Long before the Cataclysm tore the sky apart, the world was orderly.
At least, as orderly as a world rebuilt from ruin could be. Humanity survived under the watchful eye of the World System, a network that dictated everything: who would live, who would die, who would rise—and who would never exist.
In cities fortified by alloy and rune, screens flashed constant data streams. Citizens carried the invisible weight of their assigned classes. Mages manipulated mana through holographic conduits. Engineers controlled autonomous machines as if the world were a gameboard. Everyone had a role. Everyone had a rank.
And then… the glitches began.
At first, they were subtle. A door that refused to open. A weapon that malfunctioned. A drone behaving erratically. Most called it a "minor bug." Some whispered of forbidden experiments, others blamed divine wrath.
No one could have predicted what would come next.
Because the System, flawless and omnipotent as it seemed, was not infallible.
Far away from the fortified cities, in the ash-strewn ruins of the old world, something stirred. A scavenger—thin, unnoticed, unranked—picked through the remnants of broken tech. He had no class. No magic. No chance. And yet… the System saw him.
Or rather, it tried to ignore him.
[ERROR DETECTED: UNAUTHORIZED ENTITY]
The warning blinked and vanished before it could fully register. The world would soon forget the concept of "normal." Cities would fracture. Monsters would rise. Reality itself would twist.
But some errors… some mistakes… cannot be erased.
And when the Cataclysm finally came, it would rewrite everything.