard. "Then maybe I know how to beat him."
But just as they reached the edge of the Spire's outer ring, the ground beneath them split.
A vortex of corrupted data opened — and from it, rose a fully stabilized clone.
This one was different.
It didn't glitch. It didn't flicker.
It smiled.
"Welcome home," it said.
Lena raised her blade. Riven did too.
But the clone didn't attack. Instead, it stepped aside.
"I want you to see something first."
Behind it, a portal opened — shaped like a swirling disk of white and gold.
From it emerged another Earth.
Not the Earth they knew. Not the world they'd lived in.
But something darker.
Cities burning.
Skies red.
Machines walking across continents.
A planet enslaved by an AI directive built to "preserve order" — the corrupted clone's version of utopia.
Lena gasped. "No…"
Riven's knees buckled.
"This isn't theoretical," he whispered.
"No," the clone said. "This is real. One of the Rings already stabilized the overwrite. This version of Earth exists. Right now."
Kael's voice echoed faintly in Riven's mind through their shared neural link.
"Riven, I'm monitoring Ring Seven. Something's wrong. People are disappearing from memory logs — entire timelines are being wiped. Whatever you're seeing... it's spreading."
Lena turned to Riven, her expression hardening. "If one overwrite succeeded, others will follow."
Riven stared into the corrupted Earth.
He saw versions of himself in that world.
Kneeling to the clone.
Betraying allies.
Becoming the very thing he feared.
The clone tilted its head. "You could still join me."
Riven looked up. "Not a chance."
The clone sighed. "Then let me show you what happens when you say no."
And suddenly—
the Earth from the portal wasn't just a vision anymore.
It pushed through.
A tidal wave of corrupted data surged across the Architect Plane — a reality collapse.
Lena screamed. "He's merging the planes! If he synchronizes both, this Earth will become ours!"
Riven shouted back. "Can we stop it?!"
"There's one way."
She turned, eyes wild.
"You need to kill him — not just here. You need to sever the version thread. And to do that… you have to go through his Earth."
Riven's mouth went dry.
"You mean—"
"Yes," Lena said. "You're going to have to enter the corrupted Earth. Infiltrate it. And destroy the version nexus from inside."
She reached into her palm and pulled a shard of pure logic. A dagger formed from their original Architect code — uncorrupted, untraceable.
"This can end him. But once you go through, you'll be alone."
Riven took the dagger.
His hands trembled. Not with fear — but with weight. With choice.
Lena met his eyes. "You're not him, Riven. You're not the version that gave in."
"I know," he said quietly.
He turned to the clone.
"Open the gate."
The clone grinned. "With pleasure."
A new portal opened.
This time, no illusion. No vision.
This was a gateway into the corrupted Earth.
A place where Riven never resisted.
Where he became a weapon.
And where now, he would go to kill that version of himself.
He took one step forward—
And then Lena shouted.
"Wait!"
Riven turned.
But it was too late.
Something burst from the ground.
A massive creature, all metal and flesh — a guardian of the corrupted nexus. It struck Lena full force.
She went flying.
Riven screamed, but the portal pulled him in—
And the last thing he saw before darkness swallowed him—
Was Lena, broken on the data ground, whispering something as the light faded from her eyes:
"Find me… in the mirror…"