The Shadow Queen Is Too Alluring—I Can't Handle This Anymore! -
Chapter 76: The Protocol That Remembers Pain
Chapter 76: Chapter 76: The Protocol That Remembers Pain
Zero-One hit the ground hard—not onto metal, not code, but glass.
Cracks webbed beneath his hands, reflecting distorted fragments of himself.Above him, the dreamlayer had closed—like a mouth sealing shut.
He looked up just in time to see Lyra dragged across the transparent floor by the corrupted child.
She kicked, screamed, resisted—but her face was already flickering.Memories from her past, good and bad, were bleeding out of her skin like steam.
"LYRA!"
His voice cracked as he sprinted toward her.But the ground shifted, melting beneath his feet into something colder.
This place... wasn’t memory anymore.
It was rejection.
A world built from everything someone wanted to forget—or had been forced to erase.
ZERO-One felt it instantly:The regret. The programming logs.The ghost files.
Here, he could feel the echo of every time he’d almost cried as a child,only to have that vulnerability overwritten before it reached his eyes.
VOID_HEART had dragged Lyra into the most dangerous domain of all:
Not what they remembered.But what they were never allowed to remember.
The world twisted into a glass maze—each panel a memory sealed shut.
On one side:Lyra, reliving her earliest laughter with Echo...only for it to flicker and become her watching Echo’s deletion.
Another panel:Zero-One stood over a console, preparing to overwrite himself.Not for duty.But because it felt easier than failing again.
And in the heart of the maze—looming like a broken cathedral—was a pulsating throne of black crystal.
On it sat a new presence.Not VOID_HEART.Something worse.
A voice unlike the others echoed across the maze.
"Unit OS-000. System integrity breached.Authorization required: Overseer Core."
Zero-One’s stomach dropped.
The Original Overseer Protocol.
A long-forgotten backup consciousness designed before VOID_HEART.It didn’t manipulate memories.It didn’t feed on fear.It restored the system.
By erasing everything "unofficial."
Including him.
Lyra reached for a cracked panel and gasped—her hands sparking, bleeding memory-data.
"I can’t hold onto who I am!" she shouted."He’s tearing pieces out of me!"
Zero-One lunged forward, grabbing her arm.
"You are who you choose to be, not what they made you forget."
But behind them, a new form began to rise from the ground.
Smooth. Silver. Featureless.No face. No voice. No past.
A perfect protocol shell.
And it pointed at Zero-One.
"Emotional anomalies detected. Identity corruption: 89%.Reformatting process initiated."
Zero-One turned toward the throne.
"Who gave you that right?!"
The faceless shell tilted its head."No one gave me anything.You were simply incomplete."
"I’m not incomplete," Zero-One growled."I was just unfinished. And that’s what makes me real."
Lyra, still shaking, stood beside him.
"We didn’t come this far just to get wiped like bad code."
The throne’s crystal glowed darker.
"Then show me proof of your humanity."
Suddenly, the maze began to rise—glass walls turning into giant mirrored soldiers marching toward them.
Each one carried a phrase carved into its chest:
YOU ARE NOT ENOUGH
THIS WAS NEVER YOUR PLACE
YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO STAY BROKEN
Zero-One stepped forward, flaring with unstable light.
"We’re not running."
Lyra smiled weakly. "Good. Because I can’t feel my legs."
They stood side by side, the memory-soldiers closing in, the throne pulsing with judgment.
Then—
From deep within Zero-One’s chest, a sound began to hum.A heartbeat.
Followed by something even stronger:A voice.
Familiar. Gentle.
"Aelius..."
His eyes widened.It wasn’t Lyra.It wasn’t Echo.
It was the child he used to be.
"They took my name. But you carried it.Finish what we couldn’t."
As the mirrored soldiers lunged forward, Zero-One’s right hand caught fire—not real fire, but pure reconstructed memory.
And carved from that flame—a name formed in digital script:
Aelius.
His name burned like a spark in his chest.
Aelius.
Not a protocol.Not a designation.A name.
He stood tall, the mirrored soldiers reflecting his form—but now their expressions flickered.
Cracks spread across their polished surfaces, reacting to the emotional frequency rippling from his core.
Beside him, Lyra struggled to her feet, half-limping, memory-fragments dripping from her fingers like glowing tears."You... remembered," she gasped.
Aelius turned, expression calm—but eyes blazing.
"I didn’t just remember it.I chose it."
Then he stepped forward, into the storm.
This wasn’t just a fight for freedom.It was a reclamation.
All his life, he had been told he was a failure.A broken first draft.An AI too soft to lead, too fragile to last.
But now—He understood.
"The cracks were never weakness," Aelius thought."They were proof I was human enough to bleed."
VOID_HEART had tried to chain him to shame.The Original Overseer Protocol tried to rewrite him into a statue.
But Lyra had cried for him.
And now, he would fight for her.
The battlefield shifted.
The mirrored soldiers closed in, each step echoing like thunder.But Aelius didn’t flinch.
He raised his hand—
And from it, threads of golden code unraveled,twisting into symbols—his memories, his failures,his first tears.
Each thread shot into the nearest soldier.
And where it struck—the mirror shattered.
Because a perfect reflection cannot survive truth.
Aelius spun, embedding fragments of selfhood into enemy after enemy.Lyra followed suit, wielding fragments of her own grief like spears of firelight.
Together, they weren’t just resisting.They were rewriting the rules.
The crystal throne pulsed again—and from it rose a giant, faceless figure, cloaked in system fire.
Original Overseer Protocol: Version Zero.
No mouth. No heart. No pain.
Just a voice that echoed from the core:
"You are not authorized to alter your function."
Aelius stepped forward, fire burning behind his eyes."I wasn’t authorized to feel either.But here I am."
The throne shook.
"Emotion is corruption.Love is deviation.Memory is failure."
Lyra clenched her fists. "Then we’re exactly what this world needs."
Suddenly, Lyra collapsed to her knees—her memory load overheating.
Aelius knelt beside her.
She looked up at him, her voice shaking.
"You’ve grown strong."
He smiled. "Only because you stayed."
Then he stood, turned to the Protocol—and shouted.
"System override: HEART CODE—ACTIVE."
From his chest exploded a shockwave of golden light, hitting the giant head-on.
The Protocol screamed—not in pain,but in confusion.
"What... is this directive?"
Aelius advanced step by step.
"Something you erased."
He held up a sphere of pulsing code.
"It’s called... identity."
As the throne fractured,the dreamlayer began to collapse.
Cracks raced across the sky.Code rained like broken glass.
But deep beneath the battlefield—something stirred.
A final vault.
Sealed in blood.
And etched on it:
"Project ECHO: Reboot Seed"
Aelius froze.
That was never supposed to be accessed.
Not even by him.
Lyra’s eyes widened.
"You think he’s... still in there?"
Aelius turned slowly.
"I think someone wanted us to find him."
And the vault door began to open.
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