I should have known the day was going too well. Nothing dramatic happened that morning—no alarms in my vision, no cracks splitting the sky, no whispers threading through the wind—and somehow that false calm unsettled me more than any anomaly had. It almost felt normal, which was exactly why it wasn't.
I sat on the low stone wall near the well, watching the square without meaning to. Lira had gone to help a player who had scraped his arm in a fall that probably shouldn't have hurt as much as it did. Injuries were sticking more lately. Not life-threatening, just… real in a way they hadn't been before.
My eyes kept drifting toward the north gate, to the space where the guard had stood. I'd died dozens of times in the yard beyond it, and somehow that empty patch of air bothered me more than any of those deaths ever had.
"Ren."
I looked up as Lira walked back toward me, brushing dust from her hands. "He'll be fine," she said, settling beside me. "But he kept asking if pain is supposed to linger after healing."
"Is it?"
She hesitated, gaze dropping to her fingers. "It didn't used to."
That was answer enough. The square hummed with noise—players laughing, merchants calling out their usual lines, boots scraping stone—but it all felt strangely distant, like we were sitting inside a bubble no one else could see.
Then the sound came.
A sharp metallic clang echoed from the direction of the training yard. It wasn't loud, but it was wrong in a way that made both of us tense immediately.
"That's not on schedule," I said under my breath.
Lira glanced at me. "You can hear that?"
"I can hear when something misses."
We stood at the same time and headed toward the yard, not running, just moving with the quiet caution of people who had already seen too much go wrong. A few players near the fountain looked around, puzzled, but most ignored it. To them it was just background noise.
The gate to the yard creaked as we pushed through. One player stood alone in the center, sword in hand. I vaguely recognized him; he'd been asking about weapon skills yesterday.
There was no enemy.
He swung his sword again in a clean arc through empty air.
The clang came from behind him, sharp and jarring, like steel striking something invisible.
He froze and turned slowly, breathing faster. "Okay… that's not funny. Is there a stealth mob here? Ren? Lira?"
Lira stepped forward first. "What happened?"
"I don't know. I was just testing my swing speed and—" He slashed again.
The blade jerked back as if it had hit a wall. The impact rattled his arms and nearly pulled the weapon from his grip.
I walked closer, skin prickling. The air in front of him shimmered faintly, like heat rising off stone. I raised my hand slowly and moved it forward.
My fingers stopped against something solid.
Cold. Smooth. Flat.
Like touching glass you didn't know was there.
Lira's breath caught. "Ren…"
I slid my hand sideways, feeling the resistance continue. Whatever it was stretched left and right, invisible but unmistakably there.
"This yard isn't supposed to have barriers," she said quietly.
"I know."
Players had gathered at the gate now, whispering among themselves.
"Is that a bug?"
"Maybe it's a new mechanic."
"Try jumping through it!"
Someone tossed a rock. It bounced off midair and rolled across the dirt. A ripple spread over the invisible surface, faint blue lines flickering briefly before fading.
For a split second, I saw it clearly—a grid pattern, like the world's bones showing through the skin.
Lira stepped closer to me, voice low. "Is it trapping something in?"
"I think it's keeping something out."
The air beyond the barrier felt heavy, like pressure pushing against it from the other side. The player who'd been swinging his sword tried to laugh it off, but his voice shook enough that no one believed him.
A low hum settled into my ears, too deep to hear properly, more a vibration than a sound. It was the same feeling as near the crack in the forest, the same sense of something large pressing against the edges of the world.
Lira's fingers tightened around my sleeve. "Ren… is this because of us?"
I didn't lie this time. "Yes."
The hum deepened. The invisible surface pulsed once, and something struck it from the other side with enough force to shudder through the ground. One of the players stumbled to his knees, swearing.
Another impact followed, then another, each one heavier than the last, like something big and blind was throwing itself against a wall it couldn't understand.
The faint blue grid lines flashed brighter with every hit. Hairline cracks of light spread across the invisible barrier.
System text flickered at the edge of my vision, unstable.
Boundary enforcement failing.
My heart pounded hard enough to hurt. The system was trying to contain it—whatever "it" was—and it was losing.
Every loop before this, the tutorial yard had been the safest place in the world, not because it was protected, but because nothing here had ever been allowed to matter.
Now something real was on the other side of a wall the system had never planned to need.
The next impact was different—sharper, more focused—and a spiderweb of light raced across the invisible surface.
In that moment, I understood with a clarity that left no room for denial.
We hadn't just broken the loop.
We had broken the walls.
And something out there had noticed.