The wind changed first.
Not the kind you feel on your skin — the kind that hums, quiet but heavy, like the air itself knows something is about to break.
Every creature felt it.Even the synthesized ones.
Birds that weren't real twitched and looked east. NPCs froze mid-task, their eyes blank for a second, before continuing like nothing happened.
But Myaterous noticed everything.
He stood at the edge of the valley, eyes fixed on the faint shimmer in the sky. It wasn't sunlight. It was code. Threads of blue lines flickered above the clouds, weaving and unweaving — like the system itself was rewriting the air.
He opened his interface.
[SYSTEM NOTICE – GLOBAL EVENT: "THE PULSE"]Time Remaining: 23:59:45Objective: Unknown.Survival Probability: 11.3%
A countdown with no explanation.A name that meant nothing.
He almost smiled. "It's testing curiosity again."
Behind him, Lira approached quietly."Another event?" she asked.
He nodded. "Bigger one."
"Like the storm?"
"No. The storm was natural. This one's… deliberate."
He walked back toward camp. Everyone was watching him now — his NPCs, the players who'd gathered under his protection, even the AIs that had begun developing small quirks and habits.
They didn't know what to do. They waited for his cue.
He took a stick and started drawing in the dirt — slow, methodical lines forming shapes.
"The system uses cycles," he said. "One global event every few months. Each event adjusts difficulty based on average player stability. The stronger we become, the harder it tests."
Joren frowned. "So it's punishing progress?"
"No," Myaterous said. "It's balancing it. Like a heartbeat — to keep everything alive."
Lira watched him draw. "And what's this one testing?"
He looked at the countdown again."Maybe… how we react when we know nothing."
Night fell faster than usual. The sky rippled.
All over the world, fragments of light began falling — not meteors, but pure data. Each one crashed into the ground and pulsed once before fading, leaving behind a circle of glowing marks.
People panicked. Some ran. Some attacked the marks, thinking they were loot.Others prayed.
But Myaterous sat by the fire, unmoving, listening to the sound — a deep, rhythmic vibration echoing through the soil.
He whispered to himself, "Pulse confirmed."
The ground shook once. Then again.The fire wavered but didn't die.
A faint light appeared on his arm — a mark that wasn't there before.[SYSTEM: Participant Verified – Category Ω Challenge Registered.]
At the same time, in distant zones across the world, every major survivor received the same mark.
Rhoan looked at his glowing hand and grinned."So the hunt begins."
Eira stood in the cold, eyes fixed on the pulse traveling through the horizon."It's him," she whispered. "He'll move first."
Myaterous looked at the flickering light above camp.The countdown ticked lower — now just 00:12:31.
He finally stood, brushing dirt from his hands."Everyone, listen," he said, voice calm but sharp.
"If the system is measuring survival under unknown threat, then panic is the trap. Do nothing without pattern recognition. Wait for data before moving."
The others nodded. Some still trembled, but they listened.
He turned back to the sky.There — a faint distortion forming like a tear in reality.Not a monster. Not weather. Something different.
Something built.
He whispered, "A pulse… means a signal. And every signal has a source."
He opened his synthesis panel, fingers already tracing formulas.Not to fight.To understand.
The countdown hit 00:00:00.
The world pulsed once — and the sky broke open.
To those who saw it, it wasn't light. It was a reset of logic — the laws of the world bending for something new.
Myaterous didn't flinch.He only smiled slightly.
"Welcome, next phase."