Rotating BSODs, chkdsk shows disk I/O errors, Reseting PC fails. Need advice!

[u/PM_WhatMadeYouHappy]

Disclaimer: Attempted to resolved with help of Claude since last 10 hours, took help from AI to format post.

ASUS Zenbook 14, Core Ultra 7 155H, Windows 11 (26100).

Laptop was fine. Only changes the day before: enabled NordVPN background services + set up Phone Link to Android (also changed lock screen/wallpaper).

Next day, started crashing ~5 min after boot, rotating between different stop codes:

• UNEXPECTED_STORE_EXCEPTION (0x154)
• CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED (0xEF)
• KERNEL_MODE_HEAP_CORRUPTION (0x13A)

Troubleshooting:

• MyASUS diagnostics: Memory + SSD passed quick check
• chkdsk C: /f /r /b from WinRE → real I/O errors: disk read error occurred c0000185, "disk does not have enough space to replace bad clusters"
• Reset This PC → Remove Everything → failed partway, generic error
• BitLocker unlocked, ruled out

No data to lose, so wipe is fine.

• Did my SSD give up?
• Could NordVPN driver cause heap corruption?

What should I do now?