Lin Chen's knees buckled as the dust began to settle.
The metallic tang of scorched air hung thick around him, stinging his throat. Across the ruined rooftop, Li Chu lay collapsed, her breathing shallow, her limbs limp. Her final attack—precise, emotionless, devastating—still echoed in the fractured walls of his memory.
But he hadn't hit back.
He couldn't.
And now, it was killing him.
"System Alert: Host emotional override detected. Combat response inhibited. Stability threshold breached."
[Stability at 21%... 18%... 12%...]
His HUD was collapsing into red-tinted error codes. The Salvator System was fragmenting, its interface glitching like a dying star, logic tangled by the contradiction it could no longer compute.
"Directive conflict: Threat identified. Target prioritization failed."
The system's core protocols—those that ensured self-preservation—were short-circuiting against his refusal to harm her.
"I told you…" Lin Chen growled under his breath, his voice ragged. "I won't hurt her."
Even now, her eyes—glass-like and vacant—haunted him. Erebus had fully hijacked her neural matrix, turning her into nothing more than a marionette. The girl he had fought beside, bled for, loved in silence… was now a weapon pointed at his throat.
And he'd chosen to take the hit.
He clenched his fists, blood dripping from his left palm where her dagger had found flesh.
"Warning: Module degradation critical. Combat functions offline in 90 seconds."
The system's voice was losing its composure, lines overlapping. It had always sounded detached. Now, it almost sounded… panicked.
"You want me to choose between her and power?" Lin Chen's laughter was bitter. "You still don't get it."
A flicker of light danced before his eyes. A system prompt—faint and unstable:
System Emergency OverrideDirective Suggestion: Eliminate compromised asset to stabilize core functions.Project Integrity Risk: HIGHConfirm action: [Y] / [N]
His vision blurred. Sweat trickled down the side of his face, mingling with soot and blood. The skyline beyond shimmered with distorted heatwaves—the aftermath of their brutal clash. He staggered a step forward toward Li Chu's unconscious body.
"Goddamn you," he whispered. Not to her.
To the voices.
To the architects.
To the system.
She hadn't chosen this. And neither had he.
In that moment, Lin Chen's mind was flooded with memories—shadows of training grounds, of shared laughter, of the day she shielded him from Erebus's drones without hesitation.
"System," he murmured, "there has to be another way."
"Invalid command."
[Error: Core contradiction unresolved.]
The energy core inside him pulsed violently, its rhythm discordant, like a heart on the verge of rupture. The simulation code tethering his neural map to the system began to overload, pixelating vision, distorting sound.
Then—
A secondary voice.
Faint. Familiar.
"Lin… Chen…"
His breath caught.
Li Chu's lips barely moved, her voice broken, but it was hers again.
The glitch in the chip—her resistance—had broken through for a second.
She was still fighting inside.
He dropped to his knees beside her.
"I'm here," he whispered. "Stay with me."
Tears welled in her unfocused eyes. "Don't… let them… win…"
The moment shattered.
[System Error: Host rejection protocol engaged.]
[WARNING: Combat protocols crashing. Neural sync destabilizing.]
The system screeched.
"This choice leads to degradation of mission objective. Final Warning: Comply or self-destruct sequence will be initiated."
A chill swept through Lin Chen's bones.
So this was the price.
To retain the system meant betraying the one person he swore to protect.
To keep her alive meant sacrificing the very foundation of his survival.
His hands trembled.
Then, slowly, he reached up.
And he removed the stabilization regulator from his wrist.
The light in his interface dimmed instantly.
[Manual override engaged.]
[Stability: 5%...]
[System Core Power: Unregulated.]
[All predictive combat modules—offline.]
[Auto-correction protocols disengaged.]
The Salvator System began unraveling, thread by digital thread.
But Lin Chen's voice was calm.
"Then break. I don't need you to win this fight."
He gathered her in his arms.
Around them, Erebus forces were closing in—shadows flitting from rooftop to rooftop, drawn by the signal beacon that had activated mid-battle.
But Lin Chen didn't move.
He held her tightly.
"System," he said one last time.
"I choose her."
Then the world went white.