They walked cautiously across the dusty plaza toward the giant gray fortress. There were no windows. There were no small doors.There was only a massive, towering gateway in the center of the building. The doors were made of thick, dark metal, standing fifty feet tall. They were completely shut.As they walked closer to the giant doors, Silas felt a strange vibration in his boots. "The ground is humming," Silas said, looking down.Everett felt it too. The humming was deep and powerful. It was not a magical hum. It was the sound of massive, ancient machinery running on pure, raw electricity.They stopped twenty feet away from the towering metal doors."There is no handle," Silas said, shining his green light over the smooth gray metal. "There is no keyhole. How do we get inside?"Everett stepped forward. He walked right up to the massive doors. He looked closely at the metal.Covered in a thick layer of gray dust, there were deep lines carved into the iron.Everett reached out with his

Rae began to read the glowing white text on her screen. Her eyes went wide with absolute shock."The System Moderators were not just peaceful scientists," Rae whispered. A cold chill ran down her spine. "They had absolute power over life and death. If a city became too violent, the Moderators had the power to execute emergency population transfers. They could move millions of people into digital storage to stop a war. If a region became too corrupted, they could initiate a complete reset."Lyra gasped. She looked at the Pilgrim standing on the glass platform. "They were gods," Lyra said softly."They were administrators of reality," Rae corrected her. "They could bypass all System restrictions. They did not have to follow the rules of magic or physics. They wrote the rules."The Pilgrim stood perfectly still. He listened to Rae’s voice coming through Everett’s radio earpiece."She is a very smart girl," the Pilgrim’s voice echoed calmly inside Everett’s mind. "She is reading the truth

A terrible, loud noise ripped through the air. It sounded like a million glass windows smashing at the exact same time. Everett stood on the dry, dusty ground and looked up. He covered his ears with his large, scarred hands. The noise was so loud it made his teeth hurt.Next to him, Lyra dropped to her knees. She squeezed her silver eyes shut. Silas raised his sniper rifle, pointing it at the clouds, but there was nothing to shoot. Rae hugged her small laptop to her chest, trembling in fear."What is happening?!" Silas yelled over the deafening noise. "Is it the Pilgrim? Is he deleting the world?"Everett did not answer. He stared at the sky.High above them, thick black cracks appeared in the clouds. The cracks spread like a giant spider web.The blue sky shattered into thousands of glowing pieces. The pieces of the sky slowly fell toward the earth like glowing snow, and then they melted into nothing.When the fake sky fell away, a new sky was revealed. It was deep, dark red.Sudden

“This is what the Pilgrim wanted,” Everett thought. His heart broke. “The Pilgrim didn't need to delete the world. He just took away the rules. He gave them a prize worth killing for. Humanity is going to eat itself alive.”"Everett!" Lyra yelled, running down the hill. She reached his side. She looked at the bloody scavengers shooting each other. She covered her mouth in horror. "They are killing their own friends.""Greed," Everett said softly. His voice was completely empty. "It is the oldest poison in the world."Everett gripped his plain steel sword. He walked forward into the middle of the gunfight.A scavenger saw him coming. The scavenger aimed his laser rifle at Everett. "Stay back! The core is mine!"Everett did not even blink. He swung his left arm fast. He hit the scavenger in the jaw with the flat side of his steel blade. The man spun around and fell unconscious into the mud.Everett walked right up to the floating, glowing blue diamond.The leader of the scavengers was b

Everett looked up at the massive stone giant.Korrok, the Earth Pillar, roared again. He swung his massive stone arms blindly through the air. He hit the side of a normal mountain, smashing the top of it into a million flying pieces of rock."He is attacking!" Silas yelled. He raised his sniper rifle, looking through the scope. "He is going to crush everything!""No," Everett said firmly. He placed his large left hand on the barrel of Silas’s rifle and pushed it down."Everett, look at him!" Silas argued. "He is destroying the landscape! If he walks ten miles to the east, he will step on a refugee camp and kill fifty thousand people in one step!""He is not attacking, Silas," Everett said. His deep green eyes watched the giant carefully.Everett had fought in dark rooms. He had been tortured by the System. He knew what a cornered, frightened animal looked like. He knew what it felt like to suddenly realize you could bleed."He is scared," Everett said softly.Lyra looked at Everett, a