They weren't supposed to find it.
A crack in the world. Hidden beneath a root-cluster, glowing like a broken heartbeat.
Code and fire spilled from it—like a wound in the world itself.
"This is… a dungeon breach," Echo whispered. "It shouldn't be here."
Ayla narrowed her eyes. "Then why is it open?"
Kael felt it before he saw it.
Something was calling him.
Not words.
A heartbeat.
Not his own.
He stepped forward.
"Don't," Echo warned. "You'll trigger a system response."
"What kind?"
"The kind that works."
And Kael jumped.
Down the breach.
Reality unraveled.
Code became light. Light became gravity.
He landed in a chamber that breathed like a lung—walls made of living memory. It was the nerve center of the Nexus.
At its core: a black orb, pulsing like a god's eyelid.
He touched it.
[WARNING: DUNGEON PROTOCOL BROKEN]
[SYSTEM REACTION: UNKNOWN]
[RESONANCE SYNC: 25%]
[TIER BREAK IMMINENT]
Pain exploded.
Kael screamed as his body dissolved into fractal light—his very being rewritten by the Nexus.
When it ended—
His eyes opened.
And they burned like newborn stars.
And somewhere above, the Nexus shivered.