Fractured Reality

The ground shook beneath me.

Not from an earthquake. Not from the city crumbling.

From something else.

Something waking up.

The moment I became the System, the moment I rewrote its very foundation, the thing in the void had felt it.

And now?

It was coming.

The woman turned toward the trembling walls, her stance tightening, her weapon drawn. Her voice was sharp, steady. "What did you wake up?"

I didn't answer immediately.

Because I could feel it now.

Not just through my body, not just through my mind.

Through everything.

Through the System itself.

It was pushing against reality, trying to force its way into a world it had been locked out of for centuries.

The chamber around me flickered, the golden veins in the walls shifting unnaturally, bending in ways that shouldn't be possible. Space itself was warping, folding.

The System—the new System, my System—was struggling to hold the world together.

The golden energy inside me burned, spreading through my veins, through my mind. I clenched my fists.

I could stop this.

I had to.

But even with all this power, I was too late.

Reality snapped.

And the world split open.

A tear formed in the air before me.

Not a portal. Not a crack.

Something else.

A wound.

A wound in existence itself.

And from that wound, it stepped through.

My mind screamed at the sight of it.

Because it wasn't there.

I could see it, but at the same time, I couldn't.

It was darkness and light. Presence and absence. A form that was both solid and unreal, moving and still.

Where it stood, the air twisted, breaking apart into impossible shapes, stretching and folding like the world itself was rejecting its existence.

It had no eyes, no face, no true form.

Just a shape draped in the absence of meaning.

And yet, I felt its gaze settle on me.

It spoke without a voice, the words tearing through my mind like broken glass.

"You are not the one I was promised."

I took a step forward, golden energy crackling around me. The System's power surged through my body, but I could already feel the strain.

The thing standing before me wasn't just strong.

It was wrong.

A presence that shouldn't exist, but did. A being that was both inside and outside of the rules of reality.

It tilted its head—at least, I thought it did. Its shape flickered, twisting, shifting.

"You are different."

I clenched my jaw. "Yeah, well, I get that a lot."

The woman beside me tensed, her grip tightening on her weapon. "Josh," she murmured. "What… what is that?"

I exhaled. I knew what it was now.

It had no name. No true identity.

But it was the reason the System had existed in the first place.

The original System—the one I had just rewritten—had been designed to keep it sealed away.

That was the truth.

The culling. The levels. The endless trials.

They weren't just a method of control.

They were a way to power the lock.

And now that I had shattered that lock, this thing—the unmade one, the thing that had been waiting in the void—

Was free.

It stepped forward.

I reacted instantly.

Golden energy surged through my body, raw and infinite, filling the room with impossible light. I raised a hand—no, not a hand anymore.

A force. A concept.

The power within me was beyond form. It was golden and unseeable, present and absent, as much a part of the world as it wasn't.

I reached for it.

And the world broke.

A single pulse of my will ripped apart the air between us.

The city vanished.

No—I had moved beyond it.

The very concept of space, of ground, of walls and structures became meaningless.

It was just me and it.

And the golden light in my hands.

I thrust it forward, and reality itself screamed.

A beam of pure, golden destruction tore toward the being, a force beyond physical, beyond magic.

It was absolute.

It was everything and nothing.

A power that could unmake existence.

It hit.

And for a single, impossible moment—the thing was gone.

I felt it unravel. I felt it cease to be.

And then—

It came back.

It had never left.

It stood there, exactly as before, completely untouched.

My stomach dropped.

Because for the first time since arriving in Turgan, for the first time since awakening my powers, I felt something I hadn't in a long time.

Fear.

Because the golden energy I wielded—the power that now defined me—

Had done nothing.

The thing shifted.

And then, without a sound, it moved.

I didn't even see it. One moment it was there—the next, it was behind me.

I barely had time to react before something slammed into me.

Pain exploded through my body. Not physical pain.

Reality itself rejected me.

Like I had been torn from existence for a fraction of a second.

I hit the ground—or maybe I didn't. The world was still fractured, still broken.

I forced myself up, golden veins pulsing beneath my skin, energy flaring.

But I already knew.

I was outmatched.

This thing—whatever it was—was beyond me.

Because it wasn't just powerful.

It wasn't bound by the same laws of existence.

It wasn't part of the System.

And now that I had taken control, now that I had rewritten reality itself—

I had to stop it.

Or this world would cease to exist.

The woman's voice cut through the chaos. "Josh!"

I turned—just in time to see it move toward her.

No.

The golden light within me roared, tearing apart the world itself.

I lunged.

Faster than thought. Faster than light.

I moved.

And for the first time—

The thing in the void moved back.

I exhaled sharply, golden energy swirling around me, burning against reality.

It wasn't over.

Not yet.

I was still standing.

I still had the System.

And as long as I was here—I wouldn't let it win.