God-Level Reset: System of the Forgotten King

The chamber shook as systems failed one by one. Holograms blinked out. Grav-stabilizers snapped. The Cradle was dying.

Or evolving.

Kade staggered back, his chest burning with unfamiliar energy. It wasn't just power—it was something more fundamental. A rewriting of self.

WARNING: Catalyst Protocol – Ascendancy Detected.

You are no longer a user of the Catalyst.

You ARE the Catalyst.

He gasped as memories that weren't his surged through him—battles fought in alien ruins, civilizations erased from time, kings that ruled entire timelines before falling to madness.

Marei screamed.

The Seed's power was lashing out of her now, fracturing the vault walls. Time echoes formed around them: echoes of failed worlds, lost resets, ancient wars.

The datapad pulsed again.

"The Catalyst was never a tool. It was a prison."

"For him."

"The first one. The one who broke the cycle."

Kade fell to his knees, choking on the revelation. "What am I becoming?"

"You're becoming what they feared," Marei said, trying to stabilize him with the system interface. "You're not the next King, Kade—you're the first free one."

The Seed's voice rose again, shaking the walls.

"We must leave. Now. Before the Cradle collapses."

"But what about—"

"The real Reset begins when you step outside," she said. "You've been playing by their rules, chasing memories like scraps. But you're the Catalyst now. That means you can choose."

Kade clenched his fists as the chamber crumbled around him.

No more following.

No more puzzles without answers.

It was time to force the System to remember him.

He turned to Marei, his voice calm.

"We go to the Spire next."

Her breath caught. "You're serious?"

"The First Relay. The top of the System's hierarchy. Where the Council watches. Where timelines are born."

"And where they killed you before."

"Exactly," Kade said.

He looked back once at the Cradle as it was swallowed by implosion. The Seed vanished in a shimmer of light, leaving only a message behind, etched into his mind:

"You're not the hero, Kade. You're the memory they couldn't delete."

Then silence.

And clarity.