The wasteland beyond Hollow's End had a name, but nobody used it. The cartographers marked it as The Dead Reaches—a bleeding edge of Aetheuron where even the dual moons seemed reluctant to cast their light. My overlay identified the terrain as post-corruption desert, a biome that shouldn't exist. The Architect's purges had sterilized the land so thoroughly that even the demon-taint couldn't take root.
We made camp in a crater, its glassy walls reflecting the green moon like a broken mirror. Drek built a fire from compacted moss-dust that burned blue and smokeless. Mira sat apart, her bow across her lap, cleaning a wound she'd taken from a crystal splinter during our escape. Callum was the most changed—his phase-state had stabilized, but his identity felt provisional, like a document that hadn't been saved.
I was analyzing my new Level 10 parameters. The system's reward for surviving the purge had been generous: [+5 Stat Points] , [+1 Skill Point] , and a milestone unlock I hadn't seen before: [LUCK SYNERGY] . My Luck had gone from 1 to 7, and the system was finally acknowledging it as a functional stat rather than a cosmic joke.
[LUCK 7 EFFECTS:]
[PASSIVE: 7% chance of favorable random events]
[COMBAT: +7% critical hit rate]
[EXPLORATION: 7% chance of hidden loot discovery]
[SOCIAL: 7% chance of NPCs forgetting minor grievances]
[DEBUFF: ARCHITECT'S MARK (VISIBLE TO HUNTERS) = -7% stealth]
The debuff was permanent. The Architect had tagged me—[NODE #9: PRIORITY TARGET]. Every hunter in his network would see a cyan outline around my silhouette, a system beacon screaming "valuable asset." The 7% stealth penalty was almost comedic. My entire build relied on calculation, not hiding. But the penalty was a reminder: I was no longer statistically irrelevant. I was relevant. And relevance meant threat.
Drek sat beside me, offering a strip of smoked meat that smelled like burnt rubber. "My guy in the Reach used to make this. Tastes like despair, but it keeps for weeks."
[CONSUMABLE: DREK'S MYSTERY MEAT] [NUTRITION: 80 CALORIES] [DEBUFF: MINOR NAUSEA]
I ate it anyway. The math was clear: 80 calories now was better than 0 calories later. "Callum," I said, turning to our rescued party member. "Node #1. What do you remember?"
Callum's eyes—grey, finally human—flickered with something like pain. "Fragments. The Architect doesn't store Node #1 in physical space. It's a conceptual space. A server farm built into the River's source code."
Mira looked up. "The River has code?"
"The River is code." Callum's hands phased through each other, a nervous habit. "The entire world is a simulation. The Architect is the sysadmin. And Worldlost are privilege escalation exploits—users who died in another reality and got backdoor access to this one."
The words hung in the air like static. My overlay didn't refute it. [THEORY: WORLD SIMULATION = 94% PROBABLE] . It explained the system windows, the stat allocation, the respawn mechanics. It explained why my Absolute Calculation worked—because I was interfacing with the underlying architecture.
"Node #1 is where he keeps the originals," Callum continued. "The first Worldlost. The ones who remembered the old world so vividly they could edit this one. The Architect doesn't harvest them. He learns from them."
"How do we get there?" I asked.
"You can't. Node #1 is orthogonal—it exists outside the three dimensions. You need a phase-key. Three of them, actually. One from each major node: #5 (River's Reach), #7 (Hollow's End), and #9—" He looked at me. "You."
I had a key. My system. My Unique Skill was a backdoor to the backdoor. The Architect wanted me because I could open Node #1 without permission.
[QUEST UPDATE: THE ARCHITECT'S BLUEPRINT]
[NEW OBJECTIVE: ACQUIRE PHASE-KEYS (3/3)]
[KEY #1: RIVER'S REACH (OBTAINED - WARDEN'S RESIDUE)]
[KEY #2: HOLLOW'S END (OBTAINABLE - HANDLER'S MARK)]
[KEY #3: NODE #9 (OBTAINABLE - KAEL'S SYSTEM CORE)]
The Warden's Residue. Helga's gift. The silver mist in my chestplate. That was a key. And the Handler's mask—the porcelain shard that had fallen when she unraveled. Mira had picked it up.
"Give me the mask," I said.
Mira hesitated, then handed it over. The porcelain was cold, but when I touched it, my system pinged:
[PHASE-KEY #2: HANDLER'S MARK (INCOMPLETE)]
[REQUIRES: BLOOD ACTIVATION]
I drew my shortsword, cut my palm. The blood absorbed into the porcelain. The mask's features shifted, becoming a cyan circuit pattern.
[PHASE-KEY #2: OBTAINED]
The third key was my own system core. Theoretically accessible, but dangerous. Extracting it would mean rebooting myself.
"Later," I decided. "We need to get back to River's Reach first. Gorum needs to know the simulation theory."
"Gorum knows," Callum said quietly. "That's why he hates Worldlost. We're proof his world isn't real."
The fire crackled. The green moon set. The silver moon rose. Dual moons, dual realities. The simulation's render distance failing.
[TRAVEL UPDATE: RETURN TO RIVER'S REACH]
[DISTANCE: 47 MILES]
[HAZARD: PURGE SQUADS (ARCHITECT'S HUNTERS) ACTIVE]
We'd need to move fast. The Architect wouldn't let us keep the keys.
Drek stood, stomping out the fire. "First light, we move. Math boy, calculate our odds."
I already had. [PROBABILITY OF REACHING RIVER'S REACH: 23%] . But with Luck 7, that was 30.1%. And with the keys, we had leverage.
"Manageable," I said.
---
The next morning, the Dead Reaches proved their name. The ground was glass, fused by some ancient purge. No cover. No water. Just endless reflective plains that turned the sun into a weapon. My overlay warned: [DEHYDRATION: -1 HP/HR].
We traveled in a tactical diamond, Drek front, Callum rear, Mira and I in the center. The formation gave us 360-degree coverage with minimal overlap. My parallel analysis mapped the horizon constantly. No threats. No threats. No—
[ANOMALY DETECTED: HEAT SIGNATURE (3 MILES)]
Three miles. In this terrain, that was a 42-minute approach. I had time to optimize.
"Heat signature. Single. Large. Approaching from south-west."
"Mireling?" Drek asked.
"Bigger. Faster. Phase-shifted."
The signature materialized over the next 20 minutes. It was a construct , but not like the Terraspider. This was sleek , obsidian, with six legs that moved in impossible geometries. A Phase-Hunter —the Architect's personal kill-drones.
[ANALYSIS: PHASE-HUNTER MK.II]
[LEVEL: 15]
[HP: 450/450]
[ABILITIES: PHASING, HOMING, SKILL-NULL AURA]
[THREAT: PURGE-LEVEL]
Level 15. Officially the highest-level entity we'd encountered. The Architect wasn't sending scavengers anymore. He was sending exterminators.
" Run?" Mira asked, her voice tight.
"Can't. Its homing algorithm has our mark. Running extends the engagement time without reducing lethality."
"Fight," Drek said. Not a question.
"Fight," Callum echoed. His phase-state was still unstable, but his eyes were clear. "I'll hold it. You three run."
"No," I said. "We fight together. Probability of victory: 4.2%."
"With your Luck?" Callum asked.
"6.3%."
He laughed. "I'll take it."
The Hunter phased, disappearing from sight. My parallel analysis mapped its exit vector: it was trying to flank. It expected us to scatter. We didn't.
"Cluster!" I commanded. We formed a tight circle, backs together. The Hunter's homing algorithm prioritized isolated targets. By clustering, we became a single signature, confusing its tracking.
It materialized inside our circle. Clever—but predictable. My overlay had mapped that possibility as 17%. I'd prepared.
"Now!" I shouted.
Drek ate the Hunter's leg. Literally. His Unbreakable Digestion extended to anything he could bite, and the Hunter's obsidian plating had a stress fracture at the knee joint I'd identified during its approach. His teeth sheared through, the leg dissolving into silver dust in his stomach.
[PHASE-HUNTER: -1 LEG, -15% MOBILITY]
[DREK: -45 HP (ACIDIC FEEDBACK)]
Mira's arrow struck the Hunter's ocular sensor. Not the eye—the data port behind it. The arrowhead was wrapped in Warden's Residue, our first key. The residue shorted the port, blinding the Hunter's targeting system.
[PHASE-HUNTER: BLINDED (15 SEC)]
Callum phased into the Hunter's chest cavity. His unstable form was a liability anywhere else, but inside the Hunter's null-aura, his phase-state stabilized. He was neither here nor there—he was everywhere the Hunter wasn't. He grabbed its core, a pulsating sphere of cyan light, and pulled.
The Hunter screamed, a digital shriek that made my overlay flicker. The core was phased, only partially in our reality. Callum was pulling it out.
I had the final move. My shortsword was useless. My stats were useless. But I had two phase-keys.
I pressed the Handler's Mask against the Warden's Residue. The two keys resonated, creating a phase-dissonance wave that propagated through the Hunter's systems. The wave locked its phase-state, preventing it from dematerializing.
Callum ripped the core free . The Hunter's body collapsed, a hollow shell of obsidian.
[PHASE-HUNTER: DEFEATED]
[EXP: +4500 (PARTY SPLIT)]
[DROP: PHASE-HUNTER CORE (LEGENDARY)]
The fight had lasted 8.7 seconds.
Drek vomited silver dust, his HP regenerating. Mira's hands shook, but her aim had been perfect . Callum held the core, his form finally stable , the cyan light in his eyes replaced with grey clarity .
"We killed a purge-drone," he whispered. "The Architect's going to—"
"Know we're not mice," I finished. "We're rats. And rats chew wires."
I turned the Hunter's core over in my hands. It wasn't just a power source. It was data storage. The drone's last orders scrolled across my overlay:
[PRIORITY TARGET: KAEL (NODE #9)]
[ORDERS: TERMINATE ON SIGHT]
[EXCEPTION: IF TARGET ACQUIRES 3 KEYS, ESCALATE TO CAPTURE]
We had two. The third was my system core. The Architect wanted me intact—but only if I became a threat.
[LEVEL UP! LEVEL 11 ACHIEVED!]
[+5 STAT POINTS]
[+1 SKILL POINT]
[HP/MP RESTORED]
Level 11. [LUCK: 7 → 8] . The debuff was evolving.
[LUCK 8: PASSIVE - 8% FAVORABLE EVENT CHANCE]
[COMBAT: +8% CRITICAL HIT]
[DEBUFF: ARCHITECT'S MARK (LV2) = -8% STEALTH]
He could see me clearer now. But I could also see myself clearer. The system was adapting to my presence, and I was adapting to it.
The dead reaches stretched ahead. River's Reach was 45 miles away. The Architect would send more Hunters. But now we had a core. A key. A weapon.