The Great Hall of the Scrapheap was no longer a place of safety; it was a bunker. Outside the shimmering blue Faraday shield, the white void pressed in, a silent, hungry nothingness that had swallowed the swamp whole.

  Dane the Debugger plugged the data-drive into one of his floating holographic screens. The air in the room grew cold, and the flickering green text in Dane's eyes turned a frantic, bleeding red.

  "Careful, Dane," the woman in the dragon-scale armor warned, her hand on her sword. "That drive is 'Hot Data.' It’s still connected to the System's heartbeat."

  "I know what I'm doing, Sera," Dane grit his teeth. "I've been waiting six versions for this file."

  The screen flickered, then stabilized. It didn't show a map or a list of stats. It showed a video file—jagged, low-resolution, and dated: [VERSION 0.01 - TEST LOG].

  Kaelen stepped closer, his [System-Breaker] sword humming a low, mournful tune against his hip. On the screen, the Bridge of Sighs appeared. But it wasn't the Bridge Kaelen knew. It was pristine, white stone, and there was no rain.

  A man was standing on the bridge. He looked like Valen—the same golden hair, the same royal posture—but his eyes were filled with a terrifying, cold intelligence. And standing next to him was a guard.

  Kaelen’s breath hitched. The guard wasn't him. It was a different man entirely.

  "Test Log 01," the man on the screen spoke. His voice was Valen's, but stripped of the "Idiot" persona. "The Narrative is stable. The Bodyguard asset is performing within expected parameters. We are ready to begin the first 'Sacrifice' sequence."

  In the video, the guard turned to the Prince and bowed. "Is it time, My Lord?"

  "Yes," the Prince said. He didn't fall. He didn't slip. He drew a blade and calmly drove it through the guard's heart. "The world requires a soul to power the loop. Start the clock."

  The screen went black.

  "What... what was that?" Valen whispered, his face turning a ghostly shade of pale. The [Unwritten Crown] on his head pulsed once, a sharp, angry spark of white fire. "That wasn't me. I would never... I don't even like hurting squirrels!"

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Dane turned away from the screen, his holographic displays reflecting in his glass-like eyes. "That was the Beta, Valen. In the original version of this world, the Prince wasn't the 'VIP' to be protected. He was the Admin. And the Bodyguard? He wasn't the hero. He was the 'Fuel'."

  Kaelen felt a coldness spread through his chest that no amount of Soul-Burn could warm. "You’re saying the loops... they aren't about saving the Prince?"

  "The loops are a battery," Dane said, his voice heavy. "Every time a 'Protector' dies with a soul full of hope and failure, the System harvests that emotional data to keep the world rendered. But something went wrong in Version 0.8. The 'Prince' asset developed a bug. He became... well, an idiot. He lost his Admin privileges and became a 'Target' instead of a 'Sacrificer'."

  Kaelen looked at Valen. The Prince was trembling, looking at his own hands as if they were covered in phantom blood.

  "And me?" Kaelen asked, his voice a low growl. "Why did I remember? Why 114 times?"

  "Because you were never supposed to be the Bodyguard, Kaelen," Dane said, pointing at the dark data-drive. "The file says your asset ID was originally 'The Executioner.' You were the one designed to kill the King. But the System swapped your roles to trap you. It turned the Executioner into the Guard, and the Admin into the Victim."

  [SYSTEM REVELATION: THE GREAT INVERSION] [HIDDEN LORE DISCOVERED: 100%] [LEVEL UP! CURRENT LEVEL: 28]

  The castle shook. A massive, metallic thud echoed through the Faraday shield. Outside, the white void was no longer empty. A figure was standing there, walking through the nothingness as if it were solid ground.

  It was a man in black plate armor, his cape made of falling lines of code. He didn't have a face—just a single, glowing red 'X' where his eyes should be.

  [WARNING: THE SYSTEM GOVERNOR HAS ARRIVED] [STATUS: OVERRIDING LOCAL PHYSICS]

  "They found us," Sera shouted, drawing her dragon-scale blade. "Dane! The shield is at 20%!"

  Dane grabbed the data-drive and shoved it into Kaelen's hand. "Go! There’s an 'Emergency Exit' in the cellar—a teleportation gate that leads to the Forbidden Peaks. If they get this drive back, they'll reset the Prince to his 'Beta' version. They'll turn him back into the monster he was."

  Kaelen looked at Valen. The Prince looked at him, his eyes wide with terror and a desperate plea for reassurance.

  "Kaelen," Valen whispered. "Am I... am I going to become that man on the screen?"

  Kaelen gripped the hilt of the [System-Breaker]. The blue-screen blade flared with a defiant, jagged light. He didn't care about Version 0.01. He didn't care about the Beta. He cared about the idiot who had tried to save him from the Janitor.

  "Not in this version," Kaelen said, his voice hard as iron. "Valen, grab your mace. We're going to the Peaks. And if the 'Governor' wants his drive back, he’s going to have to edit it out of my cold, dead hands."

  "GO!" Dane roared, slamming a button on his desk.

  The floor beneath Kaelen and Valen vanished, replaced by a swirling vortex of blue light. As they fell, Kaelen saw the Governor raise a hand, and the Scrapheap Castle began to crumble like wet paper.

  [LOCATION: TRANSFERRING...] [TARGET: THE FORBIDDEN PEAKS]