The portal opened like a wound.It didn’t shine this time, it pulsed. A jagged oval of fractured light hovered in the air, humming low, almost like a heartbeat.Oliver Beckett stood before it, his hand inches from the surface. The edges flickered in rhythm with his pulse, as if waiting for permission to pull him through.Behind him, Iris’s voice broke the silence. “You’re not going without me this time.”He turned. She was already suited up, combat vest, reinforced gloves, mana stabilizer clipped to her belt. Determined, steady, unafraid.“You know Kael’s orders,” he said quietly. “No entry for anyone except me.”“Then don’t tell her,” Iris replied. “You’ll need me in there.”Oliver frowned. “It’s not a game, Iris. The last Zone almost killed me.”She stepped closer, eyes bright. “And it nearly broke you. You need someone to remind you who you are when the System starts whispering again.”He hesitated. She wasn’t wrong. The last trial had left his mind echoing with cold logic and machi

The morning air felt colder than usual, as if the academy itself sensed someone important had arrived. Oliver Beckett stood beside Iris and Billy at the edge of the courtyard, watching Headmistress Kael walk toward them with a man none of them had ever seen before.He looked nothing like the instructors they knew. He wore a dark, weathered coat marked by old burns, cuts, and patches from distant places. A metal band wrapped around one wrist, glowing faintly with System-light. His face was scarred, not brutally, but in the way someone who had survived many battles carried their past. His eyes were calm, too calm, like he was already measuring everything in sight.Kael stopped in front of the group. “This is Sergeant Holt,” she announced. “Traveler veteran. He is here to evaluate and mentor your unit.”Billy leaned close to Oliver and whispered, “He looks like someone who wrestles Rift beasts in his free time.”Holt’s eyes snapped to Billy instantly, though Billy had barely made a so

Oliver Beckett felt the world bend before he ever stepped into the new Zone. He didn’t activate anything. He didn’t call the interface. He didn’t even blink, and yet the air around him rippled like someone had grabbed the edges of reality and tugged.His vision blurred. Then the System spoke, its voice calm but colder than usual:[ZONE 10 ACCESS GRANTED][NO MISSION PARAMETERS][NO TIMER][OBJECTIVE UNKNOWN]Oliver whispered, “This, this is wrong.”He stood in the academy training hall, but iris-colored cracks spread under his feet, splitting reality like thin sheets of glass. Light leaked upward from the cracks, forming a pillar around him. “Oliver!” Iris shouted from behind. She reached for him, too late. The light swallowed him whole.Oliver stumbled forward into complete silence. No sky. No ground. Just endless starlit darkness stretching in all directions, like he was floating through a universe that hadn’t been finished yet.Soft, slow breathing seemed to echo around him, not

Oliver Beckett woke to the soft hum of the infirmary lights. His body felt heavy, as if the swamp mud from Zone 05 still clung to him. The faint silver lines pulsed under his skin like threads of living metal. He sat up slowly.Iris was asleep in the chair next to his bed again, her hand still wrapped around his wrist. She must have stayed the entire night.Billy sat nearby eating chips, eyes glued to the door like he expected trouble.Sergeant Holt leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, studying Oliver with a look that mixed concern and something like disappointment. Oliver swallowed. “I’m awake.”Billy jumped. “Finally! I was starting to plan your funeral snacks.”Iris startled awake, blinking hard. When she saw Oliver sitting upright, her eyes flooded with relief. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”Oliver offered a weak smile. “I’ll try.”But his voice was hoarse, and his chest still ached from the regeneration overload. Holt stepped forward, face stern.“What happened in

The academy woke with a soft gray dawn, but Oliver Beckett didn’t see it. He was already on the rooftop. Already training. Already fighting something no one else could see. The air around him shimmered as he flickered in and out of view, sometimes a blur.Sometimes a ghost, sometimes just the glint of his eyes before he vanished entirely.Each failure hit him with a sharp crack of static. Each success lasted barely a second. But he kept trying. He had to.Zone 06 had made something clear: if he couldn’t hide, he’d die. And not just him, anyone standing next to him.He inhaled and whispered to himself: “Phase Veil. Level three. No noise. No distortion. No signature.”He stepped forward. The world rippled, and Oliver vanished. For half a heartbeat.Then he slammed back into sight, staggering, clutching his chest. “Too slow,” he muttered. Another attempt. Another failure. Another. Another.The rooftop’s door slammed open. Iris burst out, hair messy, breath fast. “Oliver! You started wit