Chapter 32 – Fragments of the Forgotten
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A Voice from a Broken Past
Luo Fan stood still, studying the spectral woman before him. Her existence was wrong—flickering like a distorted memory trying to overwrite itself. The Ruins of Whispering Moon groaned around them, whispers echoing through the shattered temple.
She had said his name.
She remembered him.
That was impossible.
> "Alright, Boss, either she's glitched, or she's the universe's worst stalker."
Luo Fan ignored EchoStar's commentary. He focused on the woman.
"Who are you?" he asked again, his voice steady.
The woman's lips parted slightly, as if the question had shaken something loose. "I… I was called Shen Mu."
Luo Fan's breath caught.
Shen Mu.
The name was familiar—but not from his own life. It was buried in the fragments of multiversal knowledge he had glimpsed through the Archive.
Shen Mu had been erased.
> "Ohhh. Oh no. Boss, I think you just met a walking contradiction."
Luo Fan's gaze hardened. "You should not exist."
Shen Mu exhaled, her form flickering like a dying flame. "I know."
The whispers in the air grew louder, coiling like unseen tendrils.
"Yet here I am."
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A Forgotten Survivor
Luo Fan crossed his arms. "You said I defied the Reset. How do you remember that?"
Shen Mu hesitated, then raised her hand. A faint, golden thread flickered in her palm.
"This."
Luo Fan's eyes narrowed. It was a fragment of EchoStar's old system code—one of the lost data strands from before the Reset.
> "Wait, wait, wait. She stole a piece of me? Rude."
Shen Mu shook her head. "No. I did not steal it. It… found me. It anchored me when everything else was erased."
Luo Fan processed that information.
So when the Reset wiped everything, some fragments of the old multiverse had latched onto certain individuals—allowing them to exist outside of rewritten reality.
EchoStar hummed.
> "Boss, we're looking at a literal anomaly here. A survivor of the old world that shouldn't be possible. If she's here, then…"
Luo Fan finished the thought aloud. "There could be more."
Shen Mu gave a slight nod. "I was not the only one."
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The Gathering of the Forgotten
A gust of unnatural wind swept through the temple, and Luo Fan sensed it immediately—another presence.
No, multiple.
Figures began appearing in the distance, flickering in and out of reality like phantoms. Some looked confused. Others wary.
All of them had the same distorted presence as Shen Mu.
They were Forgotten.
> "Welp. Good news, Boss. You just found a support group for people who aren't supposed to exist."
Luo Fan exhaled sharply. His journey to restore the multiverse had just become much more complicated.
He wasn't just dealing with a fractured system anymore.
He was dealing with survivors of a lost reality.
And now… they were looking to him for answers.
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[Chapter End.]