---
[Rebooting: Eidolon_Restore_v1.01.exe]
[Warning: System anomalies detected…]
[Proceeding with launch...]
---
Sable's breath caught in his throat.
He felt the rush again—the way the VR pod hugged his body, the momentary pressure before the neural sync initiated. Cold liquid surged through the suit's circulatory tubes, chilling his veins. Then heat—sharp, cutting heat—blossomed in his chest as the bloodflow adapters responded to the simulated world temperature.
His consciousness slipped...
And then—
Blackness.
Until the world lit up with blue fire.
---
World: Eidolon Restored – Safe Zone: Ironvale Core
When Sable opened his eyes, he was no longer in his room.
He was standing in the heart of a ruined city.
Massive silver towers reached toward the sky, bent and cracked like broken bones. Faint embers floated in the air, illuminating roads stained with something that looked like oil but smelled like blood. This wasn't the Eidolon he remembered—it was wrong, like a dream twisted by nightmares.
The safe zones used to be bright sanctuaries. This one felt like a tomb.
A digital voice echoed in his ears:
> "Player: Sable. Logged in. Sync rate: 99.8%. Warning: One-time logout protocol active. Death results in lock-state."
He clenched his jaw. So it was true—this wasn't a beta. This was a full run.
And the stakes were real.
---
Other Players Appeared
One by one, the avatars spawned in around him.
Zeke materialized like a shadow wreathed in code, eyes scanning lines of magic equations hovering in the air.
Nyra dropped in mid-spin, twin daggers already drawn, grinning like she missed the chaos.
Ashen appeared with his long rifle slung on his back, a cigarette between his lips despite it being virtual.
And then came Lyra…
She looked the same, but… her eyes didn't.
There was something hollow in her gaze.
> "This place is… different," she whispered.
"It's decaying."
---
Then the Glitch Happened.
The sky blinked.
For a moment, it turned to static. Then it cracked like glass.
A warning flashed in the HUD:
> [Unknown Entity Detected - Suppressed by Admin Layer]
[Corruption Level: 4.1% and rising]
"What the hell was that?" Zeke hissed.
Sable didn't answer.
Because he saw something no one else did.
For a split second—just one frame of reality—he saw a face.
Half-rendered, eyes empty, mouth stretched too wide. Watching him.
And it smiled.
---
The Game Has Changed
They headed to the town's command center, where quests used to spawn.
Instead of a clean UI interface, they found a bleeding wall covered in fragmented code and twitching icons. A single message scratched into the data:
> "Only one wins."
"Only one leaves."
"You're not alone in here."
Zeke ran a trace on the file path.
> "The original architecture's broken. This isn't the Eidolon from the archives," he muttered.
"It's been rebuilt… like someone stitched it together using scraps and corrupted memory."
> "Or someone," Nyra said, "is still building it… while we're inside."
---
The PK Begins
A loud alarm blared through the zone. A kill notification appeared.
> [Player 'Echo' has eliminated 'Sigma_9']
[Body count: 1]
> "PvP is active…" Ashen muttered.
"In a safe zone?"
Then another kill. And another.
Blood ran like water, and players turned on each other like wolves.
Because rumors spread fast.
Only one player would get the reward. Only one would walk away with the ten million credits.
But if you died?
Your body went comatose. Your consciousness remained inside the bugged-out world.
And the only way to log out… was to survive to the very end.
---
Sable's Choice
He stood still in the chaos, eyes on the flickering sky, remembering what the dev logs said during the old testing phase.
> "Eidolon's code evolves depending on how players behave. Fear fuels it. Betrayal strengthens it. Hope weakens it."
This wasn't a game anymore. It was an arena.
And someone—or something—was watching. Feeding on their choices.
He looked at his team.
Then looked at the rest of the players, logging in from around the globe.
Streamers. Hackers. Pros. Killers.
And the corruption was growing.
---
End of Chapter 2
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