The Rift cracked.
Not the floor.
Not the walls.
The entire instance.
[ System Notice: Dual Anomaly Conflict Exceeds Safe Parameters. ]
[ Collapsepoint Triggered – Crown Synchronization Breaking. ]
Warning: Simulated Realm integrity at 3%. Reset unavailable.
The sky above went from gold… to static.
Chunks of reality blinked out in squares.
Even the rules were fading.
Across the fractured battlefield, the Second's throne flickered—its memory constructs frozen mid-step, unsure whether they still existed. His golden staff retracted, absorbing the simulations as he recalculated the battlefield from zero.
Root didn't wait.
He sprinted through the glitch.
Veyr floated beside him, coat fluttering with gravity-sliced wind.
"This might be our only chance," Veyr said, casually dodging a block of dissolving terrain. "Unless you want to fight him in a stable version of reality—which would be considerably less fun."
Root leapt forward, slamming his feet into a half-formed glyph.
It shattered beneath him.
So did the space.
And so did the Second's calm.
A trace of emotion flickered in the golden boy's eyes. Doubt? Annoyance? No—urgency. He knew what was coming. He'd trained for Root. Prepared. Simulated.
But not for this.
Not for Collapsepoint.
[ CROWNBREAK ZONE NO LONGER STABLE ]
[ Authority Rebalancing… INSUFFICIENT. ]
[ Unknown energy signature detected. Initiating fallback protocol. ]
A black fissure tore through the middle of the Rift.
And from its edge, something began to climb out.
It wasn't part of Root.
It wasn't part of the Second.
It was the system's emergency failsafe.
A hollowed-out throne beast, stitched from memory echoes and corrupted code, dragging itself into existence with a scream that hurt inwards—like the world was trying to vomit up its own spine.
Even Veyr paused.
"Okay. I wasn't expecting that."
"On a scale of one to 'you broke it again,' this is an eleven."
Root narrowed his eyes at the creature.
"Can we kill it?"
Veyr tilted his head.
"No idea. But we can definitely make it regret waking up."
The creature dropped onto the fractured battlefield like a collapsed cathedral.
Its limbs weren't limbs—they were pieces of failed throne simulations.
A dragon's wing here. A martyr's halo there.
All stitched together by code that didn't want to exist anymore.
Its body pulsed like a dying server.
The Rift shuddered.
[ Emergency Construct: REMNANT CROWNBEAST ]
Type: Anti-Anomaly
Threat Level: Undefined
Authority: System Purge
Target: Root. Veyr. The Second.
Status: Active. No Reset Available.
It moved faster than something that size should.
Root barely stepped back in time—one claw of corrupted crystal slammed into the ground where he'd been standing, leaving a null crater that sucked in half the battlefield.
The Second didn't wait, either.
He flicked his staff.
Memory threads erupted around him, creating three simulated Root attacks—each one a version of the real Root that should be possible.
The beast ignored them.
"It doesn't care what's real," Root growled, dodging a sweep of its tail that looked like a knight's broken banner. "It's deleting anything still standing."
Veyr floated between Root and the beast, arms raised, glowing glyphs circling his fingers like silent chains.
"Give me ten seconds."
"To do what?"
"Something poetic."
Root didn't argue.
He lunged in, activating Gravity Spike at his feet—slamming the creature's leg down mid-motion. Draive, his null blade, tore across the edge of a corrupted wing, deleting the magic threads that stitched it together.
It screamed—backward.
The sound played in reverse, like someone remembering pain instead of feeling it.
The Second's eyes narrowed.
He launched a light-dagger spell straight into its core—no flair, just surgical efficiency.
It passed through.
The spell existed, but only for a moment before the beast's code consumed it and spat out raw Hollow energy.
Even he wasn't safe.
"It's learning from both of us," Veyr said.
He raised his hands.
Ten seconds had passed.
And behind him, the Hollow Rift bent inward, forming a thin ring of gravitational collapse.
"Ever seen a black hole shaped like a crown?"
The ring closed.
And space broke open like glass.
The crown-shaped singularity collapsed inward.
Gravity folded in on itself, dragging the Remnant Crownbeast with it—limbs contorting, wings crumpling, corrupted sigils burning out in reverse. Even the Rift began to tremble in waves, as if unsure what to simulate next.
[ Gravity Collapse: Veyr's Authority Engaged. ]
Effect: Null-Compression Singularity (Rank: Undefined)
Target: REMNANT CROWNBEAST
Status: Absorbing
The beast howled again.
But this time, it wasn't just noise.
It spoke.
In error messages.
[ Cannot comply ]
[ Corruption exceeds deletion ]
[ Hollow system detected—source conflict ]
[ …become… one… of… them…? ]
Root froze.
He gripped Draive tighter.
Veyr floated beside him, calm as ever, his mask tilting just slightly.
"It's mimicking language," Veyr said. "But it's not conscious. Just reflex."
"But it can see me," Root replied. "It's reacting to us."
The Second stayed silent.
Watching. Calculating.
The Crownbeast's body compressed tighter, nearly consumed—but a shard of it refused to vanish. Its core, shaped like a crown fractal—half-light, half-Hollow—glowed with unstable memory.
Veyr offered no orders.
He simply looked to Root.
"You could erase it completely," he said. "Or…"
Root's eyes locked on the core.
"I could use it."
Veyr nodded once.
"A broken system killing a broken rule. That's very you."
Root raised his hand, null threads coiling from Draive into his palm.
He reached out—not to destroy, but to consume.
[ Hollow Authority Triggered: Sigil-Eater Node Mutation ]
Target: Crownbeast Core
Assimilation Type: Partial – Controlled
Result: New Trait Acquired
The crown fractal vanished into Root's chest.
And his system blinked.
[ Hollow Trait Gained: Collapsepoint Shard ]
✦ Grants limited control over failed simulations
✦ Allows access to "memory corruption" class mutation
✦ WARNING: May attract future system attention
Veyr exhaled.
A little too proud.
"You just turned a world-ending bug into a toy."
Root smiled.
"No. Into a warning."
Across the battlefield, the Second took a step back.
For the first time, he didn't speak.
He watched.
And the Rift began to reset.
Not because the system had recovered.
But because it was trying to pretend this didn't happen.