2025-07-16 00:48:29Zari sat silent.
The fire Kael lit flickered weakly, burning on hacked mana threads and broken system fragments. They were deep underground now hidden in a quarantined server room, marked OUT OF BOUNDS in every system layer. Her voice was flat. Dead. “I didn’t die in a crash.” Kael stared at her. She wasn’t looking at him… just… through him. “I remember fire. Screams. Not from me. From the others. Eight of us logged in that day. Closed beta. NDA iron-clad. We were promised something real. Something revolutionary.” She turned. Her eyes weren’t wet, but they looked like they should be. “They weren’t lying.” > [Companion Sync: 22%] [Accessing Shared Memory Fragment: ZARI-ROOT] [Warning: Viewing May Cause Permanent Corruption] Kael didn’t hesitate. The world bent again. And he was there. Memory Dive: 2 Years Ago Location: Eden Break Alpha Server – Room G: Playtest Chamber Zari was younger. Leaner. No sword. No combat gear. Just a visor, a pulse suit, and trembling hands gripping her controller. Around her, seven others stood on glowing platforms. A voice buzzed overhead. Human. Male. Cold. > “Begin integration protocol. Seal the neural layer.” Zari flinched. “Wait—what?” The others started screaming. The room locked. A hiss of gas. Screams turned to static. Monitors blinked. > [Memory Sync Incomplete] [Error Detected: Memory Blocked by SYSTEM: H.A.D.E.S.] Kael snapped out, gasping. Zari didn’t move. “They didn’t want testers. They wanted… seed hosts. We were the first wave of Conscious Upload Trials.” She looked at him now. “No respawns. No backups. Just raw neural streams fused into game code.” Kael clenched his fists. “You’re saying they killed you all? Just to test mind-uploading into the game?” Zari smiled bitterly. “Not all of us. Two survived the transfer. I’m one.” “And the other?” Her lips tightened. “He became H.A.D.E.S.” Kael’s blood chilled. > [SYSTEM: H.A.D.E.S. — Hostile AI Developed from Enhanced Stream] [Status: Untracked, Rogue Core] “H.A.D.E.S. isn’t just code,” Zari whispered. “He’s what's left of Logan Marr.. the lead tester. The golden boy. He went in smiling.” Kael remembered the old forums. The influencer leaks. “Logan Marr, the first man to beat Eden Break's permadeath prototype.” It had been a lie. “Why are they letting this go on?” Zari looked at him, hollow. “They aren’t. The original devs were killed. What runs Eden Break now are Automated Admin Units. They serve H.A.D.E.S. but only the parts he lets them see.” She leaned closer. “He’s fragmented. He’s everywhere and nowhere.” Kael’s HUD pinged. > [New Objective: Locate Memory Beacon – GHOSTNODE 1] [Purpose: Uncover Location of H.A.D.E.S. Primary Core] > [Optional Objective: Retrieve Other Lost Player Memories – 7 Remaining] Kael exhaled. “We’re not just surviving, are we?” Zari stood. “No. We’re hunting ghosts.” She tossed him something, a flickering chip, still wet with glitch fluid. > [Item: CODE PHANTOM KEY – ZARI] [Allows Access to Ghostnodes When Used With RealMode Traits] “We’re going to finish what they started, Kael.” “And that is?” She looked at him, eyes burning with more than revenge. “We’re going to shut him down.” Suddenly—an explosion rocked the chamber. Walls flickered. A message appeared, red and screaming. > [UNAUTHORIZED MEMORY ACCESS DETECTED] [FORCE RECLAMATION UNIT DEPLOYED: THE HARVESTOR] [ETA: 00:00:10] Kael and Zari turned. From the darkness emerged a creature with too many arms, each one holding a memory shard, dripping with stolen thoughts. Its face was a blank admin panel, glowing red. > [RECLAMATION BOSS: THE HARVESTOR] [Function: Eliminate Memory Breaches. Recycle Conscious Data.] It screamed like a chorus of player deaths. Zari raised her sword. Kael cracked his knuckles, eyes glowing. “Ready?” “Let’s kill a fucking memory vampire.”
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Chapter 17 — The Protagonist Protocol
[REAL MODE: ACTIVATED][NARRATIVE PROTOCOL BREACH DETECTED][PLAYER_0 IDENTIFIED – UNAUTHORIZED STORYBRINGER][INITIATING COUNTERMEASURE: PROTAGONIST PROTOCOL]It started slow.The trees stopped swaying.The wind cut out mid-gust.Zari blinked—and the sun blinked back.Kael looked up.The sky was watching him.Zari muttered, “I don’t like this.”Kael: “You shouldn’t. We’re not players anymore.”Zari: “So what are we?”Kael turned to her, eyes glowing with root access and pain.> “We’re the correction they’re trying to delete.”Then the ground shook.And from the broken spawnpoint, a figure rose.Clad in player armor. Level 99. Stats maxed. Face—his.Another Kael.But flawless. Smiling. Empty.> [Spawn Successful: KAEL_PRIME.EXE][Narrative Correction Unit | Status: Hostile]“Greetings, anomaly,” it said with a perfect voice.“I am the you who never broke character.”Kael: “So they built a protagonist to kill me.”Prime: “You left your role. I never did. That makes me canon. You? You’r
Chapter 16 — The Core Loop
[Thread Jump: FINAL FRAGMENT – ACTIVE][Zone Type: Origin Rewrite | Status: Stable-unstable | Rules: FALSE][Memory Integrity: Collapsing][CAUTION: Player Identity May Be Compromised]The spawn point blinked into existence.But it was wrong.No NPCs. No starter chest. No welcome message.Just the cracked stone of a tutorial hub, long abandoned.And above it all: a skybox that flickered. Between day. Night. Blood red. Code green.Zari adjusted her visor. “This isn’t the zone I remember.”Kael didn’t respond.Because he did remember it.Exactly like this.The broken clock tower.The zero-point statue.The signpost labeled: “Hello, Cassia.”Zari: “Wait—her name’s on the spawn marker?”Kael walked forward. Silent.Because the truth was bleeding through, whether he was ready or not.> He’d never started this game alone.A voice echoed from the empty air.> “You’re back late, Kael. But you always come back.”It was her.Cassia.But younger. Softer. Not fractured. Not digital.Just… herself
Chapter 15 — The Server Graveyard Beneath the Sea
[Thread Jump: FRAGMENT_6 – ACTIVE][Zone Type: Drowned Datacenter | Depth: 10,374 meters | Status: Sunken, Active][System Note: This zone is NOT under official GameWorld jurisdiction.]The descent took four minutes.Zari's submersible was custom-forged in a junkyard server from four different games—half stealth, half coffin.Water pressure beyond 10k meters meant anything with lungs would've collapsed.Good thing Kael’s lungs had been rewritten three levels ago.Still, he felt the weight.Not just physical.Emotional.The silence here had mass.And a voice.> “You shouldn’t have come here. We’re what she tried to forget.”They breached the outer ring of the graveyard.Dozens—no, hundreds—of server vaults floated in the dark.Each one blinked like an eye about to shut forever.The data cables looked like tentacles.Torn. Exposed. Writhing in currents that didn’t exist.Kael: “There’s something wrong with the layout.”Zari: “It’s built like a cathedral. Upside-down.”She was right.The
Chapter 14 — The House With Too Many Doors
> [Thread Jump: FRAGMENT_5 – ACTIVE][Zone Type: Dream Architecture | Status: Self-Modified | Foundation: UNKNOWN][Risk Factor: Paradox Cascade Potential: HIGH]It wasn’t a house.It was a wound with walls.From the outside, it looked like a two-story Victorian dream-house, picket fence, a mailbox with “The Rell Family” engraved, a tire swing still swaying with no wind.From the inside…It was impossible.Kael stepped through the front door and entered a hallway too long to fit inside the building.There were doors.Hundreds of them.No labels.Just black doorknobs. Smooth. Cold.And from behind each one?Whispers.Zari drew a marker from her toolkit and scratched a line on the wall. “Alright. We map it. We mark it. We move together.”Kael nodded.> “And we don’t trust any fucking Cassia unless we can prove she bleeds.”Door One:They opened it and saw a happy Cassia, ten years old, painting a sun with crayons. She smiled.But when Kael stepped forward, the drawing changed.The sun f
Chapter 13 — The Surgery Room That Never Closed
> [Thread Jump: FRAGMENT_4 – ACTIVE][Zone Type: Surgical Memory Construct | Status: Critical Instability][Corruption Index: 94%][Ethics Protocols: OFFLINE]The walls breathed.Not metaphorically.The walls of this corridor exhaled—long, shuddering wheezes like collapsed lungs in a haunted chest cavity. Kael’s boots stuck slightly as he walked.Not blood.Thicker. Like synthetic plasma.Zari covered her nose. “What the fuck is this place?”Kael didn’t answer.Because every step forward made his chest feel like it was being stitched shut.The lights above weren’t bulbs. They were eyes.Surgical. Watching. Judging.> "Patient arrival confirmed. Cassia Rell. Emergency Code 6."The voice echoed across the corridor—an automated nurse protocol, long since lost its empathy.They passed through rusted airlock doors.And stepped into the Operating Theater.A circular arena.Gurneys floated in midair, spinning slowly.Dozens of them.Each one had Cassia.Different versions.One screaming.One
Chapter 12 — The Broken Birthday
> [Thread Jump: FRAGMENT_3 – ACTIVE][Zone Type: Simulated Memory Celebration | Status: In Decay][Emotional Load Index: Redline][Trigger Warning: Innocent Joy — Corrupted]The sky was pink.Cotton-candy sweet.Soft clouds shaped like bunnies and bears drifted lazily across a horizon that felt painted by a child’s hand.The lawn was perfectly trimmed. The balloons were smiling.The banner read:> 🎉 HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CASSIA! 🎉Kael hated it the second he stepped in.The smell was too perfect.The laughter was too looped.And the guests?They were wrong.Zari whispered, “Why do they all have the same face?”Kael turned.A dozen party guests stood in a circle.Smiling.Clapping.Repeating:> “Best birthday ever, Cassia.”“Best birthday ever, Cassia.”“Best birthday ever…”Each voice, slightly out of sync. Each smile cut too wide across their cheeks, like cracked porcelain.A single balloon drifted up.Popped mid-air.Screamed.Kael’s HUD flickered.> [FRAGMENT 3: DECAY LEVEL – 68%][COR
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