17:58:09
The countdown kept ticking no matter where I looked.It was burned into the top-right corner of my vision like a developer's cruel joke.
I stared at the glowing spell shard embedded in my palm — the cost of Chrono-Fang still burning behind my eyes.
"You've crossed the line now," the AI murmured. "The System's awake. And it knows your name."
"Let me guess," I said, massaging my temples, "that's not a good thing."
"Player Zero doesn't get tutorials. You get Trials."
The first came within the hour.
I was walking through Central Park on the way to a contact NullKitten88 sent me—another rogue caster, apparently—when the sky dimmed unnaturally.
No clouds. No eclipse.
Just... dimmed. Like reality got a patch update and forgot to turn the brightness back on.
[CHAOS TRIAL 1 INITIATED]
Objective: Survive until resonance collapse ends.Threats: Manifested Errors (x5), Reality Leak.Reward: System Trust +5%, Skill Fusion Unlocked.
"Define 'Manifested Error'—"
Then I saw them.
They weren't monsters.
They were copies of me. Five of them. Walking from different directions.Same clothes. Same tired face. Same flickering rune on the hand.
Only... their eyes were static. Their hands already crackled with unstable spells.One held a fireball. Another a blade of light. The third grinned with a mouth stitched shut.
I whispered, "Oh hell, it's a boss fight with myself."
The AI's tone dropped an octave. "These are system echoes. False versions of you that reflect what you could've become. Each one represents a path the System discarded."
"So... evil Ren clones."
"Pretty much."
I didn't have time to prep.
The first clone launched a flame wave. I dodged behind a bench that melted seconds later. I countered with Chaos Bolt, but it flicked off the stitched-mouth one like water on glass.
They were fast. Smarter than mobs. And coordinated.
"Time to test Chrono-Fang," I muttered, raising my hand.
I targeted the dual-blade version running at me—
CAST: CHRONO-FANG
Reality wobbled.
He froze mid-air, like a paused video, for three glorious seconds.
I slammed him with a full-power Chaos Bolt—one that had started turning violet around the edges. He shattered into broken lines of red code.
[1/5 Targets Eliminated]
They hissed in unison and charged.
I ducked, rolled, cast again. I was sloppy. They were relentless.
But something clicked inside me. Not power—instinct.I wasn't reacting anymore—I was predicting. Reading their behavior like code bugs.This was a Trial, and I was the patch.
I fake-cast a spell to bait one in, slid behind him, and disintegrated him with a backhand pulse of chaos.Two left.
One clone—the stitched-mouth—began whispering backwards words that made the world flicker. Reality itself trembled.
"Interrupt that now!" the AI shouted. "That's a collapse chant!"
I focused all my energy and cast a raw surge of anti-code: Spellbreak.I didn't even know I could do that.
It worked.
He vanished screaming in glitch static. The final clone tried to flee.
I didn't let it.
[CHAOS TRIAL COMPLETE]
Reward Unlocked: Skill Fusion Slot (1)System Trust: +5%Reality Stability: -0.09%
"Wait," I muttered. "Reality's cracking faster than before."
"Of course it is," the AI said. "You're stronger now."
"So I'm helping... and hurting."
"You're Chaos, Ren. You don't solve problems. You reroute them."
As the Trial faded, so did the sky's dimness.Sunlight returned.
The world felt normal again. But it wasn't.
Nothing was.