The pathway to the Nexus Core wasn't really a path anymore.
It was a graveyard.
Broken streets floated in midair, linked by collapsing bridges of light.
Massive towers twisted sideways, some crumbling into nothing as corrupted gravity pulled them apart.
And below it all...
the endless black of the system void.
One wrong step = permanent delete.
I sprinted forward, leaping gaps, patching broken platforms mid-jump.
Every second the city screamed louder — metal groaning, air shimmering, ground fracturing.
The Last City wasn't dying quietly.
It was going down in fire and code.
Ahead, a new warning flashed across my vision:
> [Warning: Corruption Levels Critical.]
[Entity Detected: TITAN CLASS – "VOID RENDER."]
I skidded to a stop.
Across the shattered plaza, something was pulling itself out of the void.
Huge.
Wrong.
A massive humanoid shape — arms like broken skyscrapers, head a mess of static and cables.
Its body was stitched from chunks of corrupted buildings, cars, even people.
All fused together into a single nightmare.
It turned toward me, its mouth splitting open into a jagged shriek:
> [ERROR 8800: YOU SHOULD NOT EXIST.]
The Titan charged.
I barely dodged — debris exploding where I stood a second ago.
I couldn't fight this thing. Not directly.
It was too big.
Too broken.
The system pinged an emergency hint:
> [Strategy Update: Patch Critical Fault Lines in Titan's Structure.]
"Find the cracks," I muttered.
I sprinted around the plaza, Void Render smashing everything in its way.
Its movements created shockwaves — shaking the entire floating district.
My Patch tool glowed whenever I got close to certain parts —
sections where its massive body flickered — unstable coding, weak points.
I leapt up a broken wall, dashed across a suspended bus, and slammed a patch command into one of its shoulder seams.
> [Patch Successful: Stability -22%.]
The Titan staggered, shrieking in multiple voices.
"Come on, come on—"
I repeated the process, targeting every weak spot I could find — legs, chest, neck.
Every patch didn't just weaken it.
It restored a little bit of the world around it — solidifying ground, fixing gravity, pushing back the void.
Finally, when the last patch hit —
the Titan froze.
Its body glitched violently.
Then it shattered into a thousand fragments of light, collapsing into the void below.
> [Entity "VOID RENDER" Neutralized.]
[Corruption Levels Dropping.]
I fell to my knees, gasping for air.
The plaza reformed around me — more stable, though still badly damaged.
In the silence that followed, I heard footsteps.
Slow.
Deliberate.
I looked up.
Standing at the far end of the plaza was a woman —
long silver hair, pale skin, glowing tattoos tracing her arms.
And her eyes —
her eyes were the same golden hue as Elara's.
My heart stopped.
"Who are you?" I called out.
She smiled faintly — sad, tired.
"I am… what remains," she said.
"Of Elara."