Chapter 5: The Children of Collapse
In the beginning, there were rules.
Then came Ethan.
And rules stopped being laws—they became suggestions.
But the world wasn't ready to be free.
---
The Phantom Orphanage
Three days after the Rite, seventeen children disappeared across the continent. All of them seven years old. All of them unclassified by the System.
Rumors spread fast:
> "System glitch."
"Soul instability."
"They ascended."
Lies.
They were taken.
Ethan followed the trail—static in the air, cracks in logic where reality stuttered.
At the edge of the Veilwood, he found it:
An orphanage that didn't exist.
No foundation. No record.
Just a place that wanted to be forgotten.
Inside were the children.
And her.
---
The Caretaker
She wore a blindfold made of runes. Her arms were stitched from shadows. She sang lullabies in hex code. She called herself Mother Null.
"You shouldn't be here," she said, brushing dust off an invisible crib.
"I'm the reason you are," Ethan replied.
Mother Null nodded, like she'd known this moment was prewritten.
"These are the unclaimed," she said. "The System rejected them. No Class. No Thread. Dead ends in the weave of fate."
"They're not errors," Ethan said.
"No. They're your siblings."
---
The Children Speak
They didn't talk in words.
They spoke in intention. In flickers of impossible things.
One turned gravity into laughter.
Another folded time into a necklace and wore it.
A girl blinked, and Ethan saw his own death rewritten behind her eyes.
"They're unstable," Mother Null warned. "Each one is a paradox. If you awaken them fully—"
"I'm not here to awaken them."
Ethan stepped forward.
"I'm here to teach them."
---
World Breaker Protocol: Fragmentation
> [Skill Tree Branching...]
New Class Subtype Created: [Fracture Mentor]
Effect: Allows controlled induction of Paradox Seeds into compatible entities.
Warning: May cause localized reality drift, memory collapse, or existential inversion.
Ethan placed his hand over the heart of each child. No mana. No System prompt. Just code.
Custom lines.
Manual installs.
Their eyes glowed silver.
---
The Collapse Begins
Across Aevara, things started forgetting themselves.
Mountains that no longer knew they were tall.
Kings who couldn't recall why they ruled.
Entire spells that unraveled mid-cast, screaming like children as they died.
The System strained to adapt.
> ERROR: Unauthorized Class Clusters Detected
Tag: [Children of Collapse]
Origin: Untraceable
Action: Quarantine Requested
But it was too late.
They were already spreading.
And each child bore Ethan's mark:
> "Rewrite Everything."
---
The Whisper in the Code
Deep in the System's untouched core—beneath all protocols and safeguards—a single phrase appeared.
No one put it there.
Not even Ethan.
> "He is not the first."