When the sky broke, it didn't shatter.It folded.
Like a reflection on rippling water — bending, merging, and then splitting apart.
For a moment, no one moved. The camp was silent. Even the wind seemed to stop, caught between beats of a heart too large to belong to the world.
Then, the ground started breathing.
The soil expanded and contracted beneath their feet, slow and deep, as if the planet itself had lungs. Trees twisted slightly, their shadows lagging behind them like delayed echoes.
And above it all, the system spoke again.
[GLOBAL ANNOUNCEMENT]THE PULSE HAS BEGUN.All territories are now unstable. Reality boundaries will shift every hour.Survive. Observe. Adapt.
Myaterous didn't move for a while.He watched the air tremble and measured the distance between each pulse in his head.
"Sixty-two seconds," he murmured.Lira turned to him. "What does that mean?"
"The Pulse isn't destruction. It's synchronization. The world's logic is being recompiled every sixty-two seconds. Every mountain, every lake, even the laws of cause and effect are being rewritten."
"And us?"
He glanced at her. "We either adapt fast enough to stay real… or we fade."
An NPC stumbled forward, clutching his head. His body flickered like static on an old screen.
"Master, I— I can't—"
And then he was gone.No scream. No sound. Just gone.
The others froze.
Joren backed away. "He just vanished—"
Myaterous was already opening his synthesis panel. His expression didn't change. His fingers moved like a pianist's, deliberate and calm.
[SYNTHESIS IN PROGRESS...]Concepts: Stability + Territory Anchor + Temporal Node (Tier: Intermediate)Catalyst: Crystalline Core (Tier: Low)Result Probability: 31%
The screen blinked.He pressed "Proceed."
A ring of light spread around the camp, embedding itself into the ground like circuitry.
For a second, everything stabilized.The wind returned. The air felt real again.
Lira exhaled shakily. "What did you do?"
"Created a localized anchor," he said. "Temporary. It forces the system to treat this ground as fixed."
"For how long?"
He checked the timer."Eighteen minutes."
Beyond the anchor, the forest was warping.
Mountains were shifting in the distance, rising higher and then vanishing completely. Rivers began to flow backward. A piece of the horizon blinked out like a deleted file.
And yet, from somewhere far away, faint explosions echoed — other players reacting, fighting, or failing.
The system wasn't trying to kill them. It was erasing weak logic — trimming the unstable ones.
Myaterous knew it.
He stared at the horizon, muttering softly, "It's rewriting the blueprint of existence. We're inside a simulation that's correcting itself."
He opened another interface — Global Channel [Encrypted Mode] — and began scanning signals. Most were static. A few were distress calls. But one caught his attention.
[Encrypted Message – Unknown Sender]:"To all survivors in active zones…The Pulse is not random. Each wave is linked to a node.Find them before the third pulse, or your zone will collapse."
He saved the message and turned off the channel.Someone else had figured it out too.
He smiled faintly. "Good. At least I'm not the only one still thinking."
Minutes later, the second pulse came.The light didn't explode this time — it rolled through the world like a deep vibration.
The trees flickered. The anchor's edge glowed brighter, holding the zone together.But something new appeared beyond the perimeter — shadows, walking against the direction of the light.
Lira saw them first."They're moving toward us."
Myaterous's eyes narrowed. The shapes looked human, but their bodies pulsed with the same rhythm as the world.
He whispered, "Echoed players."
"Echoed?"
"When logic rewrites faster than thought, it leaves copies. Fragments of people who were caught mid-pulse."
They began to approach — silently, step by step.
Joren grabbed his weapon. "We can fight them, right?"
"No," Myaterous said, still calm. "You can't kill what's no longer bound to rules."
He stepped forward, eyes fixed on the approaching echoes."But I can understand them."
He lifted his hand. His synthesis panel reappeared, glowing faintly against the flickering light.
[SYNTHESIS: Echo + Cognitive Frequency + Communication Thread]Result: Undefined. Risk Level: Critical.
Lira's voice trembled. "You're going to connect to it?"
He smiled faintly."Curiosity is the only thing more dangerous than fear."
The pulse grew louder.And as his hand touched the light of an Echo, the world around him vanished again — replaced by a white void filled with flickering data lines.
Somewhere inside the code, a voice whispered:
"Architect recognized."
Myaterous's eyes widened slightly.That word — Architect — it wasn't supposed to exist in the system.
He whispered back, "Who gave you that title?"
The voice laughed, faint and human.
"You did."
The light shattered.
When he opened his eyes, the pulse was gone. The world was stable again.But everyone in the camp stared at him — fear, confusion, awe.
On his arm, new text glowed faintly:[Architect Protocol: Initialized.]
Myaterous stared at it quietly.The meaning sank in — slow, heavy, inevitable.
The system had started to recognize him not as a player… but as part of itself.