At 10:47 p.m., Ethan Vale was still at work.The office had emptied almost an hour ago, leaving behind rows of dark monitors, vacant chairs, and the persistent hum of the air-conditioning system. Only the lights above Ethan’s section remained on. They cast a pale glow over the spreadsheet on his screen and the stack of documents beside his keyboard.Another report. Another correction. Another task that had somehow become his responsibility despite someone else’s name being written at the top of the request.Ethan rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock in the lower-right corner of the monitor.10:48 p.m.Ethan: Just one more.There was nobody nearby to hear him. That was probably why he said it aloud.One more report. One more correction. One more hour.For the past three years, his life had become a collection of one-more-things.He finished checking the final column, saved the file twice out of habit, then leaned back until the cheap office chair complained beneath him. His shoulder

The screaming did not stop.It spread through the neighborhood in waves, carried between apartment blocks by people who had no idea what they were running from. From Ethan’s bedroom window, the city looked as though someone had taken the ordinary world and torn away the rules holding it together. Cars sat abandoned across intersections. A bus had crashed sideways into a traffic light. People stood in the streets staring at translucent blue screens while others dragged children, elderly parents, or injured strangers toward whatever building still looked safe.Above nearly every person Ethan could see floated the same notification.[ETERNAL ASCENSION OF TOWER][WELCOME, PLAYER.][PLEASE WAIT WHILE YOUR CHARACTER IS BEING CREATED.]Ethan had seen interfaces like that thousands of times.That familiarity made the scene worse.There had always been a boundary between a game and reality. A monitor. A keyboard. A chair. If a raid went wrong, he respawned. If a monster overwhelmed him, he coul

Ethan did not sleep that night either.By the time the first gray light of morning reached Mina’s living-room curtains, he had spent hours replaying the same three messages in his head.[HIDDEN REQUIREMENT: ACCEPTED.][SOMETHING HAS BEEN WAITING FOR YOU.][MEMORY FRAGMENT DETECTED.][RESTORATION PROHIBITED.]The first two suggested that the System expected something from him. The last suggested something far more disturbing: there was information inside his own mind that the System did not want him to recover.Ethan sat on the floor with his back against the sofa, a notebook resting across one knee. Three pages were already filled with observations about the first night: Fang Rats appeared where they should not, Dire Hounds had reached civilian areas far too early, the old class structure had changed, his Legacy Data was inaccessible, and refusing the Initial Path had triggered a hidden condition.At the center of the fourth page, he had written one question twice.Why does the System

Ethan did not ask another question immediately.The brass key rested in his palm, small enough to disappear beneath his fingers, yet it had already made the room feel different. Its scratched surface reflected the faint blue light coming through the window, and the broken-ring symbol carved into its head seemed darker than the metal surrounding it.A Tower.A circle.A break in the circle where something had crossed through.His grandfather had possessed it before Ethan was born.His grandfather had apparently known the Tower would return.And, according to Ethan’s father, he had left a message for someone who would one day come back.Give it to the one who returns.The System had used almost the same language.[WELCOME BACK, PLAYER ETHAN.]Coincidence had become a difficult explanation.Ethan turned the key over. There was no manufacturer’s mark, no number, and no mechanical pattern he recognized. The teeth were unusually short, almost decorative, as though the object had not been des

Ethan did not notice the man following them when he and Mina left the Hunter Association.He was too busy thinking about the assessment crystal.It had not merely failed to recognize him. It had broken.That distinction mattered.The public System message had declared him impossible to measure, while the private messages were far more specific.[LEGACY AUTHORITY INTERFERENCE DETECTED.][ASSESSMENT SYSTEM INCOMPATIBLE WITH SUBJECT.][CURRENT WORLD CLASSIFICATION: INVALID.]Ethan had been turning those three statements over in his mind since leaving the building. Every explanation created another problem.If his Legacy Data interfered with the new System, why had his status reset to Level One?If the current world could not classify him, why could it still assign him experience and attributes?And if his identity was somehow incompatible with this version of Reality, why was he here at all?Mina bumped his shoulder.Mina: You’re doing it again.Ethan: Doing what?Mina: Walking while look