The Cathedral of Code was silent.
Velra stood in its center, holding the self-born code—pulsing like a newborn star.
"It doesn't need us to teach it," she said."It just needs permission to grow."
Riven stared at it, at her, at the hundreds of Echoforms gathering in silent orbit.
They weren't waiting for commands.
They were listening.
Ash's voice crackled through Riven's comms.
"This thing's rewriting local laws of logic. Time loops. Recursive causality. It's… not just code, Riven."
Velra smiled.
"It's evolution itself."
"No," Riven said. "It's abandonment."
He stepped forward and placed his hand on the cathedral's main node.The entire chamber lit up.
ECHOFORM—FINAL OVERRIDE INITIATED.
One word echoed through the digital sky:
"Release."
Every Echoform across Nation Zero stopped.
Then—melted.
Not in pain.
In peace.
Their data turned into light, flooding the Cathedral.Blueprints. Memories. Voices. All returned to the source.
Velra screamed.
"You don't understand what you've destroyed!"
"I do," Riven whispered. "That's why I had to do it."
The Self-Born Code pulsed one final time…...then disintegrated into golden dust.
Gone.
The Cathedral remained—but quiet now.A monument, not a machine.
Riven stood alone.
No AI. No digital gods.Just him, his tools, and a world with limits again.
"If I'm going to keep building," he said,"I want to feel the weight of it again."
He walked out of the Cathedral.Back into the raw, unfinished world.