The Watcher's raised hand gleamed with tendrils of black lightning as time itself seemed to stall. Hikaru lunged forward, every muscle in his body screaming, his Sigil flaring in a radiant, defiant light.
[Emergency System Trait Activated: Command Override – Sigil Integrity Threshold Exceeded][Skill Unlocked: Dominion Break – User may challenge Reality Layer for 10 seconds]
The world around him shattered like glass.
For one breathless moment, Hikaru stood between layers of existence. The chamber was frozen mid-collapse. Kaela was suspended mid-cast, her staff forming a prism of light. Brant hovered mid-leap, fire rippling from his fists.
And the Watcher stood, eyes wide—not in fear, but recognition.
"You shouldn't be able to do this," the entity murmured, its voice flickering like broken code.
"Then maybe you miscalculated," Hikaru growled. "Because I'm done being part of your equation."
He drove his blade forward, not into the Watcher—but into the anchor glyph at the base of the artifact's pedestal. The moment the blade connected, the glyph cracked—and so did the illusion.
The chamber imploded in a burst of golden and violet light.
Hikaru awoke alone, his health bar hovering at a sliver, surrounded by broken fragments of what had once been the vault. The artifact was gone. The glyphs? Destroyed. Even the Watcher had vanished.
[System Alert: Reality Anchor Severed – Dimensional Entropy Rising][WARNING: Interference Detected – System Layer Instability]
He sat up slowly, coughing. "Kaela? Brant?"
Silence.
A moment later, two interface flares blinked nearby. One showed Kaela's ID—still alive, though deep within the Vault's lower sanctum. Brant's was farther below—marked by red alerts and proximity to an unstable node.
"They got scattered when the glyph collapsed," Hikaru muttered. "Or pulled somewhere else."
He had no choice. He had to find them.
As Hikaru moved deeper, the world around him shifted. The stone walls no longer obeyed logic—they curled, fragmented, and stretched like a bad rendering. Colors bled through the air, and System notifications began misfiring.
[Skill: Phantom Dash – ??? Error: Not a recognized ability.]
Suggestion: Recompile using nearby code.Use Fractured Skill Tree?
Hikaru froze. Recompile?
[NEW OPTION: Fractured Class Tree – Available to Rift-Touched Only]Choose One:– Memorywalker (Rewrite system events within a limited timeframe)– Sigil Remnant (Harness shattered code for unstable power)– Paradox Herald (Warp cause and effect)
His fingers hovered, the pulse of entropy quickening. Time was breaking. And yet…
"Sigil Remnant."
[Selection Confirmed – Installing Fractured Class]
Class: Sigil RemnantTrait: Instability Surge – Your powers increase the more broken the environment becomes.
Elsewhere in the Vault, Kaela stood alone in a crystalline chamber where voices whispered her failures.
"You let your team fall.""You weren't strong enough to shield him.""You will lose them all."
She gritted her teeth, her staff glowing uncontrollably. "No. I won't let you in."
The chamber responded with a burst of magical interference.
[Memory Trial Initiated – Echo of Loss: Kaela]
A mirror formed before her—within it, Hikaru falling to the Watcher's blow again and again, endlessly repeating.
Kaela's knees buckled. "Stop it!"
The trial responded: "Only by accepting failure can you rise."
With trembling hands, Kaela cast a Null Mirror, shattering the illusion.
[Trial Passed. New Trait Gained: Soul Anchor – Auto-resurrect one party member per day at 50% HP]
She stood, tears in her eyes—but burning with new purpose.
Brant had landed in the ruins of a forgotten layer of the System—a half-built dungeon zone sealed off due to corruption.
Around him crawled failed players—glitching avatars twisted into monstrous shadows.
[Quarantined Zone: Echo Sector 7B – Abandoned Players Detected]
One of them approached—barely recognizable beneath the static, but Brant froze.
"...Ryken?"
It was his old guildmate. One lost in the earliest wipeout. Trapped in a bugged death loop.
Brant raised his fists, jaw trembling. "You were—dead. We buried your sigil."
The shadow groaned. "Help… or end… me…"
Brant's HUD flashed.
[Quest: Mercy or Madness – Save or Banish the Forgotten]
Reward: Permanent Aura – Unyielding Flame (AoE Defense for allies)
He chose mercy.
A wave of cleansing light erupted from his gauntlets, banishing the corruption and stabilizing the code fragment.
[Echo Purified. Trait Acquired: Unyielding Flame – Defense Aura now active around Brant in all group battles]
Hours passed—maybe minutes. Time no longer functioned properly.
Eventually, Hikaru emerged into a central cavern where Kaela and Brant were already waiting. Their clothes were scorched. Their expressions were haunted—but they were alive.
"You both made it," Hikaru said, his voice ragged.
Brant gave him a lopsided grin. "You look like hell, commander."
Kaela stepped forward. "The artifact's power isn't gone. It's fractured—and now… inside us."
Just then, the system chimed again.
[Ascension Cycle Update: Watcher Defied – Divergence Triggered]
You are no longer bound by standard tier rules.You have entered: The Divergent Path.
New Directive: Discover the source of the Watchers' realm.
Warning: You are being observed.
Above them, in the ceiling of the cavern, a slit of violet opened.
A watching eye.
Unblinking.