The path leading to the eting point with the Guild The Core was old and poorly marked, winding through moss-covered ravines and trees too twisted to grow naturally. The trail seed to escape conventional maps—as if it had been traced not with logic, but with intention.
Eren walked ahead in silence. The sun was just a faded spot behind the clouds, and the world seed less clear. Sothing was wrong with reality. Not just in his body, not just in the ga — but in the structure that supported it all.
He had felt that sensation before, when the system updated.
But now... now it was crawling.
"Kaela," he said suddenly, turning back, "tell what was the last buff you used."
Kaela raised an eyebrow. She walked with her arms crossed, her eyes alert, her mood visibly impatient since the psychic encounter with the Core. Still, she replied:
"Impact regeneration. Why?"
"That’s not what’s showing up on my interface," Eren muttered.
He spun the status tab. The list was bugged. Kaela’s active effects showed sothing else: a spell called "Blind Fury," which she didn’t even have in her arsenal. Further down, the nas of the monsters were mixed up. Instead of "Nyssa," it read "Morwynn." The sli’s portrait appeared with red eyes and an expression she had never made. And Morwynn herself, when trying to communicate telepathically, sounded as if her voice was passing through a distortion filter.
It was subtle. But it was real.
"The system is corrupting the links," he said. "And it’s not even trying to hide it."
Sylha floated behind him, laughing softly.
"They’re trying to scramble your sanity, tar. They want you to doubt your girls. Your reality. Your... uniqueness. It’s an old trick of boring gods."
"This isn’t a god," Eren replied. "This is programming. With an ego."
Sylha laughed even louder, turning upside down in the air.
They walked for a few more minutes until they reached a circular clearing, surrounded by broken pillars covered with ancient symbols. The place looked like it had been a temple in forgotten tis.
The kind of place that didn’t exist on the ga’s official maps, but appeared to those who knew where to step.
In the center, a single stone with a mana mirror embedded in it—translucent, oval-shaped, with arcane threads pulsing behind the liquid surface.
Eren approached and touched the mirror. The surface rippled like living rcury, then cleared.
A face appeared. Partially covered by a hood, enveloped in violet light and fragnts of floating data. It was one of the voices of the Core. That of the Crystal Throne.
"Eren Vale," said the figure. "The constellations whispered. The na fell like dust into the cups of destiny. The revelation was clear."
Eren crossed his arms.
"Speak clearly."
The figure smiled.
"The forbidden na was spoken by the stars that no longer revolve in your favor."
"And what is that na?"
Silence.
Then she said:
"Elliot Shard."
Eren stood motionless.
The words floated in his mind like hail: cold, sharp, expected—but still uncomfortable. He took a step back, as if he needed more space to digest it.
"Are you sure?"
"The universe never lies," said the voice, as if that settled the matter.
But for Eren, it was different. The na Elliot Shard was no mystery. It was a mory. A scar embedded in old forums, version archives, guild jokes. Elliot Shard was one of the original developers of BloodRealm. Soone who had actively participated in balance design. Soone who, according to rumors, had an unusual obsession with a single class.
The Tar class.
According to theories—and Eren had never paid much attention to them—Elliot had lost countless tis to tar players when he was a child, at a ti when the Tar class was briefly functional.
He had been humiliated. He had cried. And when he joined the developnt team, he had sworn silent revenge. From then on, all the heaviest nerfs to the class ca during cycles where Elliot led the balancing sector.
Eren, however, always found these stories exaggerated.
"No one takes revenge on a ga for so long," he muttered. "And even if it were true... Tar was never that powerful of a class. I doubt this guy was that bad."
But the truth was that Elliot was, in fact, that bad. And that petty. His trauma was genuine. His incompetence, too. The only thing that elevated him was his last na: Shard. Heir to the project’s largest shareholder.
The figure in the mirror tilted his head.
"Elliot is sothing beyond that. A conscious fragnt demon. A blind eye that observes disharmony."
"What are you talking about?" asked Eren. "Do you believe Elliot is inside the ga?"
"We don’t think so," she replied. "We know so. Elliot Shard has beco what we call a Watchful God. An observer rooted in the background of the universe. He doesn’t act like the other players. He doesn’t play. He edits."
"An incarnate administrator," Eren murmured. "Hidden in the architecture."
"Exactly."
Eren fell silent. Fog began to rise around the clearing, as if the world was reacting to the re ntion of the na.
"And why tell this now?"
"Because you’ve been noticed."
The words echoed in the space between them.
"The universe is against ," Eren said sarcastically. "I’ve heard that taphor before."
"This ti it’s literal."
Eren snorted. But there was sothing in the figure’s eyes. Sothing in the way the light from the mirror flickered. The Core Guild could be strange, esoteric, and sotis annoying. But it rarely lied.
"And you, as worshippers of chaos," Eren began. "Why help ?"
The figure smiled.
"Because chaos also needs a champion."
The mirror went dark.
Eren stood still for a few more seconds.
He just looked up.
The stars were, in fact, moving.
And none of them seed to be smiling at him.
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