The world had begun calling it the Second Genesis.
A new age was rising. With every portal that opened, new zones appeared—dungeons, fortresses, floating islands, ancient ruins that didn't exist in the old Earth. These zones were filled with creatures, treasures, and fragments of a power long lost.
Some called it magic.
Others knew better.
It was code—reality's framework, exposed like raw nerve endings.
And Rishi Mehta, the boy who once dreamed of cheat codes, now stood at the center of it all. Not by chance.
But by design.
Nightmares in Binary
Rishi had begun seeing visions in his sleep—code drifting across his dreams like smoke. He saw empires burning. Black pyramids rising from oceans. A colossal figure sitting on a throne of glitching cubes, laughing.
Each night, he awoke drenched in sweat, the Trainer UI flickering in panic.
ERROR: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTEDSYSTEM LOGS INFECTEDSOURCE: "THE ARCHITECT"
One morning, a new folder appeared inside his Trainer.
[Project: R-0001 – Sovereign Prototype]
Inside were files. Unreadable. Names like:
"Soul Kernel Sync"
"Player 0.0"
"World.Wipe.Test"
"HACK_GOD.EXE"
And a corrupted video.
Rishi hesitated, then opened it.
The Video
It began with static… then slowly resolved into the image of a man.
Or what used to be a man.
His skin was cracked like old code, glowing lines running through his veins. One eye was mechanical, twitching. The other—a swirling orb of light. He sat in a ruined lab, surrounded by floating holograms and shattered monitors.
He spoke, his voice glitching between normal and robotic.
"If you're seeing this… you've been chosen. Or rather, you're the only one left."
"My name… was Dr. Nivedan Kryos. Lead programmer of the Gaia Core Project."
"I built the Trainer System. Not to save the world. To reset it."
The video shook. Explosions in the background.
"Humanity is a virus. Earth was dying long before the portals. This… was my gift. A final game. Only one would ever receive the SSSS+ Trainer Code. One anomaly. One 'player.'"
"You."
"But the system was never stable. Each time someone tried to override reality... it broke them. Turned them into code. Into monsters. I created the Judges to stop them. I failed. Only one anomaly remained uncontrolled… you."
"You're not Rishi anymore."
"You're the last Player Zero."
"And soon, you'll have a choice—rewrite the world… or become its final boss."
The screen cracked. The man screamed. And then the words burned into the screen:
"THE ARCHITECT LIVES."
"THE RESET IS NEAR."
"AND YOU ARE THE KEY."
Reactions and Revelations
Rishi sat motionless.
He wasn't just a lucky player. He was the prototype. A lab rat in a cosmic experiment. His entire life—his appearance, his isolation, even his obsession with games—engineered.
Was anything about him real?
He tried to speak, but the Trainer glitched again.
NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED:[From: The Architect]"Welcome back, my greatest creation. Let's finish what we started."
Enemy in the Code
Rishi's screen warped. His reflection in the dark monitor shifted—his eyes glowing like the Architect's, just for a moment.
Then he heard a voice behind him.
"Who are you talking to?"
He turned. It was Divya.
She had followed him.
"I tracked your mana output," she said softly. "It was... too perfect. No skill leaks. No power fluctuations. You're not just awakened, are you?"
He stared at her, Trainer flickering behind his irises.
"I think I was... programmed."
Her eyes widened. "Rishi, you need to come clean. If you're not the player in this world… then what are you?"
Before he could answer, the sky above the tower split again.
This time, it wasn't a portal.
It was a giant red system log projected across the clouds:
"THE RESET INITIATIVE HAS BEGUN.""THE ARCHITECT HAS ENTERED THE GAME."
And in the distance, where the mountains once stood, now rose a massive, obsidian structure—part fortress, part machine, part ancient temple.
A place whispered in broken code as:
"THE FINAL SERVER."
The Decision Ahead
Rishi stood with Divya beside him, staring at the tower in the horizon.
Was he meant to stop the Architect?
Or become him?
Was this all a trap?
Or the final chance to fix a broken world?
The Trainer buzzed again.
[World Rewrite: 12% LOADED]Soon, the option to reshape all of reality will be in your hands.
But someone else wanted that control too.
The one who made the cheat.
The Architect was coming.
And this time, he wasn't just a programmer.
He was the final villain of his own code.
To Be Continued…