I Got a Notification on my Laptop and Got Legendary Powers-Chapter 23: Descent into the Core

The air grew heavier as they moved deeper into the Hollow Grid's tunnels. Arjun led the way, his every step precise, his grip firm on the small device in his palm. Yumi and Eli followed, their minds still reeling from his revelation.

"So let me get this straight," Eli muttered. "We've spent all this time fighting Azrael, and now we find out he doesn't want to kill the Echo—he wants to become it?"

"That's what it looks like," Arjun said, not breaking stride.

Yumi frowned. "But why? What does merging with the Echo even mean?"

Arjun slowed, glancing over his shoulder. "That's what we need to find out before he does it."

They finally reached the end of the passage—a rusted steel doorway, half-covered in old data cables. Arjun knelt down, placing his device against the panel. The circuits flickered, and the locks disengaged with a metallic hiss.

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Beyond the door, a stairway spiraled downward into darkness.

Eli sighed. "Why is it always creepy underground places?"

Yumi ignored him, stepping through. As they descended, the walls around them began to change—what had been metal and stone was now pulsing with faint lines of glowing code, shifting like veins in a living body.

"I don't like this," Eli muttered.

"Stay sharp," Arjun warned.

They finally reached the bottom, emerging into an enormous chamber. At its center lay a towering obelisk of shifting, translucent data, suspended above a circular platform. Energy pulsed through its core, and the very air around it shimmered, bending reality in subtle, unsettling ways.

Yumi felt a chill creep down her spine.

"This is it," Arjun murmured. "The Core of the Echo."

Eli whistled low. "Well, it sure looks ancient."

Yumi stepped forward cautiously, watching the data streams ripple within the obelisk. She could feel something emanating from it—something vast and unknowable, like standing at the edge of an abyss.

She hesitated, then reached out toward it.

The moment her fingertips brushed the surface, a shockwave of energy pulsed through the chamber.

The walls flickered. The floor trembled. The air was suddenly alive with whispers—dozens, hundreds, all speaking in fragmented echoes.

Yumi gasped, staggering back.

Arjun caught her. "What did you do?"

"I—I don't know," she stammered.

The obelisk pulsed again. Then, suddenly, a voice rang out—clear, unlike the whispers.

"You have come far."

Eli's hand shot to his sword. "Oh, fantastic. The ancient reality ghost wants to chat."

The voice ignored him.

"You seek truth, yet truth was never lost. Only buried. Would you unearth what was meant to remain hidden?"

Yumi swallowed hard. "We don't have a choice."

The obelisk flared. And then—

Everything shattered.

The chamber around them dissolved into fragments of light. The floor vanished. The walls melted into swirling streams of code. For a brief, terrifying moment, Yumi felt like she was falling through existence itself.

Then—

She saw it.

A vision. A memory. A truth long erased.

She saw the first architects of the system—men and women in pristine uniforms, standing before a colossal construct, their faces grim.

She saw the creation of Azrael—a being not born, but formed, designed as a failsafe.

She saw the Echo—not a program, not an AI, but something older than human thought, something vast and incomprehensible, reaching across time itself.

And finally—

She saw Azrael standing at the center of it all, waiting.

Then—

Reality snapped back into place.

Yumi gasped, collapsing to her knees. Eli and Arjun looked just as shaken.

The obelisk pulsed one last time.

"Now you understand."

Yumi's breath came fast. Her mind reeled.

Azrael wasn't just trying to merge with the Echo.

He had always been a part of it.