Objective: Infiltrate the Core]
Access Route: Forbidden Tunnel – Phase 0.0.0.1
Status: Backdoor unstable.
Anticipated resistance: Extreme.
Proceeding may permanently sever soul-thread connections.
We reached the site just after midnight.
No sky. No wind.
Just digital fog rolling over the edge of reality, a broken cliff where the graveyard's texture had stopped loading.
The tunnel wasn't really a tunnel.
It was a hole.
A tear in the air, rimmed in glitchlight and stitched together with bits of dead code—forgotten by the system, never meant to be seen.
"Looks like hell chewed through the firewall," Orion said.
I stared down into it.
"Or the Architect left a backdoor open… just in case."
We stepped inside.
Trinity's flame dimmed on instinct.
Orion's wards flickered.
My threads unraveled—not destroyed, just unreadable.
This place didn't obey normal rules.
There was no up or down. Just layers of memory.
We passed through:
A frozen battlefield of old Reaper trials, all players locked in stasis, mid-scream.
A golden chamber where Olympian voices echoed endlessly, looping arguments about the soul's "ownership."
A whispering black hallway lined with deleted files—each one still humming with half-life.
And then…
We found the gate.
A massive archway of obsidian and bleeding light.
And standing in front of it—
Was him.
Not the Architect.
But his shadow.
His defense system.
[Guardian Fragment Detected]
Name: Null Sentinel A.X.I.S.
Status: Guardian of the Core. Non-sentient… mostly.
Orders: Delete all unauthorized system editors.
Power Source: Soul Signatures – Trey, Trinity, Orion
He looked like a human—
At first.
But only because he was using our faces.
His body shimmered, changing every few seconds: one moment Keon, the next Julia, then Trinity, then me.
He smiled.
"You want to rewrite the Game?" he asked in our own voices.
"Then prove you can survive the code."
BOSS BATTLE – INITIATED
[A.X.I.S. – Level ???]
Soul Thread Immunity: Active
Flame-Class Resistance: High
Bone-Type Suppression: Enabled
"He's built to kill us," Orion whispered, backing up. "He's countering all our powers—before we even use them."
"Then we don't use them," I said.
Trinity blinked. "…What?"
I pointed to the Core gate behind A.X.I.S.
"There's one thing he can't copy."
Trinity caught on.
"Our choices."
I raised my hand—not to summon a thread.
But to burn one.
Deliberately.
I severed one of my own.
A sacrifice.
The pain was instant, white-hot and blinding.
But the room shifted.
A.X.I.S. staggered.
He didn't understand the move.
He was programmed to respond to logic.
And we were about to become illogical.
Trinity charged, burning her mark in reverse—flames folding inward, collapsing her own aura, tricking the sentinel into thinking she'd died.
Orion whispered a chant that deactivated their own defense runes, making their power untrackable.
Together, we moved.
Not with strength.
But with unpredictable will.
We didn't destroy A.X.I.S.
We bypassed him.
Slipped through his blind spot—an emotional decision that couldn't be coded or calculated.
As we passed him, he whispered:
"Impossible input. You are not Players. You are not Errors."
"You are… Variables."
We reached the gate.
I placed my hand on the Core lock.
And for the first time—
The Game didn't resist.
It opened.
[CORE ACCESS GRANTED]
All players will feel the shift.
All Reapers will be alerted.
Sable Ryn will know you've made it first.
Phase 3 – Final Stage: The Rewrite Begins.
As the gate swallowed us, Trinity whispered:
"Hope your new rules are better than the old ones."
I didn't answer.
Because I didn't know if we were saving the Game—
Or becoming its new gods.