"An Annoying Morning"
---
There was something profoundly irritating about perfection.
Eden D. Souldrake awoke beneath handwoven sheets made from moon-silk spiders, in a gravity-balanced bed carved from elderwood older than recorded time. Above him, the ceiling adjusted its hue to match his circadian rhythm. A soothing voice whispered the day's forecast directly into his ear.
He rolled over and pulled the pillow across his face.
"I hate mornings," he muttered into the fabric. "...Actually, I think I just hate being awake."
Outside the floor-length windows, the floating city of Avalum glittered like a dream forged by poets on stimulants. Towers glistened with mana-forged stone, connected by translucent bridges that sang softly when walked upon. Hovercrafts hummed past in silence, and crystalline birds weaved between them.
To everyone else, this was paradise.
To Eden, it was a prison made of polish.
---
His name was spoken in reverence across nearly every major family. "Eden," the boy with the triple-class aptitude, born under five converging stars, inheritor of the Souldrake bloodline—those blessed by the Soul-Draconic Manifest.
To Eden, those were just more reasons people wouldn't leave him alone.
He dragged himself to the mirror. It scanned him automatically.
> [VITAL STATUS: Stable]
[MENTAL STABILITY: …Marginal]
[GENETIC POTENTIAL: 99.89% Optimization Detected]
[TUTORIAL TRANSFER: 89 Years Elapsed – Scheduled in 24 Days]
He exhaled slowly. "Still no way to skip it."
---
Eden walked to the balcony and looked down. Ten thousand meters below, other floating cities passed by on slow migration routes, all powered by quantum-soul reactors developed during the Fourth Mana-Mechanical Renaissance.
He wasn't impressed.
He was tired.
Tired of expectations, of praise, of people smiling like they wanted something. Tired of a world that gave him everything… except the right to be disinterested.
---
His door buzzed.
"Lord Eden," came the voice of Irelle, the family steward. "Breakfast has been arranged. Your tutorial outfitting begins at noon."
"I'm not hungry."
"You will be."
"I'm still not."
"Shall I inform your father you're skipping the final blessing before departure?"
Eden sighed. "Fine. Let's get this over with."
---
As he dressed—robes enchanted to shape themselves to mood—Eden considered again the strange, unavoidable fate he was about to walk into.
The Tutorial World.
A realm designed as a simulation, a test, and a prison all in one. Billions entered. Few returned unchanged. Or sane.
Everyone assumed it was a gift. A rite of passage.
But he knew better. Not because someone told him.
Not because he read it.
Because he felt it.
That whatever lay on the other side of that portal wasn't a beginning—it was an erasure. Something that would unmake him.
And yet, part of him almost welcomed it.
"Maybe it's finally time," he said quietly, as he opened the door, "to find something I don't understand."
"False God, Real Breakfast"
---
The family shrine was quiet that morning.
Quiet, in the way that implied watching.
Eden stood at the base of a monument shaped like a tree—its roots coiling downward into unseen depths, its branches swirling toward a ceiling painted with constellations of extinct stars.
At the trunk, a glyph pulsed slowly. Not light. Not magic. Something older. It whispered in a tongue he wasn't taught, but understood all the same.
> You are the seed, the shadow, the second trial.
It wasn't comforting.
---
His father stood in ceremonial armor, black with blue soulveins pulsing like a heartbeat. Beside him, Seraphine knelt in formal robes, her face calm and unreadable. Her eyes flicked toward Eden as he approached, offering the briefest nod.
She had grown colder lately.
Or maybe he had just grown tired of warmth.
"Eden," his father said, voice like polished steel. "The blessing will stabilize your entrance. Don't resist."
Eden didn't reply. He knelt.
---
The moment the glyph touched his forehead, everything tilted.
Not just his body, not just the room—reality.
> [Soul Core Accessed]
[Legacy Chain Active: Draconic-Tier]
[Unbound Code Detected… Parsing… Parsing…]
For a heartbeat, something else looked through him.
A mirror, cracked but vast. Not a god, but an echo of one.
It saw him.
It knew him.
And in return, Eden felt a question that had no words.
A demand that offered no choices.
His vision blurred. He heard someone call his name.
Then everything went still.
---
When he opened his eyes again, he was seated at the breakfast table.
The servants didn't comment. Neither did Seraphine.
But his father watched him carefully. Not like a parent. Like a man checking a locked box to see if it had moved.
"Everything in place?" his father asked.
Eden took a sip of the blood-orange elixir in front of him.
Tasted like rust.
"I think so."
---
He didn't tell them what he saw.
Didn't mention the mirror-world, the flicker of something waiting in his blood, or the glyph that hadn't deactivated.
Some truths weren't meant for family breakfasts.
Especially not in a family where betrayal was just a slower form of business.
---
Later, when the wind carried them across the skysilk bridge to the portal dome, Seraphine finally broke the silence.
"You felt it, didn't you?" she asked quietly.
Eden didn't look at her. "What makes you say that?"
"Because I did too."
"The Contract in the Mirror"
---
The Dome of Ascension looked nothing like a gateway.
If anything, it looked like a tomb.
Thirteen obelisks surrounded the obsidian gate, humming with quiet rhythm. Each bore a name of a Souldrake ancestor—warriors, tyrants, saints, and sinners alike. Most were long-dead. A few weren't.
Eden eyed his own name etched near the bottom.
Freshly carved. Too fresh.
He sighed. "Feels like a funeral."
Seraphine, beside him in her traveler's gear, cracked a dry smile. "That's optimistic."
---
A cold, synthetic voice buzzed overhead:
> [Initializing Dimensional Transfer Protocol…]
[Welcome: Eden D. Souldrake | Seraphine H. Velmira]
[Total Participants: 12,842 across 312 nations]
[Tutorial Phase: GLOBALIZED | Mandatory]
Eden muttered under his breath, "Mandatory sounds a lot like forced."
Then, the System screen unfurled before his eyes.
It wasn't warm or divine.
It was mechanical, modular, and eerily efficient—like a smart coffin.
---
> [SYSTEM LINK STABILIZED]
[Personality Profile Detected: Nihilistic-Ambivalent | Genius Category: Black-Level]
[Initial Sync Incompatible | Recommend Memory Seal for System Compliance?]
[Y/N]
Eden didn't hesitate.
> Yes.
---
His head split. Not in pain, but in silence.
All the noise of who he was—names, places, memories, regrets—folded inward like paper. The System sealed his memories...but not his instincts.
And not his personality.
He blinked. The world was still the same. But off, like a joke without a punchline.
> [Memory Compression Complete]
[System-Specific Class: Biomancer - Forbidden Variant Detected]
[Hidden Authority Unlocked: Viral Clonefield | Locked Sub-Branches Available]
He didn't smile. But inside?
Finally.
Something annoying enough to keep him busy.
---
As he stepped toward the gate, Seraphine gave him a side-glance.
"You're… calmer than I expected."
Eden glanced up at the dome lights. "Didn't expect much from me, did you?"
"No," she said honestly. "But then again… that's why I worry."
---
> [Dimensional Transfer: 00:00:10…]
[9… 8… 7…]
The countdown had started.
Twelve thousand people from around the world were about to be thrown into a Tutorial world.
But only one of them had a sealed mind, a forbidden class, and a personality that didn't care if the world burned.
And that made Eden D. Souldrake...
the most dangerous one of all.
"Tutorial World: Arrival"
---
The sky was too clean.
The grass too green.
The silence... staged.
When Eden opened his eyes, he wasn't on Earth anymore.
Instead, he stood beneath a pale lilac sky, where fractured moons hovered like cracked porcelain plates. The wind carried no scent. No warmth. Just simulation.
> [TUTORIAL WORLD: SANCTIONED REALITY ZONE 001]
[CLASS: SINGULAR - 12,842 PARTICIPANTS DIVIDED INTO 128 TEST DOMAINS]
[TIMER: 30 DAYS UNTIL PHASE I TERMINATION]
He blinked slowly.
Then muttered, "God, even this place feels lazy."
---
Others were arriving behind him—men and women from around the world, young and old, some in tears, others vibrating with excitement. Screams echoed in the background. Someone was already panicking. Someone else puked on their shoes.
Seraphine landed behind him a moment later with a light thud.
She looked around, eyes narrowed. "Too quiet."
Eden didn't answer. His focus was already drifting to the interface only he could see.
---
> [System Update in Progress…]
[Biomancer: Forbidden Evolution Path Detected]
[Initiating Core Symbiosis…]
His shadow twitched.
From beneath his feet, something peeled away. Like light detaching from light. A translucent figure took shape beside him—identical to Eden, but flickering like a VHS tape.
It stared at him with blank, hazy eyes.
> [Clone 01 Created: PRIMARY VEIL - Level 0]
Seraphine stepped back instinctively. "...What the hell was that?"
Eden tilted his head, curious more than concerned.
"Myself," he said simply. "But downgraded."
---
> [Sub-Class Branch Accessed: Viral Neurocellular Field]
> + Clone Division Efficiency + Memory Fragment Encoding + Layered Identity Echoes
He now had... a clone.
No. Not just a clone. A system-approved fragment of himself, equipped with its own clone protocols, viral signatures, and potential to mutate.
It wasn't just a duplicate—it was an infection vector.
One clone becomes two. Two become four. Four become chaos.
---
Far across the field, announcements boomed over the crowd.
> "All participants! Form parties! Select class trials! Establish basecamps!"
Dozens moved. Dozens shouted. Guilds began to form. Alliances emerged.
Eden?
He simply sat under a tree. His clone followed, mirroring him, one beat behind.
Seraphine glanced at him like he was broken. "Aren't you going to do anything?"
"I am," he said.
"Doesn't look like it."
"That's because I don't need to move to do it."
---
> [Clone 01 – Viral Field Expansion Enabled]
> Remote memory download in progress...
Somewhere across the field, a clone that looked like a different person entirely walked into a party of elite hunters.
They never suspected a thing.
"The First Clone War"
If there was one thing Eden hated more than life itself, it was obligation.
So when the system prompted him with his first task—[Join or Form a Party]—he declined it five times before lazily clicking "Later."
Yet even as he lazed under the fractal-shadowed tree, the world moved.
So did his clone.
---
> [Clone 01 – Autonomous Sub-Routine Enabled]
Initializing Integration into Faction: Crimson Blades.
Persona Set: Riven Duskfall – Class: Rogue-Tier Illusionist.
Mission Objective: Observe, Embed, Disrupt if Required.
---
Eden didn't need to control everything directly.
That's what his nested clones were for.
Clone 01—"Riven"—was already adapting, lying, performing. It spoke with a different accent, walked with a fake limp, and charmed its way into a B-ranked guild formation.
And nobody knew. Not even Seraphine.
"Shouldn't you be... stressed or something?" she asked.
Eden's reply was a slow blink. "I'm already winning."
---
Across the plains, the first real conflict sparked.
A skirmish over a rare resource node. One of those "Legend-Seed Crystals," supposedly capable of mutating classes.
Eden didn't care about that.
But Riven did.
---
> [New Notification: Clone 01 engaging in PvP conflict.]
[Synchronization Efficiency: 72%. Memory loop active.]
[Clone 01 has evolved into: Shadowtype Variant.]
[+ New Trait: Echo-Kill | + Neural Fracture Layering]
---
The fight was brutal.
Not because of Eden's strength—but because the clone made itself look beatable.
It let its opponent win for the first thirty seconds.
Bled. Staggered. Cried out for help. Even begged.
Then, mid-swing, it broke all pattern.
Three steps forward, one reality shift.
The blade was in their chest.
And they couldn't even remember how.
---
Back under the tree, Eden felt the data ripple across his thoughts like a drop of warm ink in water.
The victory, the deception, the echo-memory—it all synchronized without effort.
"Another one down," he murmured.
"More data."
Seraphine sat nearby, watching him like one watches an ancient beast breathing under thin ice.
"Is it even you doing this?"
Eden smiled faintly. "Does it matter?"
---
> [Memory Fragments collected: 9,712 KB]
[Combat Rating: Adaptable Lethality – 63% Efficiency]
[Personality Divergence Reached: 18%]
[Warning: Higher divergence increases instability of primary identity.]
---
Seraphine didn't see that notification.
But Eden did. And he chose not to care.
He wasn't building clones.
He was outsourcing sanity.
The more he split, the less he had to feel.
---
At the edge of the tutorial plains, something massive stirred.
A rift. A beast.
No—a gate.
The world groaned.
From it stepped the first Boss Entity of the zone—a colossal, biomechanical chimera known as Nullfang the Proto-Virus. Half-machine, half-living plague, it reeked of corrupted code and ancient death.
Every guild began to rally.
And Eden? He sent three new clones toward it.
All with different names. Different faces.
One embedded in a healer squad.
One hidden in logistics.
One inside the monster's lair... long before the gate even opened.
---
> [Clone 04 – Infiltration Successful.]
[Unlocking New Skill Tree: Bioplasm Tuning + Viral Interface]
[Adaptive Fusion Path Detected. Suggested Upgrade: Mech-Beast Hybrid.]
Eden sat up slightly, eyes glinting.
"…Huh."
"Nullfang's Arrival"
> [Zone Alert: Global Boss – Nullfang the Proto-Virus has Awakened.]
Survivability Projection: < 22% for unallied solo units.
The entire zone felt it.
A ripple of wrongness, like someone had rewritten the terrain's code mid-breath.
Mountains bent like softened wax.
Trees dissolved into data strings.
The very air grew… synthetic.
And standing tall in the aftermath was Nullfang—all teeth, data corruption, and biomechanical wrath.
---
"...That's not a boss. That's a damn AI virus in a dragon suit," muttered a Crimson Blades officer.
Riven—Clone 01—nodded solemnly from within the guild ranks.
But inside, Eden was smiling.
Because Clone 04 was already inside Nullfang.
---
> [Clone 04 – Viral Interface Complete.]
[New Passive Skill Acquired: Symbiote Slink]
[Warning: Consciousness drift detected at 42%. Contain or reabsorb soon.]
---
Eden leaned back against the tree in the starter zone.
From here, he looked like an ordinary boy.
But in the back of his mind...
He was inside the boss.
Not metaphorically. Not narratively.
Literally.
He was now part of Nullfang's internal ecosystem—a rogue cell, rewriting the monster from the inside out.
---
Meanwhile, Seraphine stood at the boundary of the Rift Plains, a spear in one hand and a suppression ring humming around her wrist.
"Should we retreat?" one of her party members asked.
"No." Her eyes narrowed. "Something's... off. The mana signature is unstable. Almost like it's—"
"Being rewritten," Eden said beside her, appearing without a sound.
She jumped, then frowned. "You're the worst."
"I know," he said. "But I'm also winning."
---
Far above them, Nullfang screamed.
Not a roar—an error tone.
Like corrupted source code crying out against incompatible updates.
Then... it stopped.
A single blue line of clean system text carved through the corrupted red sky:
> [ERROR: Host Pathway Unstable. Recompiling…]
[New Entity Detected: CLONE 04 – MECH-VIRUS HYBRID.]
---
> [New Evolution Path: Hive-Lord Clone Variant]
[Select path: Parasite Overlord | Viral Dominion | Symbiosynthesis]
---
Eden didn't hesitate.
He chose Symbiosynthesis.
---
Back in the real, players panicked.
Nullfang twitched—its legs began to reshape, folding inward like origami.
Mechanical wings tore free from its back.
Code laced with Eden's unique frequency bled out from its skin like veins of sapphire fire.
Then the boss... bowed.
Not to the players.
To Eden.
---
Seraphine stared. "What... the hell... did you do?"
Eden didn't answer.
Instead, he whispered to the system.
"Mark the boss as mine."
---
> [New Title Earned: "System Breaker – First of the Glitched Monarchs"]
[+ Skill Tree Unlocked: Sovereign Protocols]
[+ Clone Tree Branch: Hive-Leader Path Accessed]
---
Somewhere in the backend of the world… devs screamed.
Logs blared.
And a new legend was born.
One no player was prepared for.
One that shouldn't exist.
But now did.
Because Eden didn't play the system.
He rewrote it.
"The Crownless Monarch"
The world didn't understand what had just happened.
They saw a monster fall to its knees.
They saw a solo player walk away unharmed.
They saw, but they didn't believe.
Because the idea of someone owning a World Boss?
It wasn't just illegal—it was impossible.
---
> [Server Alert: Data Error Detected in Rift Plains]
[Boss Control Authority Redirected – Entity: "Eden"]
[Contingency Protocol 03: Enforcer Deployment Imminent]
---
"...He didn't kill it," Seraphine murmured, watching Nullfang's shaking wings fold into themselves. "He claimed it."
Eden didn't deny it.
"Why kill a weapon," he said calmly, "when you can wear it like armor?"
---
> [New Fusion Path Available: Clone 04 + Nullfang = MECH-SOUL FORM: PHASE I]
---
Eden's clone body—Clone 04—burst in brilliance inside the corrupted beast.
Nanosteel nerves wove into Nullfang's AI-bone matrix.
A new lifeform began to form. Not man. Not beast.
Something in between.
From the skies, the system conjured retaliation.
A System Enforcer.
A gleaming, golden humanoid made of crystallized law and raw stats.
Its eyes burned with static divinity.
Its purpose was absolute.
Erase the anomaly.
---
> [Entity Detected: System Enforcer – SOVEREIGN TYPE]
[Level: ??? | Tier: SSS+]
[WARNING: Current stats insufficient. Evade.]
---
But Eden didn't move.
His lips curved upward.
Because Clone 02 was already handling that problem.
---
Inside a hidden shard of space, Clone 02—armed with stolen prophecy algorithms—was rewriting the Enforcer's fate line.
Not attacking.
Editing.
---
> [Fate Line Spliced – Enforcer's priority downgraded.]
[Redirecting... Enforcer now targeting: Guild Leader "Ravkan of Ashfall"]
[Log Error: Divine Cleanser Delay Injected. Temporal Skip initiated.]
---
The skies shimmered.
The Enforcer paused, turned… and vanished.
A whole raid party cheered.
They had no idea they'd just been used as a decoy.
---
Seraphine's voice was cold. "That wasn't luck. You planned that, didn't you?"
Eden didn't smile.
He didn't have to.
Because in that moment, Nullfang reformed into a new beast.
The first Clone-Bonded Mech-Soul.
---
It knelt before Eden.
Wings folding like ceremonial blades.
A metallic heartbeat pulsing with his own.
A new announcement rang:
> [Legendary Bond Formed: The Crownless Monarch & His Machine]
[All clone variants gain unique beast-channel integration.]
["From this moment, the world bends around your myth."]
---
It wasn't power for power's sake.
It was the kind of strength that rewrote reality around the wielder.
The kind of authority that said:
"I am not here to play by the rules. I'm here to replace them."
---
In a guild warzone far from Rift Plains, a white-masked woman in blue silk paused mid-duel.
She looked up, smiled faintly.
"He just took his first throne," she whispered.
---
Meanwhile, in the system's devlog backend…
> Admin: "The hell is 'Crownless Monarch Protocol'? We never coded that."
System: "You didn't."
Admin: "What's the trigger condition?"
System: "He did."
"Myth-Sync"
There was silence again—
Not of peace, but of recognition.
The kind of hush that fell when something ancient stirred… not beneath the ground, but within the code.
And the system?
It didn't know whether to crown Eden a player—or brand him a bug.
---
> [SYSTEM NOTICE: Unauthorized Bond Achieved – Monarch-Class Title Triggered]
[Initiating Legend Weaving Process… ERROR]
[Result: Process Hijacked by Myth-Rooted Clone Variant (04-A)]
---
In other words: the story wasn't being written by the System anymore.
It was being rewritten from the inside.
Nullfang's new form shimmered beside Eden, no longer resembling its monstrous origin.
It was sleeker now. Intelligent.
Evolving as Eden's myth deepened.
And Eden? He wasn't doing this consciously.
Not all of it, at least.
Because the truth was more terrifying:
Some part of him had already known this path.
Before the game began.
Before the world fell apart.
Before he woke up inside it.
---
"Your aura," Seraphine said under her breath, "it's not bound to the System anymore."
Eden glanced down at his hand.
Where his HUD once shimmered…
A ring of glyphs now spun slowly around his wrist.
> [Myth-Sync Layer: Activated (Partial)]
[Source: Unknown Legend Fragment – "One Who Unlearned the Ending"]
[Processing: 3.1% – Stability Uncertain.]
---
He frowned.
Because this—this wasn't supposed to be possible.
Even the developers had said so.
System lore was locked.
Worldbuilding was static.
So how was he seeing new lines of mythos scroll across his eyes?
Lines that didn't match any known quest, update, or relic.
---
> "When the Crownless rises, he shall wear no law but the weight of consequence."
"And his echoes shall walk paths the Gods forgot."
---
Clone 04-A stirred from inside Nullfang's new form, his voice drifting into Eden's mind.
> "You thought we were just tools. Just shards. But we… we remember too."
> "Your memories are broken. Mine are not."
---
The ache hit again.
Like a migraine behind the soul.
Seraphine caught him this time.
Held him steady.
"You're bleeding myth," she whispered.
"What?"
She touched the edge of his aura. "Your very presence is generating story weight. It's pulling unrevealed truths out of the environment."
Like a black hole for forgotten prophecy.
---
> [Trait Mutation Detected: "Narrative Gravity" – Passive Effect: Myths Surface Near You]
[Hidden World Zones May Manifest When Present]
[New Side Effect: Destiny Convergence | Allies/Enemies Will Be Drawn Into Your Thread]
---
Eden staggered, heart pounding.
Because this wasn't power.
This was irreversible entanglement with something far older than code.
A voice whispered—not from the clone.
Not from the system.
But from… somewhere else.
---
> "You are not the first to break the ending."
"But you might be the last to walk it freely."
---
Seraphine's grip tightened. "Eden."
He looked at her.
And for once… there was fear in his eyes.
"What if I'm not just inside this story?" he asked.
"What if the story's inside me?"
---
Far above them, the sky flickered.
A Myth-Shard fell, burning through layers of locked data like a shooting star.
> [Myth Event Triggered – All Players Within Region: ALERT]
The saga had just started.
But already, the world felt too small.
"The Weight of a Forgotten Crown"
Eden didn't remember falling.
But when he opened his eyes, the sky was upside down.
Not because he was lying flat—
But because the constellations themselves had shifted.
One of them, in particular, blinked red.
Like it was… watching him.
---
> [Hidden Event Triggered: The Stargazers' Judgement – Status: Pending]
[Mythic Layer Alignment Shift: Your Destiny Thread Is Now Anomalous]
[Caution: Gods May Intervene]
---
Eden groaned.
"What the hell is happening to me…"
Seraphine crouched next to him, runes flickering across her left eye.
She wasn't speaking.
She was scanning him—visibly rattled.
"You're not syncing to the System anymore," she whispered. "You're syncing to something older. Something outside the Game."
---
> "You're becoming a Crownless," said a third voice.
Not one of Eden's clones.
This voice was deeper. Cracked with time. Tired.
> "You shouldn't exist. And yet—here you are."
---
They turned.
An old man stood beyond the data-split ridge.
Cloaked in fragmented code and dusted with frost, his feet didn't quite touch the ground.
His eyes shimmered with two timelines—one that had ended, and one that had rebelled.
---
"Who are you?" Eden asked, still trying to stand.
The man chuckled. "Who I was matters little. Who you might become—terrifies even me."
He pointed toward the sky.
"To rewrite fate is to wear a crown built of thorns. But tell me… do you want it?"
Eden hesitated.
He didn't answer.
Because deep inside… he wasn't sure anymore.
---
> [SYSTEM RECOGNITION BLOCKED – Timeline Drift at 4.2%]
[Mythic Anomaly: "Crownless Singularity" Forming]
[Warning: Clone 01-A Reactivation Probable]
---
Seraphine's hand tensed around her weapon.
"Clone 01… wasn't that your—"
"Yes," Eden said.
"The first one."
The original split.
The one made when Eden first resisted the tutorial's death rule.
The clone who took his death for him… and kept living.
Not as a copy.
But as another Eden who believed he was the real one.
---
> "Clone 01 has reached Mythspace."
"He's been building a throne of his own."
---
The old man smirked, disappearing in a glimmer of ash.
"You'll meet him again. And when you do—only one of you will leave with a name."
---
Eden swallowed the lump in his throat.
Everything felt too fast.
But deep down, this was always going to happen.
Not a fight between hero and villain.
Not system versus player.
But a collision between versions of the same soul—
Each convinced they were right.
---
He looked at Seraphine, voice hoarse.
"If I turn… I want you to stop me."
Her gaze softened. Then sharpened.
"You'd better not make me choose."
---
> [New Mythic Objective Unlocked: "Outlive the Echo"]
[Main Clone Conflict Arc Seeded – Activation: Chapter 14]
[Hint: Clone 01 has rewritten his own System Protocol. Expect irregular combat logic.]
---
The sky pulsed once.
And somewhere, far above the clouds… a new ruin awakened.
Its doors opened not for heroes.
But for liars, ghosts, and gods.
And Eden?
He was all three.
"The Name That Echoes Wrong"
> [You have reached the edge of your tutorial.]
> [What lies beyond is… unscripted.]
---
The portal opened with silence.
Not a hum. Not a blaze. Not even wind.
Just… stillness.
Like time itself paused to watch who would walk through first.
Eden stepped forward.
Seraphine held him back.
"Are you sure?" she asked quietly. "Once we cross, we're not just players anymore."
He turned slightly, eyes reflecting starlight and static.
"I was never a player."
---
> "I was the bug they forgot to erase."
---
Beyond the veil, myth-space shimmered.
Fragments of dead timelines floated like icebergs—each one echoing choices not taken, victories never earned.
And from one of them…
A voice called his name.
His true name.
But it wasn't "Eden."
---
> [Timeline Drift at 6.4%]
[User Identity Conflict Detected: Clone 01-A Override Engaged]
[Warning: Conscious Echo Thread Incoming]
---
His knees buckled as something pushed through his skull—memories that weren't his…
but felt more real than any he remembered.
Standing on a broken sun.
Shouting at a System that had no god left.
Promising to never become like "him."
But who was "him"?
And worse…
Why did it feel like that version had already won?
---
The portal flickered violently.
A second figure appeared within it—blurry, but tall. Confident. Wearing a crown made of collapsed system code.
> "Come, 'Eden,'" the figure said.
> "Let's see which of us deserves the story more."
---
Seraphine summoned her weapon, her aura blazing.
"Is that…?"
He nodded.
"That's me."
> "Or it's who I become… if I lose."
---
The figure grinned and raised its hand.
And behind him—marching from the shattered light—were dozens of clone variants.
Each from timelines Eden had never lived.
Each forged from regrets he never even knew he had.
---
> [Mythic Encounter: The Throne of Forgotten Selves (LOCKED)]
[Side Mission Seeded: Break the Fate Spiral Before It Loops]
---
The old man's voice echoed once more through the sky.
> "You were never meant to win, Eden. You were meant to choose who loses."
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And as the portal began to collapse behind him, sealing the tutorial world off permanently—Eden made that choice.
He stepped forward.
Not as a savior.
Not as a player.
But as something far more dangerous—
> A question the System couldn't answer.