The Helios-Class Executor finished descending with the sky now folded.
The battlefield prayed.
A ring of golden law formed behind the machine like a burning halo—every rotation spitting out erase-signals that shredded the air itself.
Reality stuttered.
Helix broadcasting:
DIVINE-LEVEL ANOMALY CONFIRMED.
SANCTION: TOTAL ERASURE.
Maxx rolled his neck as blood trickled down his lip.
"…Okay," he muttered.
"Let's make this epic."
The system pulsed in his chest.
SYNC: 19% (LOCKED)
ROOTBOUND DIRECTIVE: SURVIVE.
Helios moved instantly and it didn't move like a machine.
It moved like a law being enforced.
Space tore open behind it as it accelerated—
an instant-cross, a zero-frame teleport aimed straight at Maxx's skull.
4531 slammed into it mid-air as her body detonated on impact.
Not destroyed — weaponized.
She wrapped around its arm like living iron and drove it sideways.
"You don't get to touch him," she snarled through static.
Helios responded instantly as its arm opened with hundreds of needle-thin erasure lines fired point-blank.
4531 was torn apart in thirty directions.
Not dead.
Fragmented.
Her pieces kept moving.
Lyra screamed, "SHE'S OVERRIDING PAIN LIMITERS—"
4531's broken torso twisted mid-air, grabbed the erasure lines, and bent them.
Maxx's eyes widened.
"…She's insane."
"Always has been," Lyra snapped.
Maxx stepped forward aa the ground folded under his feet.
Not cracked—
bowed.
Helios locked onto him at this point.
FOCUS TARGET SHIFTED: ROOT VESSEL.
A cathedral of spinning blades unfolded from Helios's back.
Each blade dripped deletion-code.
They launched.
Not flying.
Phasing.
They appeared inside walls. Inside space. Inside logic.
One appeared inches from Maxx's eye.
He grabbed it and it screamed like actually screamed.
Data shrieked as his fingers crushed it like glass.
"…That's new."
More came and Maxx blurred and vanished.
Not teleporting.
Not dodging.
The world simply stopped being able to keep up.
He twisted one blade and used it to split another while he redirected a third into Helios's core.
Explosion was the response he got...
Helios didn't flinch as its chest opened and a judgment beam charged.
Lyra appeared beside Maxx in a blink.
Her hands formed a circle of violet-white light.
"Root flow — stabilize."
She touched his back.
And the system screamed.
SYNC: TEMPORARILY UNSEALED — 22%
Maxx felt like he swallowed a star while his pain rose and blood ran from his ears.
He smiled.
"…Worth it."
He vanished again not visually but conceptually and appeared inside Helios's outer ring.
Inside its authority-space and inside its halo of law.
Everything here resisted him as the air cracked,gravity crushed and time bent hostilely.
Helios's voice wasn't mechanical now.
It was vast.
You are not authorized.
Maxx lifted his hand.
The system burned through his arm like molten steel.
"Yeah," he said.
"I'm done asking."
He slammed his palm forward and the air imploded as white-gold roots of light exploded from his hand — not physical, not magical — structural.
They speared into Helios's halo and wrapped around its law.
Cracked it.
Helios's ring fractured as the Judicators froze mid-air.
Sky stalled while 4531's fragments paused.
Everyone felt it.
Helix screamed through space.
Impossible—
Maxx pushed harder as the world bent.
Cracks tore through Helios's cathedral frame.
It fired everything at once.
Beams. Blades. Judgement codes.
Maxx didn't dodge.
He walked through them like nothing.
They erased around him.
But...
His vision also blurred and his knees shook.
The warning popped like fire behind his eyes:
WARNING:
Core failure imminent.
Rootbound Host Integrity: 68%
Sync Overflow Active.
Lyra felt it in her guts.
She screamed, "MAXX! YOU'RE BURNING YOURSELF OUT!"
4531's remaining pieces dragged themselves toward him.
"Fall back," she rasped.
Maya's voice tore through space.
"LIVE! THIS ISN'T WHERE YOU DIE!"
Helios charged a final core-cannon as everything went silent.
Maxx stood inside its halo while surrounded.
and burning and he made a inevitable choice.
He smiled one last time.
And whispered:
"…One more."
SYSTEM OVERRIDE – WAR SEAL
Preview Limit: SHATTERED
Emergency Authority Granted: 5 Seconds
The spiral on his skin turned blinding white.
Helios froze.
Time paused as the battlefield held its breath and Maxx raised both hands.
And brought them down as the halo shattered.
The Executor split in half and the sky cracked as the Inner Layer exploded into pure light.
And when the dust disappeared…
Helios was gone but not destroyed not erased but just..
Broken into..
Floating pieces and then Helix went silent.
The war froze as Maxx collapsed to the ground as Lyra caught him,he was shaking and laughing while coughing blood.
"…Did I… win…?"
Lyra pressed her forehead to his and her voice broke.
"You survived."
4531 dragged herself closer.
"…He out-ranked a God power."
Maya collapsed to her knees.
"…He burned the sky."
But far above…
A certain figure was watching their current preposition and status.
Mean while back to the Root's place
Maxx floated.
Not falling.
Not standing.
Just… suspended.
Ash drifted through the sky like broken stars. The battlefield below lay frozen — glassed earth, torn air, fragments of divine machinery burning quietly.
Quietty.
Too quiet.
Lyra knelt beside him, hands buried in light as she tried to stabilize his core.
Her hands were shaking.
"Maxx. Stay awake," she whispered.
4531 stood like a cracked statue, barely holding form, scanning empty space on pure instinct.
Maya didn't speak. She just stared at the sky, eyes wide, like she could feel what was coming.
And something was coming.
The air warped as no portals,no alarms appeared in the air.
No sound.
Just… pressure.
The sky tilted.
A fracture ran through reality like a smile and something looked through it and it was
not another machine.
Not Helix.
Not Helios.
Something older.
Something patient.
Something that had been watching before Maxx ever died before the university ,before the system and before the war.
ROOT Original.
But it did not speak and just leaned in, watched and judged.
And slowly… breathed.
Maxx forced his eyes open at this sound of it's breath.
He felt it.
The same presence from before his death.
The one that whispered.
The one that knew him too well
His fingers twitched.
"…You."
The fracture expanded as a voice replied.
Not sound — concept.
YOU MOVED EARLY.
Maxx almost laughed.
"Yeah," he coughed.
"People tell me that a lot."
Lyra felt it and pulled him closer.
"Step back," she snapped to the void.
"Whatever you are — you're not welcome."
The thing didn't respond.
It didn't need to.
It simply existed harder.
The battlefield bent slightly toward it in fear.
The system stirred inside Maxx not loudly or
violently.
Just… awake again.
Text flickered in his mind.
ROOT-BOUND CORE STATUS:
PREVIEW MODE — TERMINATED
PRIMARY HOST PROTOCOL:
PENDING ACCEPTANCE
Maxx blinked.
"…Pending?"
It wasn't asking nicely but it was waiting.
4531 stepped forward.
Her voice was low.
"Maxx… this is the moment they meant."
Maya whispered:
"This is where heroes say yes."
Maxx looked at them.
Lyra — wounded but glowing.
4531 — broken but standing.
Maya — terrified but refusing to run.
Then he looked at the fracture.
And remembered:
The rain.
The truck.
The billboard.
The voice.
You were chosen.
He laughed weakly.
"…You guys know I'm terrible with responsibility, right?"
No one answered.
They didn't need to.
The voice returned larger now and closer.
ACCEPT.
The sky cracked further as wind screamed through dimensions.
Reality peeled like skin and Maxx closed his eyes,took a breath and nodded.
"…Fine."
The system answered violently like a thunderstorm.
ACCEPTED.
ROOT-BOUND HOST: CONFIRMED
ROLE: VESSEL
The fractures ignited as light ripped through his veins, and pain assaulted him as white cold,heat took over everything in his body.
His scream shook dimensions.
Lyra reached for him.
4531 grabbed his arm.
Maya tried to pull him back.
But he wasn't leaving.
He was becoming more powerful.
Roots of light exploded from his spine into open air,not vines nor magic just..
Anchors.
Reality latched onto him as the fracture recoiled.
For the first time, the Root original stopped leaning in.
It paused as Maxx raised his head with eyes white unblinking but he was not possessed or controlled.
Just… more awake.
"…You don't own me," he said.
The Root original said nothing but it watched closer as it was Interested now.
Behind it…
Millions of dormant doors trembled with war sealed but something else began to turn as
the real enemy wasn't here to fight.
Yet.