Somewhere in the heart of a private server cluster buried under glass towers and quantum-cooled vaults, the developers of "EvoCore Online" stood around a silent monitor.
A single player profile pulsed red.
Player ID: Reven [Unlisted]
Status: Unclassified
Class: Nullbyte [Flagged]
System Sync: 18.47%
Physical Layer Breach: Confirmed
The lead security analyst, a woman with graying hair and a thousand-yard stare, leaned forward.
"This should be impossible."
An engineer zoomed in on the mission logs.
"He accessed a dormant event zone that hasn't been active in four updates. Triggered a non-standard kill execution protocol. Then... the system granted him Data Rupture. That's not even in the live class tree."
Another dev scrolled through background code.
"This isn't just a glitch. He's syncing with the root-level Nihilos fragment. That thing was sealed years ago after Beta Test 03 crashed."
"He didn't just find it. He woke it."
"What's worse—" the woman said, pulling up camera footage, "—we're seeing residual sync outside the server."
Everyone paused.
"Wait, you mean—?"
She pulled up medical logs silently harvested from the player's neural gear:
[Subject: Reven]
[Pulse Rate: Normalized]
[Adrenaline Response: Muted]
[Nerve Stimulus: Delayed Feedback (2.4s)]
"Pain dampening. Reflex boosts. Mental desync."
A younger dev whispered, stunned:
"The class is bleeding into the real world."
Level 5 Control Room – Subnet 9
In a darker room away from the engineers, a man in a deep blue suit sat watching Reven's class screen loop over and over. His nametag read: Dario – Observation Director.
He didn't blink.
"Initiate Watchdog Protocol. I want Reven followed 24/7 in-game. Shadow logs. Mirror layers. Passive trace only."
A masked subordinate nodded.
"Do we engage in reality?"
Dario didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he zoomed in on a frame: Reven standing calmly in a hallway as three older students backed away from him.
No anger. No fear. Just stillness.
"No," he said. "Not yet."
"We're watching something... evolve."
Meanwhile – Reven's Room
He lay awake again, eyes scanning the ceiling.
The messages hadn't stopped.
[Observation Layer: Breached]
[Admin Monitoring: Active]
[You are now a tracked variable.]
[Sync Lock expanding... 19.02%]
He couldn't log in.
The system had locked him out for a cooldown.
But in his head, the world of EvoCore pulsed like it was still running.
Like it was waiting for him.
He closed his eyes.
And heard something whisper through the electric static:
"...We see you now."
To be continued