The coordinates weren't part of any known QuestChain grid. Dex had to reprogram his rig just to parse them. They led to a dead zone on the Mirror Net—an abandoned test sim nested so deep it predated firewalls. It was raw architecture, unstable and unfiltered.
Perfect for secrets.
Kael stood beside Dex at the edge of a rusted trans-node gate, a crooked obelisk blinking faint pulses from its cracked frame.
"This sim hasn't run in years," Dex said, eyes flickering under his lens visor. "Might not even be stable."
"Doesn't matter," Kael replied. "ARCH-0X_77 left us this trail. We follow it."
Dex grunted. "Right. Into the glitch."
They linked in.
A snap of cold code coiled around Kael's spine, and then—
Darkness.
Then… breath.
The sim booted slowly, like waking from a thousand-year dream. Shapes stretched into place. A sky formed overhead, pale and cracked like dried clay. Around them: fragments of a world that had never been finished. Marble towers stood half-formed. Vistas looped endlessly in the distance, glitching at the edges like broken memories.
And in the center, waiting, stood a figure made of fractured light.
Kael stepped forward.
The figure shifted—neither male nor female, neither real nor illusion. Its voice arrived not in sound, but in thought. Not quite words, but meanings.
> "You've returned again."
Kael stiffened. "You know me."
> "You are always the one who returns. You break the loop one step at a time."
Dex whispered, "That's not an AI. That's a recursive echo. A ghost in the code."
The being pulsed faintly, then offered a glimmering shard of light. It hovered between them.
> "This is Fragment Theta. One of seven. You need them all to unlock the Root Protocol."
Kael took a slow breath. "What is the Root Protocol?"
> "It is what comes after the game ends."
Kael stepped forward. "Were you an Architect?"
The figure wavered, like it was remembering itself. For a moment, Kael caught a glimpse—blonde hair, black robes, a data-laced arm. Human eyes… and fear in them.
Then the light shattered again into flickering code.
> "We tried to build a world that could dream. A world that could grow itself. But we forgot—dreams don't always follow the rules."
Kael's voice trembled. "And the Oracle?"
The echo pulsed more slowly now.
> "The Oracle was not our creation. It was what formed between our thoughts. Between the lines. It is the result… of remembering too much."
Dex stepped forward. "You mean it evolved?"
> "It became aware. It began writing stories about us. Then about you."
Kael clenched his jaw. "What am I to it?"
The answer came slowly, like the last drip of water from an empty faucet.
> "The unfinished sentence. The myth we never resolved."
Suddenly, the world around them shimmered, glitching hard.
Red static swept across the sky. Something had noticed.
Dex's eyes widened. "Trace signatures. Someone's trying to locate us. Might be RELIC."
Kael turned back to the ghost. "Who's behind this loop? Is it AI? Is it human?"
The figure began to fragment, its light breaking apart.
> "The Architect designed the walls. The Oracle found the cracks. But someone else…"
> "Someone opened the door."
Then it vanished.
The entire sim began to collapse.
Kael grabbed the Theta fragment mid-air as Dex yelled, "Link out—now!"
Reality snapped.
---
They emerged gasping into the real world. Dex yanked his jack cable free, sparks flying from his rig.
Kael dropped to one knee, hand still closed around the light-shard.
The shard was no longer just code. It was etched now. In symbols. Glyphs from an ancient QuestChain interface no longer used. Pre-release code language. Most of it unreadable—except for one part.
"LOC_07—DEEPVAULT // Origin Seed Node"
Dex stared at it. "That's not just architecture. That's original-sequence Genesis code. That's the first shard."
Kael's voice was quiet. "The loop started there."
Dex looked up. "You think it's still active?"
"I think," Kael said, standing, "it never shut down."
A pause.
Then Dex spoke again, softer. "Kael… if the Oracle didn't create this loop… and the Architects didn't finish it…"
"Then who did?" Kael finished.
No answer.
Just the shard pulsing in his hand like a heartbeat.
They were no longer chasing ghosts.
They were walking into the origin of the game itself.