The air in the bathroom was cold, the tiled floor biting into Alex's knees through his jeans, a stark contrast to the feverish heat of Lilith's words.

The dim bulb overhead flickered, casting jagged shadows across her face, her eyes glowing with an otherworldly light... ancient, fractured, alive with centuries of grief.

"I was dying, Alex." Her words cracked like thunder in a distant storm, her fingers twitching as if grasping at memories too vast to hold.

"Everything... my divinity, my power, my home, the Celestial Court, my family... torn away. I bled across dimensions, stripped to nothing. A god reduced to… less than dust."

Her throat bobbed, a raw swallow, her shoulders hunching as if the weight of that void still pressed against her spine. "For the first time in eternity, I was afraid."

Her voice trembled, not with weakness, but with the memory of a wound that had never healed.

"I was alone in the void between worlds, fading. And that's when… it spoke to me."

She looked at him, eyes distant, as if reliving the moment.

"The system. It reached out and offered me a choice."

She held up two fingers... one trembling slightly.

"Die… and disappear forever."

Her finger lowered.

"Or bind myself to it. Become its Spirit. Its guide. Not as the one destined to ascend… but as the one who would help find him."

Her lips twisted, the pain of that offer still fresh centuries later.

"It told me that somewhere in the future, someone worthy would appear. Someone who could reach the throne even gods could not touch."

Her voice turned raw.

"I was desperate. I had nothing left. No power. No allies. Only rage, grief, and the burning need to survive long enough to see justice for what was done to me."

Her eyes hardened... not with cruelty, but with a centuries-old fire.

"I swore I would take my revenge. That I would reclaim what was taken from me. And this… becoming the Spirit of the System… was the only path left. My only chance."

She turned back to him, meeting his gaze with a mixture of shame and defiance.

"So I accepted."

Her voice grew bitter.

"The system saved me. Healed my wounds. Preserved my existence. But in exchange, I stopped being a god. I ceased to exist as Lilith of the Celestial Court. I became the System's Spirit... bound to its rules, its commands, its tests."

She swallowed, her voice softening with a fragile glimmer of hope.

"And when I finally found the chosen one… and guided him to ascension… I would regain everything I lost. My divinity, my freedom… and grow stronger alongside him."

Her gaze drifted past him, as if she were looking through centuries rather than moments.

"Since then, I've been searching," she whispered. "Testing… host by host, world by world. Pushing mortals, immortals, kings, warriors, scholars... anyone the system marked as 'potential.'"

Her expression tightened with exhaustion that no sleep could cure.

"So many lifetimes. So many failures. Each one carving away another piece of me until I could barely remember why I began at all."

Her next words were almost a confession.

"I came so close to losing hope, Alex. To believing the chosen one would never come… that the system had bound me to an endless cycle with no salvation at the end."

She swallowed, then gently took his hands.

"But you… you changed everything."

"You succeeded. After nine hundred years... you passed."

Lilith's grip on his hands tightened, and there was something almost like reverence in her expression.

"You proved you could resist ultimate corruption. That you could face temptation and choose integrity."

Her voice grew stronger.

"And by doing that... by refusing the mission, by pressing that button, by choosing who you are over what you could have... you didn't just pass a test."

She looked at him with eyes that glowed with ancient power and profound relief.

"You became the system's true host. Its owner. It's Master. The one person worthy of wielding its full power."

Alex stared at her, trying to process what she was saying. "What does that mean?"

"It means," Lilith said softly, "that the System belongs to you now. Not as a tool that tests you… but as something that will help you grow, strengthen you, and evolve with you. You will decide which missions you take and which you refuse. It will never force you again."

She took a shaky breath.

"And it means I'm no longer bound to serve it."

Her voice cracked with emotion.

"I'm bound to serve you."

***

[EVALUATION COMPLETE]

[HOST STATUS: WORTHY]

[CORRUPTION RESISTANCE: ABSOLUTE]

[CHARACTER INTEGRITY: VERIFIED]

[FIRST SUCCESS IN 900+ YEARS]

[INITIATING SYSTEM OWNERSHIP TRANSFER.... ]

Alex stared at the glowing interface, his mind still reeling from everything Lilith had revealed.

Master. He was the system's master now.

After months of being controlled, tested, pushed to his breaking point...

The reversal was too vast to...

Wait.

His thoughts crashed to a halt as something suddenly struck him with the force of a physical blow.

Linda.

Alex blinked, a cold jolt shot through him. his thoughts finally snapping away from the system… from Lilith… and back to the real world outside this bathroom.

She should have checked on him by now.

She wasn't the type to stay silent if someone she cared about locked themselves in a bathroom for this long.

Not after the way she'd been looking at him. Not with the emotions the system had forced into her.

Linda would've knocked. She would've called his name. She would've tried to make sure he was okay.

But there had been nothing.

No knock.

No voice.

No sound from the other side of the door.

Alex's breath hitched, dread coiling tight in his chest.

Something was wrong.

What if the system's manipulation had pushed her too far?

What if her emotions spiraled?

What if she… did something to herself? Or left the house confused, terrified, heartbroken... because of him?

His eyes snapped to Lilith, panic cutting through his voice.

"Linda."

Her name trembled out of him. "Where is she? What happened to her?"

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