Lin Xiaoxia moved like a force of nature, her every motion a blade cutting through the resistance. She dodged, struck, and advanced with a precision honed by desperation—each step fueled by the fire of love, of truth, for every soul whose memories had been shackled by Time Corporation.
Behind her, Xiaoya unleashed waves of disruptive electromagnetic pulses, scrambling security systems with ruthless efficiency. Alarms wailed like wounded beasts, their crimson glare painting the lab in hues of violence.
The Prototype remained still, his gaze locked onto Lin Xiaoxia. Cold. Calculating. Yet when he saw the unyielding resolve in her eyes—the kind that defied logic, defied even death—something fractured in his expression. A flicker. A hesitation.
As Lin Xiaoxia neared the pulsing core, the Prototype finally moved. In an instant, he was before her, blocking her path.
"You can't stop me," she spat, her voice steel.
"Can't I?" His lips twisted into something almost like a smile. "Perhaps… I don’t intend to."
Before she could react, his hand shot out, slamming onto the core’s control panel.
The machine screamed.
Blue light stuttered violently. Data cables convulsed, erupting in showers of sparks. The entire lab trembled as if the earth itself recoiled.
"What did you do?" Lin Xiaoxia demanded.
The Prototype turned. For the first time, his face wasn’t cold—it was torn. "I may be a copy," he murmured, "but I am not nothing."
His eyes dropped to the silver ring on her hand. "Perhaps… I understand now. What it means to be real."
The core’s energy surged wildly, its containment failing. The Prototype didn’t flinch as the light consumed him, stripping him away like sand in a storm. His last act was a smile—gentle, familiar—so much like him that Lin Xiaoxia’s breath caught.
Then he was gone.
Silence.
The core died with a final, shuddering gasp. The alarms cut out. The lab stood frozen, as if holding its breath.
Xiaoya rushed to her side, eyes wide. "We… we did it."
Lin Xiaoxia stared at the empty space where the Prototype had stood. A creation. A ghost. And yet, in the end, he had chosen to be more.
"Yes," she whispered. The war for memory was over. The stolen fragments would return to their rightful owners. And she—she would carry Xu Yuan’s love forward, into a world where nothing, not even time, could erase what was real.
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