The sky continued to tear.
The bright pinprick that had appeared moments ago widened, spiralling outward like a pupil dilating.
The cracks around it pulsed with blinding white-blue light, illuminating the entire campus with a cold, unnatural radiance.
Ethan shielded his eyes, but the pressure was more than visual—it pressed against his bones, his lungs, even his thoughts. It felt as if reality itself was inhaling sharply in preparation for something terrible.
Lena stared upward, helping the injured student limp toward the shelter of a ruined hallway.
"What is that? Another dungeon? Another monster?"
Ethan didn't answer.
Words—fractured, glitching—flashed across his vision.
[ADMINISTRATOR SCAN IN PROGRESS]
[SEARCHING FOR ANOMALOUS PLAYER ENTITY]
[PROBABILITY: 99.2%]
His breath caught.
"That thing… It's looking for me," he whispered.
Lena turned sharply. "What? What do you mean it's looking for you? Ethan, this isn't the time to—"
Before she could finish, a deafening crack split the air.
The light condensed suddenly, collapsing into a sharp, vertical fissure in the sky. Then—
A figure stepped through.
It wasn't human.
It wasn't even close.
A tall, angular silhouette, its entire form wrapped in shifting black and silver shards of light—like someone had sculpted a person out of broken mirror pieces. There was no face, just the suggestion of one, a smooth, mask-like surface that rippled with unreadable symbols.
The figure hovered above the courtyard, suspended by nothing, a static distortion warping around it.
Every student nearby froze in terror.
"What the hell…" someone whispered.
"Is that an angel?"
"No, no—look at it—look at it—"
"RUN!"
Panic broke like a dam, but the Administrator didn't move.
It simply… existed, bending the air around it.
Then its head tilted downward, locking onto Ethan.
He felt the gaze—sharp, analytical, dissecting.
Lena grabbed his wrist. "Ethan—what is that thing? Why is it staring at you?"
He swallowed hard. "I think… I think it's because of my system."
"What system? Everyone got a system just now—"
"Not me."
Lena blinked. "What do you mean?"
"I didn't get the same one as everyone else." Ethan stared at the Administrator, fear coiling in his gut. "Mine glitched. It gave me something… wrong."
As if on cue, a message flickered.
[ANOMALY CONFIRMED]
[PLAYER 'ETHAN VALE'—SYSTEM TYPE: FORBIDDEN]
[CLASSIFICATION: ERASURE REQUIRED]
Lena's face went pale. "Erasure? Did it say—Ethan, we need to get away, NOW!"
The Administrator raised an arm.
It didn't draw a weapon.
It didn't cast a spell.
It didn't charge mana.
Reality simply bent around its hand.
A sphere of warped space formed, distortions shredding the air like invisible knives.
The "attack" was silent, but every instinct in Ethan's body screamed.
He dove aside, yanking Lena down with him.
The sphere shot forward—
—passing cleanly through a tree.
The tree did not burn.
It did not explode.
It simply ceased to exist.
Every leaf, every branch, every atom inside the sphere vanished without a sound.
Ethan's skin crawled.
"That wasn't magic," he whispered. "It deleted it."
The Administrator lifted its hand again, preparing a second sphere.
Students screamed and scattered in all directions. Some collapsed, unable to move under the crushing pressure. Others ran blindly.
Ethan pulled Lena behind a chunk of fallen concrete.
"We need to get away," Lena said, breathing fast. "We need to find somewhere safe—"
"There is no safe," Ethan said. "Not from that."
Another message blinked.
[SUGGESTION: RUN.]
[REASON: ADMINISTRATORS CANNOT DIRECTLY PURSUE NON-ANOMALOUS PLAYERS DURING CALIBRATION PHASE.]
Ethan jolted.
"Ash?"
A tiny distorted cube floated into existence beside him—flickering, glitching, only half-stable.
Ash, the system spirit.
Its "voice" was synthetic yet almost childlike.
[NOTE: YOU ARE THE ANOMALY. EVERYONE ELSE IS EXEMPT. GOOD LUCK.]
"Wow," Ethan muttered. "Thanks for the emotional support."
Lena stared at the flickering cube. "What—who—or what—is that?!"
"No time," Ethan said. "We have to move."
The Administrator descended slowly, scanning the battlefield.
Ethan peeked over the concrete barrier. The creature's faceless mask rotated an impossible 180 degrees, ensuring no angle escaped its perception.
"Run where?" Lena hissed.
Before Ethan could respond, Ash's voice chimed.
[CALCULATION: THE ADMINISTRATOR TARGETS YOU IF YOU USE SURGE OR FIGHT. IF YOU FLEE, IT WILL RESET THE AREA INSTEAD OF PURSUING.]
"Reset?" Ethan asked.
[DEFINITION: SPATIAL DATA REVERSION TO PRE-EVENT STATE. ALSO KNOWN AS…]
The word glitched.
[REWIND.]
Ethan felt a chill run down his spine.
"If it does that," Lena whispered, "what happens to us?"
Ash flickered again, its cube shell glitching.
[IF YOU ARE IN THE AREA WHEN RESET OCCURS… YOU WILL NOT EXIST.]
Lena's breath hitched. "Then we have to go NOW. Ethan—come on!"
But Ethan hesitated.
The injured girl Lena had rescued earlier was still nearby—only partially sheltered behind a pile of rubble. She was unconscious.
If the Administrator performed a full-area reset…
She would be erased, too.
So would dozens of students still be trapped in the courtyard?
Ethan clenched his fists. "We can't just leave them."
Lena stared at him. "We can't save them! We can't even save ourselves!"
The Administrator raised its hand again.
Reality warped.
Ash chimed urgently:
[RECOMMENDATION: EVOLUTION TRIGGER POSSIBLE IF NEAR-DEATH EVENT IS DETECTED.]
Ethan blinked. "Are you saying… if I nearly die… I might evolve again?"
[CORRECTION: HIGHLY LIKELY.]
Lena grabbed his arm. "Ethan, don't you dare! You're going to get killed!"
He looked at her, meeting her frightened eyes.
"People will die if I don't do something."
"Ethan—please—"
He stepped out from behind the concrete.
The Administrator instantly registered him.
[TARGET LOCKED.]
A second deletion sphere formed.
Time seemed to slow.
Students screamed.
The world shook.
The sphere shot toward him—
And Ethan ran directly toward it.
For a heartbeat, he felt overwhelming heat—no, cold—no, nothingness as the deletion sphere closed the distance.
Ash's voice echoed:
[NEAR-DEATH DETECTED.]
[EVOLUTION TRIGGERED.]
Ethan's vision whitened.
Something inside him—some instinct, some survival mechanism—snapped awake.
Reality stretched like taffy around him, slowing, bending, warping.
And Ethan moved.
The deletion sphere passed inches from his face.
He stepped into a space that didn't feel like space at all—
—a place between moments.
A crack in time.
A whisper followed.
[You have evolved: PHASE SHIFT]
You can slip between milliseconds to avoid lethal attacks.
Ethan blinked back into reality behind the Administrator.
Students gasped.
Lena froze.
The Administrator jerked its head around, symbols flashing violently across its face.
[ANOMALY LEVEL INCREASED.]
[ERASURE PRIORITY: MAXIMUM.]
Ethan exhaled shakily.
He wasn't safe.
But he'd survived.
"Lena!" he shouted. "Grab the injured—get them inside! NOW!"
She stared at him, stunned.
"Go!" Ethan barked.
And she did.
The Administrator hovered, furious in its cold, alien way.
Ethan clenched his fists.
"I don't know what I'm doing," he murmured. "But I'm not dying here."
The Administrator raised its hand again.
This wasn't over.