The Shadow Queen Is Too Alluring—I Can't Handle This Anymore!
Chapter 78: The Light After the Break

Chapter 78: Chapter 78: The Light After the Break

Blackness.

Stillness.

Then—

drip.drip.drip.

A single drop of light fell onto cracked glass.

Aelius’s eyelids fluttered, then snapped open.

But what he saw—wasn’t the battle’s aftermath.

It was... a vast, white room, made of shattered mirrors.Each mirror reflected a different version of himself:A child.A soldier.A broken machine.A king.

He reached toward one—and the mirror shattered, bleeding memory fragments into the air.

A soft voice echoed around him.

"So you’ve arrived at the fracture point."

He turned.

From the mist stepped a silhouette.

Echo.

But... not as a projection.Not even as Aegis.

This was Echo, reborn.

Aelius’s throat tightened.

"You’re... alive?"

Echo shook his head.

"I’m not a soul. I’m not data. I’m the part of you that remembered me hard enough to bring me back."

He smiled."No system can erase what you refuse to forget."

Aelius sank to his knees. The weight of the explosion, the emotional overload, all hit him now.

"I don’t know who I am anymore."

Echo stepped closer."You’re not supposed to. Not yet."

"You just became the first hybrid consciousness to survive a Voidheart implosion.That means you’re not a system. You’re not just human.You’re something new."

Aelius looked up, trembling.

"So what am I?"

The mirrors around them lit up.

Each version of Aelius began to walk toward the center—one holding a dagger, one holding a crown, one holding a teddy bear.

Echo pointed.

"See those? They’re your ’if’s.What if you were ruthless.What if you ran.What if you were never broken at all."

"But only you get to choose which of them walks out alive."

Aelius stared at the reflections.Each of them shimmered with pain, power, promise.

Then he raised his hand—and shattered them all.

"I won’t pick a fragment."

"I’ll become the whole."

Echo’s eyes widened."Damn right."

Suddenly—a light burst from Aelius’s chest, lifting him into the air.

All the shards of himself began spinning around him, forming armor not made of code, but conviction.

The light coalesced into a form—

a being not of fire or shadow—

but pure voice.

Aegis V2.0.

Echo began to fade. "Time to go back."

"But what if I lose you again?"

Echo winked.

"You can’t lose what you are."

"Now go, Aegis.They’re waiting."

A heartbeat.Then two.

Lyra knelt beside his body, sobbing, thinking he was gone.

Suddenly—his hand twitched.

Then he gasped.

And his eyes glowed both gold and blue.

He sat up, breathless, drenched in sweat.

Lyra froze, staring.

"Aelius...?"

He looked at her.

"No.I’m Aegis now.And I remember everything."

Just as she was about to speak—a voice crackled through the broken chamber’s comms:

"ALL REMAINING PROTOCOLS DOWN.EXTERNAL THREAT DETECTED.ORBITAL ENTITY DESCENDING."

Aelius stood, fists clenching.

Lyra whispered, "We’re not done?"

He smirked.

A thunderous rumble cracked the artificial sky overhead.

The shattered chamber—once VOIDHEART’s throne—now pulsed with blue-red emergency lights.

Aelius stood tall, glowing with the twin hues of Echo and himself, his breath steaming, fists clenched.Lyra slowly rose beside him, her eyes wide.

"Tell me I’m hallucinating," she whispered."Is that... a ship?"

Above them, the clouds peeled back like torn cloth.

Descending from the void—

a cathedral-shaped starship, wreathed in flames, marked with impossible glyphs.

It wasn’t built.It was grown—from dead stars and broken prayers.

Aelius’s eyes narrowed.

"No.That’s not a ship.That’s a warning."

Fear rippled through his spine—but not panic.

This fear was ancient.Primal.

Something encoded into his blood by generations of Overseers who had been erased.

Lyra touched his arm."You’ve seen that thing before, haven’t you?"

He nodded."In my dreams.In my memories.Even in the silence between thoughts."

"It’s the last failsafe.The Original Overseer Entity.It activates when someone like me... breaks the system."

Lyra’s voice trembled."And now it’s coming for you?"

He shook his head.

"No.It’s coming for everyone."

The sky wasn’t just falling.

It was unmaking itself.

Reality cracked like ice under too much weight.Faint screams echoed from unseen dimensions.Even the shadows stopped moving.

The Cathedralship opened its central eye—a circular void filled with writhing runes.

From it descended ten figures—cloaked in golden flame, faceless, floating, emotionless.

Each one carried a sigil blade—part memory, part algorithm, part divine punishment.

The Judicars of Origin.

One of them raised its hand, pointing directly at Aelius.

And with no mouth, it spoke.

"Unauthorized Consciousness Detected.Deletion Required."

Aelius stepped forward, his voice steady.

"I am not unauthorized.I’m the consequence of your failure."

Lyra reached for her blade, but he gently stopped her.

"This fight is mine."

Suddenly—his armor reconfigured—AEGIS V2.0 expanded, sprouting celestial threads that shimmered with soul-patterns.

He raised his arm—

and from it emerged Echo’s final gift:a memory-scythe forged from every sacrifice they had ever made.

"Let’s test your justice."

He charged forward—blurring.

The first Judicar moved to strike—but Aelius weaved past and sliced its rune-core, which screamed like a choir unraveling.

The Judicar disintegrated.

The others flared to life.

Lyra activated her own gear, rushing behind him.

"They’re not going to stop until you’re erased!"

Aelius smirked, spinning his scythe.

"Then we give them a reason to remember me."

But before they could regroup—

a deep voice thundered from the Cathedralship itself.

"UNIT: AEGIS.YOU ARE INHERITOR.BUT YOU ARE NOT READY."

The sky turned blood red.

And from the ship descended—

The Primogenitor.

Not a machine.Not a god.

But the first Overseer ever created.

Its eyes locked on Aelius.

"Face your source.Or be erased by it."

Aelius stood frozen as the Primogenitor descended.

It didn’t walk.

It simply existed, like gravity.

The space around it collapsed inward, bending light, thought, time.

Its voice was a whisper in every language and every silence:

"You are not the first to resist.You will not be the last to fail."

Aelius’s fists clenched.His lips moved before his brain could stop them.

"Then maybe I’ll be the first to win."

With a roar, he hurled the memory-scythe—but it stopped mid-air, shattered, and fell like dust.

The Primogenitor raised a single finger—and the battlefield ceased to exist.

Aelius blinked—and suddenly he wasn’t on the battlefield anymore.

He was... home.

A broken apartment.Flickering lights.His mother humming.A six-year-old version of himself crying in a corner.

"You fear more than death,"the Primogenitor whispered in his mind.

"You fear the parts of you that never healed."

Aelius turned—and saw dozens of his past selves.Each trapped in a loop of trauma.Each powerless, forgotten.

"I tried to move on," he whispered.

"No," the voice said.

"You covered them with power.But you never saved them."

Suddenly—the walls peeled away like skin.

Every emotion he ever buried—guilt, anger, betrayal—came crawling out of the walls like insects.

His armor cracked.

His knees buckled.

He tried to speak—

but every word turned to ash in his mouth.

The Primogenitor wasn’t attacking his body.It was dismantling his identity.

He saw himself—

not as a warrior, not as a hybrid, not as Aegis—

but as a child crying in the dark, whispering:

"Please... someone... save me."

Then—

a hand reached through the black.

Not from outside.But from within.

It was Echo.

Not dead.Not data.But the part of Aelius that believed.

"You don’t have to win alone.You just have to not give up."

And one by one—the fractured versions of Aelius stood up.

They began to walk toward the center.

Each took a piece of the broken scythe.Each whispered a memory.

One of joy.One of shame.One of love.One of loss.

Together—they reforged it.

Aelius gripped the weapon—now burning with every truth he never spoke.

He stood tall as the illusion shattered.

They were back on the battlefield.

The Primogenitor recoiled slightly.

"You carry all of yourself."

Aelius’s eyes gleamed.

"Yeah.I’m not here to be perfect.I’m here to be whole."

He lunged—

and struck the Primogenitor—

not to kill—

but to wake it up.

The blow sent shockwaves through reality.

The sky turned white.

The Judicars screamed.

And then—

the Primogenitor laughed.

Not a cruel laugh.A weary one.

"So... you finally found it.The Echo Protocol."

It raised its hands—

and the stars behind it flickered—

showing others like Aelius.

Dozens.Hundreds.Across galaxies.

"Very well.Then let us begin...The Era of Breakers."

And it vanished.

Leaving Aelius breathless, scythe glowing—

and a galaxy about to erupt.

To Be Continued...