The coordinates led to the base of Mount Yllareth, a place the locals called "The Silent Root." No birds sang here. No animals wandered. Even the wind felt... absent. It was as if something had told nature to pause.
We camped a short distance away, hidden beneath a veil rune Kael etched in the dirt. Lira analyzed the crystal shard by lanternlight while Ayla kept her back to the fire, eyes on the dark beyond.
"There's no stable reading," Lira muttered. "This map doesn't show terrain. It shows... probability. The closer you get, the more the location shifts. It's a living fracture."
I took the shard and watched the glyphs spiral. They pulsed in time with my heartbeat now.
> [Proximity Alert: System Pulse Imminent]
"What does that mean?" Ayla asked, eyeing the message floating near my palm.
"It means the system is reacting to us. Like an immune response."
Kael stood, tightening his vambrace. "Then we move before it escalates."
We climbed in silence. The slope was steep, scattered with dead roots and the crumbled bones of old shrines. At the halfway mark, the mountain began to hum.
Not metaphorically.
The stone itself vibrated, like a held breath on the verge of exhale.
Lira stumbled. Ayla caught her. Runes shimmered beneath our feet, appearing only as we stepped. It was like walking on a hidden circuit board carved by ancient logic.
At last, we reached the threshold.
A door stood embedded in the rock—smooth, black, and unmarked. But the shard pulsed violently now, projecting lines of code across its surface.
> Verifying Access: NULL IDENTITY CONFIRMED Override Permission: GRANTED
The door vanished.
Not opened. Vanished.
Beyond it, a spiral stair led downward into darkness that swallowed all light.
---
The descent was long. Time lost meaning after the first hour. My companions said nothing, each of them lost in their thoughts. Kael's fingers never left the hilt of his blade. Lira kept muttering system notations under her breath, translating the walls. Ayla... just watched me.
Watched how I walked. Like she expected me to vanish between steps.
I almost did.
> [VOID ANOMALY: Stabilizing Identity Layer... ERROR: Unstable Core Detected]
The system itself was starting to choke on me.
When we reached the bottom, we entered a vast chamber with walls shaped like data streams frozen in obsidian. Symbols crawled across the surfaces like ants made of light. In the center stood a monolith—black, humming, alive.
It pulsed.
Each pulse sent a wave of energy through the room.
And with each pulse, I felt my system strain.
> [Level Cap Lifted] [Entropy: Recalculating...]
Kael grunted, doubling over. Lira dropped to her knees. Ayla grabbed her head, gasping.
Only I stood steady.
The monolith knew me.
It responded.
It opened.
A section of the monolith cracked. Inside was not stone. It was code made flesh. A sphere, floating, wrapped in threads of shifting language.
> [System Core Fragment Acquired: TRUE NULL KEY] [System Pulse Initiated. Adjusting Reality Layer...]
The entire room shook. Cracks spiderwebbed through the walls. Data began to leak from the surfaces.
Kael shouted, "We need to go!"
"Not yet," I said. I stepped forward and reached out.
My fingers brushed the core.
And I remembered.
Not memories of my life.
Memories of the system.
Its birth. Its purpose. Its rules. And how they had been rewritten. Over and over. Until truth no longer had a source.
I saw the Architects. The first users. The prime shards.
And I saw... me.
Inserted like a patch.
A fix to a bug the system couldn't solve.
> [System Message: You are not supposed to exist. Correction queued.]
I pulled my hand back.
"We're leaving."
Ayla grabbed Lira. Kael helped them up. We ran.
Behind us, the monolith began to collapse.
But the core stayed in my hand.
Alive.
And watching.
---
When we reached the surface, dawn was breaking. The mountain had gone silent again. No more hum. No more pulses.
But I felt it.
The system wasn't bleeding anymore.
It was awake.