Chapter 8 – Observer Uplink

The moment Reven logged in again, he knew something had changed.

The world felt quieter — not empty, but staring. NPCs he passed didn't greet him. No idle chatter. No side quest triggers.

Only eyes.

Eyes that didn't blink.

From rooftops. From alley corners. From behind item stalls. Clad in black cloaks with reflective masks, the NPCs just stood there.

> [Unknown Entity: Observation Class — Unregistered]

Their tags didn't belong to any faction he knew. No guild. No class. No health bars. But their eyes followed him.

Everywhere.

He walked past the tavern. Still watching. Into the broken blacksmith area. Still there.

Then came a sound:

> Click.

A window opened on its own.

> [System Notice: You Are Being Tracked]

[Observer Protocol: Triggered]

[Mission: Survive the Scan - Time Remaining: 03:00]

Back in the real world, Officer Daichi Saito stood over a traffic cam screen frozen on one frame. The monster. The moment it was struck. Behind it—was a faint silhouette. A boy. In a hoodie. Standing right before the lightning.

> "Enhance this."

A tech replied, "Resolution's crap. But we can try."

Saito looked at it anyway. The boy's eyes—just for a frame—glowed the same blue static as the monster's.

> "Find this kid."

The moment the countdown began, Reven ran.

The Observers moved instantly. No walking. Just phased. In front of him. Behind him. On walls.

> "No attacks?"

They didn't attack. They just stood there. Until one finally whispered:

> "What are you?"

His screen glitched.

> [NIHILOS CLASS: Glitch Verified]

[You are neither Player nor Code]

[Threat Level: Evolutionary Divergence]

> "I don't even know myself!"

Then came the message:

> [Survival Window Complete: 00:00]

[Result: CANDIDATE ACCEPTED — PROTOCOL ALTERED]

[You may now enter the Lower Library]

The Observer nearest to him bent the knee. The wall behind him turned into static — and opened like a curtain. Reven stepped through.

It wasn't a dungeon. It wasn't a castle. It was a hall made entirely of suspended code fragments. Thousands of broken classes. Hidden skills. Sealed systems.

> [Welcome to the Lower Library: The Archive of Rejected Possibilities]

A voice echoed — deep, layered.

> "Every player who was denied a class comes here in fragments. You are the first to walk in conscious."

He reached out to one cube:

> [Class Fragment: Soulbinder (Rejected)]

Another:

> [Skill: Rewind Breath (Failed to Compile)]

Then one glowed the moment he neared:

> [Nullbyte-Class Addendum Found]

[Would you like to fuse this?]

> "Wait… Nullbyte?"

> [Warning: Fusion may affect your real body]

> "Of course it will."

He touched it.

Across the city, in the hospital ward, a boy in a coma twitched. His eyes flashed static. Then closed again. Elsewhere, a server room exploded in white light for three seconds. Logs wiped. Records blank.

At EvoCore HQ, engineers gasped as data for a "Class: Nihilos" returned a 0x0000-null response.

> "He's rewriting his record."

He returned to the game world. The Observers were gone. But his menu looked different:

> [Class: Nihilos – Origin Fragmented]

[Subclass: Nullbyte – System Layer Drift Enabled]

[New Skill: Mind Echo — Allows memory echoes from dev files]

He opened a system tab he'd never seen before.

> [Real-Time Layer Distortion: 0.004%]

> "I'm... affecting the world again."

He stood up and walked toward the next zone. And the voice whispered again:

> "Soon, they'll send the first cleaner."

He stopped. The world around him had begun to change subtly. The air shimmered. Trees flickered between assets. A villager in the distance was stuck mid-step, repeating a walking animation over and over.

> "Is this world... breaking?"

He passed an ancient shrine he had never seen before. The map didn't register it. Inside, there was a mirror. One side reflected him as he was. The other side, a shadow—no face, no features—only a void with glowing blue eyes.

> "Who were you before this?" the void asked.

"I... I don't remember."

> "Then forget again."

Suddenly, he was pulled into the mirror.

A new subspace opened.

> [Deep Memory Core Unlocked: Memories of World Zero]

Visions flooded his mind. A ruined world. A boy standing before a collapsing sun. His own hand reaching out to a goddess made of code. Her whisper:

> "You were the first."

> "Before simulation. Before law."

> "We built you from echoes."

He gasped and fell backward as the vision ended. Blood trickled from his nose.

> [Health -20]

> [Status: Memory Overload — Unstable Mind Event Pending]

> "Not now. Not yet."

He shut the mirror with a thought. It shattered into a hundred zeros and ones, vanishing.

Back in reality, EvoCore HQ servers picked up a pulse.

A single text string repeated in 87 languages:

> [The Nihilos Has Remembered.]

The CEO's coffee fell from his hand.

> "Shut. It. Down."

> "We can't."

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End of Chapter 8 – To be continued