Somewhere beyond the crumbling cityscape, far away from the frontlines, a wall of holographic glass was silently suspended in orbit. Several projection feeds flickered on its face, each one revealing a tiny piece of the world beneath: Elaine's luminescent eyes, Ian's shaking sword, the Core's growing grid.
Within the observation deck, two characters were seen.
The first, draped in white light, observed with clinical detachment. Rows of code appear to be trailing down like tattoos of data on their forearms.
"Protocol-Seven has broken containment," they said. "The merge is speeding up faster than the models said it would."
The second figure — older, voice rasping with static — moved in closer to the feed where Elaine was.
"She shouldn't have made it to this stage. The Night Reaper line was gone a long time ago."
"Apparently not."
The younger one zoomed in. Elaine's shape seemed to shutter on the feed, as her shadow spread out into a variety of fragments all over the broken city.
"She's stabilizing the merge manually. No interface, no relay. Just willpower."
The older observer grunted. "And the boy?"
"Linked through emotional tethering. He's her anchor point. If she crosses the threshold, his neural field collapses."
A pause. The older one's tone turned almost curious.
"So if he dies—"
"She destabilizes. The merge resets. The system reboots."
Silence. In the air, the distant hum of servers and the pulse of the Core.
"Run a contingency," the elder said finally. "If the Reaper ascends past ninety five percent, initiate the countermeasure."
The young one hesitated. "The Revenant Protocol? That's capable of wiping out both worlds."
"Just hope it's not going to get that far."
They turned away from the monitors, and for an instant, the reflection on the glass revealed a third shadow—dim and shaped like a human, its eyes glowing the same color as Elaine's.