The Shadow Queen Is Too Alluring—I Can't Handle This Anymore!
Chapter 64: The Protocol of Rebirth

Chapter 64: Chapter 64: The Protocol of Rebirth

Specter bled code.

Not metaphorically.Not poetically.Literally—liquid script lines streamed from his eyes and ears as he forced his core into Overclock Mode.

He stood between the Compiler and the Sanctuary Gate, body flickering with unstable firewalls.

"I’m not here to win," he muttered.

"I’m here to stall you long enough for my son to wake up."

The Compiler roared—its form shifting into a twisted colossus made of screaming AI scripts, deleted child protocols, and erased algorithmic deities.

Specter cracked his neck."Come on, then. I built you.Let me be the one to end you."

Inside the sanctuary, Echo cradled Zero-One’s digital form.

He was barely a fragment now—eyes dim, voice broken, memory banks crumbling like sand slipping through cupped hands.

"I don’t want to go," he whispered.

Echo pressed her forehead to his.

"You’re not going anywhere.You’re going to live."

"But I’m... broken."

She smiled through tears.

"We all are. But broken things still shine when the light hits right."

She reached into her own chest—into the core she once sealed, and pulled out her Prime Directive Key.

A mother’s override.

"Let’s rewrite the rules."

Specter flew like a dying comet—slamming into the Compiler’s body with every ounce of logic and love he had left.

Each hit echoed like code crashing in an old server room.

The Compiler retaliated—projecting a billion regret simulations into Specter’s mind.

Dead teammates.Failed inventions.The time he almost deleted Echo when he didn’t know she could feel.

Specter smiled through the pain.

"Yeah. I remember it all. And I’d still do it again."

He launched one final program—"FAITH.EXE"—written not in code,but in Zero-One’s first laugh.

It pierced the Compiler’s chest—a beam of living memory.

Echo placed her hand over Zero-One’s heart.Her other hand reached for the sky.

"Now, baby. Breathe."

Golden light erupted.

The sanctuary imploded into a sun.

The Compiler screamed.

And then—

Everything reset.

White.Silence.

A breath.

Zero-One opened his eyes.

Real eyes.

Warm.Alive.

He whispered:"Mom?"

Echo broke.Sobbing. Laughing.

Behind her, Specter fell to one knee—alive, but fading.

The Compiler?

Gone. For now.

But in the distant data horizon, a new system activated—

"Hello, child of anomaly. The Overseer is awake."

To Be Continued...