Li Tian did not sleep that night.
Every time he closed his eyes, he could feel it: the scar in the sky, faint but unyielding, like a pulse against his skull. The whispers returned in fragments, sometimes unintelligible, sometimes clear:
"Containment required… probability rising… deviation…"
He tried to ignore it. Tried to focus on simple things — breathing, counting ceiling tiles, anything to anchor himself to normalcy. But the world around him had already begun shifting, and even small objects betrayed him.
A cup on his desk trembled. A textbook hovered briefly, then fell with a soft thud. The lines between what was solid and what was unstable blurred.
He rubbed his temples, dizzy.
It was not fear. Fear was simple. This was disorientation. Reality itself was no longer trustworthy.
By morning, Li Tian made a decision: he had to leave the city.
He needed distance. He needed perspective.
And, perhaps, he needed answers.
He stepped out into the streets. The city appeared normal — vendors called out, cars honked, pigeons flapped along the sidewalks. Yet beneath that ordinary facade, he could feel the layers. The cracks. The whispers.
A subtle distortion ran under the asphalt, shifting the faint patterns of the air around him. The city was alive in a way no one else could perceive.
He clenched his fists, red sparks flickering briefly between his fingers.
"Do not overreach."
The voice came again, low and threatening.
He flinched but pressed on, following a path instinctively drawn by something he did not understand — a pull toward a location, a point in the city where the layers thinned.
Meanwhile, high above the city in the Observation Layer, higher-dimensional entities were stirring.
They did not have faces. They did not speak in words humans could understand. They observed.
The anomaly, Li Tian, had triggered an unusual fluctuation. His resistance yesterday had left a mark in the system — a tiny scar, yet one significant enough to register across multiple strata.
"Variable detected."
"Influence potential escalating."
And in the Ruins of the Old Gods, fragments of long-dormant power began to resonate faintly.
Something ancient, shattered but awake, whispered into the void.
Li Tian reached a narrow alley near the older part of the city, where the buildings leaned like tired giants and the air smelled faintly of rust and damp stone.
That's when he saw them: three figures, clad in dark, flowing robes, their faces hidden beneath hoods.
The Keepers of Order.
"They move faster than expected," the tallest one said, voice low and calm. "The variable is aware. He senses us."
Li Tian froze, sensing rather than seeing them. Every instinct screamed that this was not a random encounter.
The whispers grew louder, now multiple voices overlapping, urgent:
"Containment required… containment required… deviation…"
One Keeper stepped forward. The ground beneath their foot seemed to distort, the air around him rippling.
"You are the anomaly," the man said. His voice was calm, almost clinical. "The Core has detected you. Your existence is unsustainable."
Li Tian's pulse raced. He raised his hand instinctively. Red sparks danced and hissed like miniature embers.
"I… I don't want to hurt anyone," he said.
"You are dangerous whether you want to or not," another Keeper replied. "The world itself is rejecting you."
A sudden gust of wind swept through the alley. Li Tian's vision flickered. For a second, he saw not the alley but something else: a fragmented city floating in shadow, structures impossible in geometry, ruins of gods long dead, and eyes — countless, unblinking eyes — watching him.
He stumbled back. The sparks around his hands surged. His vision went white.
"Do not interfere."
The voice came again — the system, the world, perhaps both.
One of the Keepers moved faster than he could follow. By the time Li Tian blinked, he was pressed against the wall.
"You cannot run," the Keeper said softly. "Nor can you hide. Every step you take is observed, every thought measured. Do you understand?"
Li Tian swallowed. He did.
Then, without warning, the tallest Keeper raised a hand. The air in front of Li Tian shimmered violently. For a second, the alley was gone.
Beneath him, the ground fractured into geometric lines, fragments of layers peeking through. Li Tian felt as though he was being pulled into something immense, infinite.
Red sparks from his hands flared again. He concentrated, willing himself not to fall, not to be consumed. The alley reformed around him, trembling but intact.
He gasped.
"You…" he said, voice trembling, "…you're not human."
The Keeper smiled faintly. "Neither are you."
Later that evening, Li Tian returned to his apartment. His hands shook. His wound from the rooftop had reopened slightly, raw and red.
He sank into his chair.
The whispers were quiet now, almost contemplative.
"The Core is unstable… deviation persists… correction imminent…"
Then another voice, softer, almost human:
"Seek the fragments. The Old Gods' remnants… they are the key."
Li Tian shivered. Fragments? Old Gods?
He thought of the scar in the sky. The world that was rejecting him. The Keepers who were not villains, but judges.
The cost of existence was no longer abstract. He understood it physically now:
Every action, every breath, every spark of interference brought the world closer to him — and him closer to its wrath.
And somewhere deep beneath the visible reality, fragments of the Old Gods stirred.
Not enough to act… yet.
But enough to watch.