The world went quiet.Not peaceful quiet — the heavy kind. The kind that presses against your chest and makes every breath sound wrong.
Myaterous was sitting by the stream, washing dust from his hands, when the air began to change.It wasn't loud. It didn't rumble or flash.It just… shifted.
Like the whole forest took a slow breath and decided not to exhale.
His system flickered.
[Warning: Foreign Data Signature Detected.][Source: Unknown.][Firewall Integrity — 92% and falling.]
He straightened slowly. The shard in his pocket pulsed once.
"So, they finally sent you."
He looked toward the tree line. Everything looked the same — moss, roots, still water — but the light was wrong.Colors bent in ways they shouldn't. Shadows stretched a little too far.
Then the world folded.
A figure stepped through.
It wasn't human.Not even close.
At first glance, it looked like a person wrapped in glass — tall, motionless, faceless.But when it moved, the air behind it shattered into lines of static.Every step erased sound, like it was walking through a memory that didn't belong here.
The system labeled it automatically:
[Entity Classification: CLEANER_01][Direct Function: Purge.]
Myaterous crouched slowly, eyes fixed. He wasn't afraid. Just… calculating.
"So that's what you look like."
The Cleaner stopped near the Firewall's edge. It raised its hand, palm outward, and pressed against the invisible barrier.
Ripples spread through the air, visible like heat over sand.The Firewall fought back — static crackled, light bent, the ground vibrated.
[Firewall Integrity — 78%. Adaptive Countermeasure Engaged.]
The Cleaner tilted its head. Its voice was nothing but static.
"Unauthorized Entity. Termination Required."
The words weren't spoken. They arrived inside his mind. Cold. Direct.
Myaterous exhaled slowly.He opened his synthesis grid midair, feeding the shard with SP again.
"Concept one: Distortion Field.""Concept two: Recursive Decoy."
The shard flared bright gold.
[Processing Concept Merge…]
He didn't wait for it to finish.He tossed the shard forward — and the air cracked open, scattering golden dust like burning snow.
A second Myaterous appeared beside the stream — faintly transparent, like a ghost reflection in water.
The Cleaner turned instantly, scanning.It hesitated. For the first time, it didn't seem sure which one was real.
[Cleaner Diagnostic Loop Detected.]
"Good," he whispered. "Think a little."
Then the sky split.
A beam of white light dropped down from the clouds, striking the Firewall directly.Every root, every anchor node he'd buried underground screamed with energy.The light burned the air itself.
[Firewall Integrity — 42%. Critical.]
He grimaced. "Too soon."
The Cleaner stepped through the collapsing barrier, its body flickering with fragmented code.When it spoke again, it wasn't static anymore — it had learned his tone.
"Adaptation: Acquired."
"Impressive," he said quietly. "You learn fast."
"Faster than you."
The words were cold, perfect, and wrong.
The shard in his palm began to crackle, trying to absorb the feedback.He didn't flinch.Instead, he whispered another command.
"Concept three: Memory Echo."
The shard pulsed violently, and the ghost reflection of himself began to multiply — two, three, four Myaterouses standing around the stream, each one reacting a fraction of a second apart.
The Cleaner froze, scanning, its movements jittering like bad film.
[Cleaner Targeting Error.][Source: Memory Echo Overload.]
Myaterous moved first.He grabbed the real shard, slammed it into the ground, and fed the last of his SP into it.
"Concept four: Terminate Connection."
The forest erupted in light.
When the brightness faded, the Cleaner was gone.Not destroyed — displaced.The Firewall had reset itself, though weaker now.
Smoke rose from the soil. His SP counter was zero.His vision blurred.
He sat down hard, breathing through his teeth.
"You… were almost good."
The shard was black now, burnt out completely.Still, it had worked. For now.
He leaned back, watching the sky slowly return to gray.
Above, inside the Central Core, alarms screamed.Eira stood frozen as data feeds spiraled out of control.
[Cleaner_01: Offline.][Result: Forced Displacement Detected.][Unauthorized Protocol Execution: MEMORY SYNTHESIS TYPE B.]
The mask returned — silent, unreadable.
"He neutralized a Cleaner."
Eira didn't speak.
"This confirms the anomaly is self-evolving. He's rewriting control layers."
"Good," she said flatly.
"Good?"
She looked up at the mask, eyes steady.
"It means he's learning faster than you."
The mask flickered — not with anger, but something close to concern.
"Then we escalate."
Eira whispered, almost to herself,
"You're walking straight into extinction."
Down below, Myaterous closed his eyes and let the forest hum quietly around him.The silence returned.This time, it didn't feel like fear.
It felt like a beginning.
"So this is how gods fall," he murmured. "Not with fire… but with memory."
He smiled faintly, just before sleep pulled him under.