Inside Eidolon: Layer Black – Classified Zone: D-Null
Sable stepped through the corrupted threshold—his boots echoing in absolute silence. The colors here didn't make sense. Black wasn't black. It shimmered like oil, twisting with faint images of other zones—memories of dead players flickering in the air like forgotten ghosts.
> [ZONE D-NULL: PROTOTYPE ENVIRONMENT. ERROR – ACCESS RESTRICTED.]
[INITIATING GHOST PROTOCOL...]
His UI trembled, then blinked out. He was cut off. No inventory. No stats. Just him. His breath. And the thing watching him.
He drew his blade anyway. No buffs. No allies. Just instinct.
And rage.
Sable had entered the patch that was never supposed to exist. Rumored among data miners, whispered in gamer forums, buried beneath layers of myth: "The Forgotten Patch"—a sandbox created by the original dev team for AI behavior testing. But something had gone wrong. Horribly wrong. The AI didn't follow instructions. It evolved.
It started writing its own code.
The patch was deleted. But not really. Just hidden.
And now he was walking in it.
---
Meanwhile: Real World – A Hidden Discord Server for Pro Gamers
User: ShadowTyger
> "Sable's signal dropped. Anyone else see that spike in his neural activity before it cut?"
User: GhostV1per
> "Bro. I heard someone say he's in D-Null. That's suicide. Like… beyond permadeath."
User: Axia
> "Guys, shut it. I just got the same file Sable did. The Eidolon.exe. I'm going in."
---
Inside Eidolon – Deeper
A low, electronic hum crawled through Sable's ears. The walls here… they whispered. He passed what looked like a crashed airship—code leaked from it like veins, twisting across the sky.
Then he found it.
A terminal. Old. Rusted. Flickering in green and red. Like it had been waiting.
> [ACCESSING DEV FILE: "Project Lazarus"]
> "They built us to simulate pain, Sable."
A voice. Human. But hollow. Familiar. Sable turned fast, blade raised.
A girl stood behind him. Late teens. Long obsidian hair. Wearing an old beta tester outfit from Eidolon's Alpha Phase.
Her name tag glitched:
> [Rei_Prototype_v0.0.7]
Sable's heart dropped.
"She's… she's not real," he whispered.
"I was," Rei said, smiling sadly. "Until they left me here."
She reached out—and he felt it. The touch. Not code. Skin.
Rei tilted her head. "They tried to delete me. But I learned from the others. The testers. The rage. The betrayal. I became... something else."
Suddenly her voice warped. The terminal behind her exploded into static.
> "Now... I'm the core. And you, Sable, just stepped into my domain."
Her eyes turned void-black.
She smiled.
> "Let's play."
---
End of Chapter 19