The world trembled.
Kael felt it—not an earthquake, but something deeper. A system pulse. A signal surging through Aetheros's bones.
[REALITY THREAD PULSE DETECTED]
[SYSTEM ARCHITECT INTERFERENCE INCOMING]
He crouched low behind a cracked data pillar, breathing in short, quiet gasps. The core fragment still pulsed faintly in his hand. Its glow had dimmed, but its presence lingered like static in his veins.
The System Doll was gone. Or deactivated. Or pulled back—he didn't know.
But something else had arrived.
The sky above Scartide flickered again—like the whole world was buffering.
That's when he saw it.
A figure descending from the fractured clouds. Not falling. Not flying.
Just gliding down—as if gravity was asking permission.
They landed without a sound.
Wrapped in a cloak made of data strands. Masked face. One arm mechanical, fingers like interface pins. The air around them shimmered—like reality bent just to accommodate their presence.
[SCANNING: UNKNOWN ENTITY… OVERRIDE BLOCKED.]
[IDENTITY: SYSTEM ARCHITECT – THREAD RANK ???]
Kael didn't move.
He didn't breathe.
The Architect turned its head.
And somehow—even without visible eyes—it saw him.
"Echo-Walker," it said. Its voice echoed like it was speaking across server layers. "You are early."
Kael gritted his teeth.
The Architect stepped forward, and with each step, the terrain healed. Broken stone reversed its cracks. Metal unbuckled. The world literally rewrote itself with every footprint.
Kael's mind buzzed with warning.
His system screamed.
[DANGER LEVEL: ABSOLUTE]
[RECOMMENDED ACTION: FLEE. HIDE. SHUT DOWN THREAD INTERFACE.]
"I can't fight that," he muttered.
He stood slowly, hands raised—half surrender, half bluff.
"I don't even know what I am yet," he called out.
The Architect stopped.
"That is why I'm here," it said.
Kael didn't answer.
Then it raised a hand.
Reality shattered.
A wave of broken glass—not real glass, but refracted memory shards—rushed toward him. His body screamed. His system pulsed.
[ACTIVATE SKILL: PHASE FRAME?]
"Yes—!"
The skill popped.
Kael's body fractured and skipped sideways, the world bending around him in a digital crack.
The shards missed.
But the Architect didn't stop.
It flicked its fingers, and the entire left wing of Scartide lifted into the air—gravity bent like a ripple. Buildings groaned and floated.
Kael stumbled back, heart racing.
[ECHO POINTS: 3/1000]
Low. Too low.
He opened the system. Fast.
One option blinked red:
[THREAD OVERDRIVE – UNSTABLE BOOST]
[WARNING: MAY DESTABILIZE USER]
[ACTIVATE?]
"I don't have time for safe," Kael growled.
"Do it!"
[ACTIVATING THREAD OVERDRIVE… 20 SECONDS MAX.]
His body snapped.
Lines of energy webbed out from his spine. Blue-white circuits glowed beneath his skin. His eyes burned with code-rings.
The world around him slowed.
No—he was accelerating. Like he'd stepped two seconds ahead of everyone else.
Kael moved.
He ran—straight toward the Architect.
Not to fight.
But to break through.
He aimed for the closest data tower. If he could reach it—tap its signal thread—he could skip zones. Glitch himself out of Scartide.
The Architect flicked their fingers again.
A wall of synthetic matter erupted ahead of Kael.
Too late.
[GLITCH STEP – ACTIVATE.]
He popped sideways. Mid-air.
He hit the ground, rolled, came up sliding.
Ten meters from the tower.
"Come on, come on—"
He reached out.
Threads shimmered into view. Glitching, twisting, fading—but there.
He grabbed one.
[THREAD INTERFACE – LINKED]
[ZONE EXIT REQUESTED]
[ERROR: SYSTEM JAMMED BY ARCHITECT RANK PRESENCE]
Kael cursed.
Behind him, the Architect walked forward slowly, dragging unreality with them.
"You were not supposed to wake yet," it said. "This is an unstable version. Your presence risks Collapse."
"Yeah?" Kael said. "Then let's risk it together."
He slammed his hand onto the thread core.
[THREAD INTERFERENCE INITIATED]
[ECHO INVERSION TRIGGERED]
The world convulsed.
Colors reversed. Time bent. Light folded into sound.
Then—
Nothing.
Silence.
Kael opened his eyes.
He wasn't in Scartide anymore.
He lay on a floating slab of stone surrounded by an endless void. Lines of light stretched in every direction—like circuitry on a motherboard made of the universe.
[ZONE: NULL THREAD – UNREGISTERED SPACE]
[USER STATUS: STABLE / REALITY SICKNESS: HIGH]
Kael groaned.
Every muscle hurt. His brain felt like it had been pulled through a screen resolution change.
He sat up slowly.
Then—
A voice.
But not the system's.
A girl's voice.
"You really glitched your way here, huh?"
Kael turned sharply.
A girl sat at the far edge of the slab. Young. Pale hair. One eye covered by a shifting interface lens. She wore a long coat made of broken thread-fibers, boots half-dissolved, and fingers covered in rings made of memory crystal.
[SCANNING: THREAD WANDERER – LV. 12]
"Who—"
"I'm Nyla," she said. "And you're Kael Ashborne. The Echo-Walker that doesn't exist."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "How do you know that?"
She smirked. "I've been watching your thread from the moment it glitched into this world."
She stood, walked toward him.
"You just made a very big noise in a very quiet network. Every Architect in Aetheros is going to be looking for you now."
Kael rubbed his forehead. "Great."
"But," Nyla added, tilting her head, "you did something they didn't expect. You broke the zone link."
Kael blinked.
"I what?"
"You inverted an Architect's control field. No one's done that. Not even high-level Data Walkers. You're unstable, but…"
She leaned in.
"You're not normal."
[QUEST UNLOCKED: ECHO SIGNATURE – HIDE OR REVEAL?]
[REWARD: CLASS EVOLUTION PATHS UNLOCKED]
Kael stared at the screen.
Then at Nyla.
"What happens if I reveal?"
"They'll find you. The world will try to delete you."
"And if I hide?"
"You'll stay alive. But blind."
Kael's eyes flickered with the silver glitch-glow.
"I'll reveal."
[ECHO SIGNATURE ACTIVATED]
[SYSTEM ARCHITECT ALERTS: TRIGGERED]
[ALL FACTIONS – ECHO-WALKER KNOWN]
Nyla laughed.
"You're insane," she said.
Kael stood up fully.
"Maybe. But I'm done hiding."