The air inside the runic spiral Grenda Malvar had raised was thin, vibrating with an oppressive energy that didn't come from the System as Lysa knew it, but from something more ancient, colder, more… fundamental. It was order in its purest and cruelest form, a geometry of control aimed not just at containing, but defining what it imprisoned. Outside, the muffled echo of the battle her friends were fighting—and winning—reached them like distant thunder, but here inside, the universe was just her and Grenda. Past and present colliding with the force of ages.

  Grenda Malvar moved with terrifying precision. Every step, every gesture, every syllable escaping her lips was calculated, part of a choreography of power she had perfected over decades, perhaps centuries, serving the Glass Circle and its distorted vision of a perfect System. She didn't conjure flames or blades; she conjured structure. With her hands, she wove invisible cages of pure logic, barriers of definition attempting to force Lysa back into the box of "Zero," "anomaly," "error" that needed correction or erasure.

  "You still struggle, child," Grenda said, her voice calm, yet laden with the iron weight of her authority. Golden runes, symbols of the Glass Circle, floated around her, spinning like gears in an invisible machine. "Fighting against your very nature. You were born of chaos, of failure. Order is the only cure. Accept. Bow. Finally, be useful."

  Lysa answered not with words, but with movement. She was the chaos Grenda despised. Her body, marked by visible scars and countless internal ones, moved unpredictably. Years of flight, adaptation, and survival in the world's darkest corners had taught her to dance on the edge of others' control. She didn't follow patterns because she never had the luxury of one.

  [Minor Reality Tear] The ability throbbed in her fingers, an unstable, dangerous tool, but her own. She didn't undo Grenda's runes; she tore them. Where Grenda imposed order, Lysa introduced flaw. A line of containment forming to her left was suddenly interrupted, the code folding onto itself with the sound of shattering glass. A barrier of judgment attempting to assess her Value was corrupted, showing not a zero, but a crimson blur, a denial of the System's own metric.

  "You didn't create me," Lysa finally answered, her voice hoarse but firm, cutting through the hum of Grenda's runes. She advanced, Veyla's dagger in her right hand, her left crackling with the unstable energy of the Reality Tear. "You merely pruned me. Tried to limit me to your definition of usefulness. But what you don't understand, Grenda... is that even weeds have roots. And mine... run deeper than yours."

  Grenda laughed, a dry sound devoid of humor. "Roots in nothing? How pathetic. Your origin is a miscalculation. Your existence, an offense to the logic that upholds this world. I should have erased you in that orphanage. Should have crushed the seed before it could sprout."

  "But you didn't," Lysa retorted, dodging a beam of golden light that tried to pin her in place. The beam struck the spiral's runic wall, causing it to tremble. "You kept me alive. Used me. Sold me. Tested me. You wanted proof that the System was right, that Zeros were inherently flawed, breakable. But you failed. Your discipline… created your own executioner."

  The mention of failure seemed to touch a nerve. Grenda's gray eyes narrowed, and the calm in her posture gave way to a furious rigidity.

  "Discipline does not fail!" She raised both hands, and the golden runes around her converged, forming a complex, ancient symbol. A symbol of reclassification. "The error is your persistence! But everything can be rewritten. Even the stubbornness of a worm!"

  A wave of pure energy emanated from the symbol, sweeping across the improvised arena. It wasn't a physical attack, but a conceptual one. It sought to penetrate Lysa's mind, access her hacked core, and force a reset, a submission to the original category. It was the same logic used in the System's most brutal training, the same pressure that broke minds and erased wills in the re-education centers Grenda had overseen.

  Lysa felt the pressure like a crushing weight upon her soul. Memories she had confronted in the Trial of Mirrors returned with redoubled force: the hunger, the cold, the beatings, the nobles' laughter, the scent of Vareth Tyron's perfume, Hadrik Fenrel's empty voice, Sario Ulven's cold analysis, Baron Vexil's silent betrayal. And above all, the constant presence of Grenda, the original architect of her pain.

  The Code within her screamed alerts. [Increased Runic Instability]. [Risk of Core Corruption]. [Imminent Systemic Failure].

  But amidst the chaos, something else emerged. Not a skill. A memory. A sensation. The touch of the Primordial Code in the forgotten dungeon. The Root Echo the old man in Telran had given her. The silent connection with Selene, another Zero who refused definition. Kael's stubborn loyalty. Andrel's fractured genius.

  She was no longer alone in that dark closet.

  "You can't rewrite me," Lysa gasped, driving Veyla's dagger into the ground to steady herself. The black blade absorbed part of the golden energy, its own runes glowing in protest. "Because I'm no longer part of your equation!"

  [Root Echo - Active] She drew upon the primordial energy, not to attack, but to anchor. She felt the lines of the real world, those that existed before the System, before the Glass Circle, before Grenda. And she used that connection to resist the reclassification.

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  Grenda's golden symbol wavered. The energy recoiled, unable to find a compatible entry point in Lysa's hacked and now strengthened code.

  Grenda took a step back, genuine surprise on her face for the first time. "You... you are connected to the Root? Impossible! That's heresy even for the Founders!"

  "I'm not connected to anything you understand," Lysa said. She rose, her eyes glowing not just with the crimson of the hack, but with something deeper, more ancient. A spark of unadulterated creation itself. "I am the proof that your order is a lie. A cage built on sand."

  Grenda snarled, her composure finally broken. "Lie?! I dedicated my life to holding this world together! To preventing the chaos that birthed us from devouring us again! You, the Zeros, the deviants, you are the crack in the dam! If I don't contain you, everything will collapse!"

  She advanced, no longer with structured magic, but with pure fury. Quick, brutal invocations—spears of solidified light, command chains that cracked in the air, waves of psychic pressure. It was the power of a High Supervisor of the System, someone with access to force protocols few possessed. Grenda's Life Value, which Lysa could now vaguely feel pulsing beneath the layers of control, was immense, perhaps even superior to Thorne Varkas's.

  Lysa found herself on the defensive; the difference in raw power was evident. She dodged, rolled, used the Reality Tear to create slight openings, to deflect attacks at the last moment. Veyla's dagger was her only real defense against the command chains, cutting the bonds of energy before they could take hold.

  The fight became a blur of light and shadow, of impact and evasion. Lysa was being pushed back, the energy from the Root Echo waning, the instability of her abilities growing. Grenda pressed on, relentless, each blow charged with the fanatical conviction of one who believes they are saving the world by destroying a life.

  "You are strong, Lysa. Stronger than I predicted," Grenda admitted, panting, but still advancing. "But raw strength without purpose is just noise. And noise... is always silenced."

  She prepared a final blow. A sphere of combined golden and black energy, pulsing with enough power to disintegrate not just the body, but Lysa's very signature in the Code.

  Lysa knew she couldn't dodge. Couldn't block. Couldn't cut through that.

  She closed her eyes. And remembered. Not the pain. But what she learned from it.

  Observe.

  Grenda had rituals. Had patterns. Even in her fury, there was a cadence. A moment of hesitation before unleashing maximum power. An almost imperceptible tic in her left shoulder when channeling annihilation energy. A slight shift of gaze to the right when about to confirm the kill.

  Lysa had learned to read Grenda not with the Code, but with her skin. With fear. With survival.

  In the instant Grenda hesitated, in the millisecond her gaze shifted, Lysa acted.

  She didn't attack the sphere. Didn't attack Grenda.

  She used the Reality Tear not to destroy, but to bend.

  She bent the minimal space between her and the runic wall of the spiral that contained them. For a fraction of a second, Grenda's barrier became an unstable portal.

  And Lysa pulled.

  Pulled Kael.

  Not physically. But his intent. His presence. The silent scream of loyalty he always carried.

  The image of Kael—wounded, bloodied, but standing after defeating Toren Kaul—flashed through Grenda's mind. An external, unexpected distraction, coming from outside the controlled arena.

  It was enough.

  Grenda's energy sphere veered slightly, hitting the wall of the runic spiral with a deafening explosion. The barrier trembled, cracked, and the connection to the outside world was violently re-established.

  Lysa seized the opening. She advanced through the smoke of the explosion, swift as an avenging shadow. Grenda, momentarily blinded by the light and surprised by the failure, tried to raise a defense, but it was too late.

  Veyla's dagger found its target. Not the heart. Not the throat. But the exact point on her chest where Lysa could feel the concentration of Grenda's Life Value, the core of her power and her connection to the Glass Circle.

  The black blade, made to cut bonds, penetrated deep.

  Grenda Malvar's eyes widened. Not in pain, but in shock. In disbelief.

  "You... cut... the Thread..."

  Golden and black energy leaked from the wound, not like blood, but like code unraveling. Grenda's immense Value began to float, to dissipate, and Lysa felt the almost irresistible pull of her own ability.

  [Essence Theft - Active?]

  But she hesitated. Looked into the gray eyes that had haunted her all her life. And saw... nothing. Just the void of a broken belief.

  "No," Lysa whispered, pulling the dagger out. "I won't become you."

  Grenda fell to her knees, the light in her eyes fading quickly. Her hand went to her chest, trying to contain the escaping essence.

  "The... System... will... fall..." she murmured, the last words a warning, or perhaps... a prophecy born from her own failure.

  And then, Grenda Malvar, Supervisor, Mentor of Pain, Architect of Scars, member of the Glass Circle, collapsed to the ground, inert. An empty shell.

  Her Value dissipated into the air, refused.

  The runic spiral around them finally gave way, dissolving into golden dust. The sound of the clearing—Kael's ragged breathing, Andrel's healing murmurs, Rukk's low growl, Selene's hesitant steps—invaded the silence.

  Lysa stood still, the dagger dripping residual energy. Her body trembled with exhaustion, adrenaline, from something she couldn't name. She looked at Grenda's body. The first on the list. The seed.

  Crossed off. Not by blood. But by choice.

  Kael was the first to reach her, limping, his sword resting on his good shoulder. He saw the body on the ground, saw Lysa.

  "Lysa...?"

  She turned to him, eyes still bright with the intensity of battle, but her expression... different. Older. Heavier.

  "It's over," she said, her voice low. "The first one. It's over."

  Andrel and Selene approached, with Rukk close behind. They saw the scene in silence. No one celebrated. No one smiled. Victory tasted like ashes.

  Lysa sheathed the dagger. Looked at her friends. Wounded. Tired. But alive. Together.

  "We have to get out of here," she said. "Before the System realizes what we've done. Before the Executor..."

  She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to. The weight of the threat hung over all of them.

  Grenda was dead. But the war... the war was just beginning. And Lysa, now, carried not only her scars, but the responsibility for the path they chose to walk, one number at a time, one crack at a time, until the glass finally shattered completely.