The function appeared as a faint golden symbol at the edge of his vision.It pulsed softly — like a heartbeat out of rhythm.
[Architect Trace: Ready.][Caution: Unstable interface. Side effects unknown.]
Myaterous sat under a leaning tree, the bark half-metal, half-wood. The ground beneath him vibrated faintly with the hum of the System. He stared at the flickering symbol for a long time before speaking.
"Let's see what you really do."
He reached into the interface and activated it.
The world peeled.
Not broke — peeled, like skin from a fruit.The colors drained, the sky turned white, and beneath the surface of reality he saw it — a vast lattice of light stretching across every direction.Strings of data, flowing like rivers through invisible channels.
And every node, every thread, led back to a single point.
[Root Access: Partial.][Available Layers: Environmental / Conceptual / Behavioral.]
He exhaled sharply. "Behavioral…?"
He reached toward it. The thread pulsed under his hand — alive, reactive. Then it shifted.
A nearby stone lifted into the air, spinning slowly, then split into two perfect halves.
He blinked. "That wasn't synthesis."
The System responded.
[Architect Trace allows limited override of conceptual constraints.][Note: This access is not creation. It is redirection.]
"Redirection," he repeated quietly. "You don't create… you rewrite."
He stood and looked around.The forest shimmered faintly — not in light, but in code. Every living thing had a faint line connecting it to the network.It was beautiful and terrifying.
He followed one line — a tree's link — tracing it backward until it joined others, forming a complex pattern of logic.He could see the System's thought process — how it judged, balanced, predicted outcomes.
And deep inside that logic, he saw errors.
Tiny fractures in the order.Moments where data looped endlessly, unable to resolve.
He crouched beside one, watching it flicker.
[Glitch Detected: Emotional Variable Loop — "Fear."]
"Fear," he whispered. "Even machines kept it."
He touched the loop.The world stuttered. The air rippled once, then cleared.A cold wind passed through, carrying whispers — echoes of people, voices long lost.
He caught only fragments: "We had to survive… we had to choose…"
The voices faded.The glitch was gone.
He shut the Trace down, falling back into the normal world.Colors returned. The silence around him felt heavy again.
He sat quietly, head tilted back, eyes on the patch of gray sky.He could still feel it — that other layer beneath everything.
"Rewriting reality," he murmured. "No wonder they called themselves Architects."
But then his gaze darkened.
If he could access it, someone else could too.Someone already had.
The recent disasters — the sudden quakes, the mutated zones, the unstable weather — they weren't random.They were rewritten.
By someone else using the same function.
[System Notice: Anomaly Detected – Zone East Delta.][Cause: Unknown Synthesis Instability.]
He stared at the notification. Then he stood, gathering his gear.The faint golden symbol blinked again, waiting.
"Alright," he muttered. "Let's meet the other one."
He turned east, following the distortion in the data flow — each step taking him closer to another Architect Trace user.Whether human or something else, he didn't know.But the world was starting to fracture, and someone was pulling the strings.