The next match didn't kick off with the usual countdown—it kinda stuttered instead.
Inside the observation deck, screens flickered like faulty neon signs. The overhead interface buzzed, dimmed, then refocused. One of the tournament officials slapped the side of his console.
"Must be a system update glitch," he muttered.
But another tech leaned over, frowning. "It's not the interface. It's the realms themselves."
Meanwhile, down on the arena floor, teams had already entered their simulation pods.
Ethan, Iris, and Jasper were the last to plug in.
"Something feels… twitchy today," Iris said, double-checking her sync band. "Like something is off-balance."
Jasper raised a brow and said in a joking way. "Twitchy like you, or twitchy like reality?"
She didn't smile. "The second one."
Ethan stayed quiet, but deep down, he felt it too—this strange pull. Like his realm wasn't just listening anymore; it was leaning in closer.
________________________________________
The arena this time was a windswept canyon—the kind with jagged cliffs and barely any vegetation. The terrain changed constantly, driven by system rules for erosion and weather patterns.
The moment they loaded in, Ethan blinked.
His feet sunk slightly.
That's… weird.
It looked like sand.
But it wasn't.
Beneath the dry surface, thin roots had started to spread—barely visible unless you crouched close. Like the realm was seeding itself beyond its boundaries.
Jasper was the first to notice. "Hey… isn't this supposed to be a shared map? And wasn't is supposed to be balanced for everyone?"
"Yeah," Ethan said.
"Then why does this part smell like your realm, dude?"
Before he could answer, a red alert flashed across his mental overlay:
----------------------------------------------
[Environmental consistency compromised.]
[Re-syncing terrain data… failed.]
[Report submitted to Oversight.]
----------------------------------------------
Iris swore. "That's not good. They'll suspect that we are cheating."
"I didn't do anything," Ethan said quickly. "I didn't… it just started doing this on its own."
The sky above glitched slightly—like a frame skip in a bad game.
And then… the match started.
Team "Cobalt Fang" made the first move.
They came in fast, with hover-platforms and energy-tethered warbeasts. The crowd outside roared, but inside the Shared Mental Interface, it was dead silent—just tactical markers and tension.
Felix flanked to the left. And Iris took the front ground.
Ethan deployed a pod of defensive growths to hold his zone.
But the moment his plants touched the terrain… it spread.
A chain reaction.
Tiny green nodes erupted around him—across the canyon, along the ledges, even under enemy units. Roots burst up from beneath the arena's floor, causing Cobalt Fang's lead attacker to skid sideways as the platform tilted.
"What the hell?!" someone shouted on the public channel.
The match paused automatically.
Oversight had stepped in.
________________________________________
Inside the control center, a man in a slate-grey suit narrowed his eyes.
"Who's controlling the green-bleed anomaly?"
One of the techs tapped fast. "It's coming from Zone 6—Scrap Reclaimers' node. The roots aren't part of the arena's code." The man leaned forward. "Show me their realm logs."
The screen lit up.
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Name: Ethan Thorne
Realm ID: 04811-Polluted Grove
Status: Active
Anomaly Level: Unclassified
----------------------------------------------
His expression stayed neutral, but his fingers tightened slightly. "Flag this realm. Notify the Ethics Division. And put a silent trace on its next evolution pattern."
"Yes, Director Wren."
________________________________________
Back in the shared arena, the pause lifted.
But the damage was done.
Half the terrain was now "unreadable" to the system.
Team Cobalt Fang lost their footing. Their AI supports lagged. Their strategy collapsed like a house of cards. And when the final buzzer hit—
The Scrap Reclaimers had won again.
Ethan stood at the center of a wild patch of green, blinking in disbelief. This wasn't his power anymore. It was his realm's.
---
Inside the Sector Twelve's Admin Dome, a quiet, dimly lit room with no windows, six officials gathered around a long table. No student IDs or arena cheers—just a holo-screen showing a scrolling stream of encrypted documents.
"Realm contamination is accelerating," said the bald woman in black armor. "This isn't just interference—it's uncontrolled crossover happening."
Another man, dark-suited, eyes cold and sharp, tapped at a static frame on the side of the screen. It displayed Ethan standing amidst a growing biome inside a digital canyon.
"This isn't a bug. It's intentional evolution," he explained. "The anomaly isn't spreading outward. It's pulling everything inward. Like it wants to turn the arena into itself."
"But that boy doesn't have the knowledge or access to create something like this," said the tech-liaison from Oversight.
Director Wren leaned back. "Then what does?"
Silence.
Then, the AI instructor from Ethics blinked slowly. "His realm might be responding on its own. We've noticed signs of instinctual patterns—primal commands not directly from him."
Wren gave a small nod. "Which makes this a threat and a chance for research opportunity."
He slid a sealed file across the screen. "Starting now, Ethan Thorne is to be observed under Tier 3 Contingency Watch. No direct interference...yet. Let's see how far it grows."
---
Later that day, Ethan sat on the steps outside the simulation bay locker area, trying to catch his breath. The match was over, but his heart hadn't slowed down.
What just happened?
His mind raced.
The roots hadn't obeyed him. They moved faster, more wildly—like a tide sweeping through code and terrain alike.
Even Iris looked shaken, and Jasper kept glancing over his shoulder like something might crawl out of the shadows.
A soft chirp from his wristband broke his thoughts.
----------------------------------------------
[1 New Message]
[Sender: Unknown]
[Subject: Not A Bug]
----------------------------------------------
He frowned but not from the usual school interface.
This was routed through a maintenance channel—normally used by tech staff to report broken seats and clogged cafeteria trays.
He tapped it open.
________________________________________
> You didn't see anything.
> But something saw you.
> And it whispered back.
> They're watching now.
>Stay ordinary.
>Pretend your realm isn't alive or they'll try to cut it open.
> —A friend.
________________________________________
Ethan's blood ran cold.
The message disappeared, auto-deleted, leaving only a blank screen behind. What… just happened?
He looked around.
No one was in sight, and no cameras that he could spot nearby.
But the smell of moss drifted from his skin, faint and earthy. His shoes had small green smudges clinging to the seams—leftover from the arena. But that wasn't possible.
Normally simulation residue don't used to leak out… except today, it apparently did.
Back in his dorm later that night, he sat cross-legged on his bed, staring at the realm panel hovering in front of him.
His [Divine Realm] flickered in dull greens and browns, unstable but visibly growing.
And deep within the map, something pulsed—a heartbeat, but not his.
The roots weren't just following orders anymore.
They were waiting.
Meanwhile, in the Faculty Wing, Director Wren watched the data feed from Ethan's realm shift again. He smiled faintly.
"Let's see what you become, little seed."