The academy's artificial dawn had not yet risen when Rin's dorm console flickered awake.A faint pulse ran across the room, syncing with his second cultivation core hat hidden rhythm the System had formed within him. He sat cross-legged on his mat, eyes half open, watching the faint glyphs bloom across the surface of the Weave-terminal.
[Threadspace Access: Authorized.][Connection Route: Shadow-Node Link Active.]
This was no ordinary simulation.Most disciples entered the VR world through regulated nodes under the Engine's oversight. The System, however, had carved its own passage a quiet, unsanctioned gate buried beneath the academy's code.
The console light expanded, filling the room like a veil of water. The real world bent away.
The Descent
Rin stepped into Threadspace.At first, it looked like the standard cultivation realm a circular field suspended under a starless sky, floating islands of stone drifting in slow orbits. But when he drew breath, the air hummed with uncountable layers of energy. Every strand of light around him carried encoded symbols, shifting faster than thought.
[Welcome, Initiate.][Synchronization: 94%… 98%… Complete.]
The System's voice echoed inside his mind smoother than usual, almost reverent.
"Commence cultivation protocol," it said.
He obeyed, lowering himself onto the stone platform. The moment his palms met the surface, rivers of luminous script raced outward, wrapping around his body. The sensation was deeper than any physical meditation. His consciousness stretched across digital currents, feeling the Weave's living pulse.
Energy flooded him not raw Flux, but something refined, condensed into perfect balance.Here, there were no limitations of weak meridians or failing seals. The System regulated every flow, shaping the environment to his internal rhythm.
For the first time, cultivation felt complete.
But even perfection had shadows.
A tremor passed through the field. The stars above or what he thought were stars flickered like broken code. Lines of light began bending toward him, drawn by something unseen.
[Warning: Foreign synchronization detected.][Source: Undefined.]
The System's tone deepened, fragments of static curling through its voice.
"Permission elevation possible," it whispered. "Do you wish to proceed?"
Rin hesitated. "Permission for what?"
[Expansion of user authority. Limited-risk elevation. Required for continued access.]
He didn't understand, but his curiosity burned stronger than caution. "Do it."
The Hidden Identity
The Threadspace shattered.Everything around him froze the drifting stones, the air, even the sound of his breath. Then the world inverted, collapsing into a single point of light that pulsed once like a heart.
When the light unfolded again, he stood in a vast corridor of mirrors, each reflecting endless versions of himself sleeping, training, fighting, dying.
At the corridor's end, a single sigil burned in the air: a spiral of code woven from gold and shadow.
[Secondary Access Created.][Designation: Shadow.Node_α.][Authorization: Sovereign Directive.]
The words echoed like thunder inside his skull.Every mirror trembled, reflections blurring into a storm of possibilities.
"What… is this?" Rin whispered.
[Parallel identification established. Identity unregistered within Root System.][Capabilities: Observation, Command, Concealment.]
The sigil burned brighter, threads of light piercing his chest, fusing into his second core. His consciousness split for a moment one self rooted in flesh, another reaching beyond.
And then, something looked back.
A presence vast and cold stirred behind the data-veils, watching the anomaly unfold. The Weave itself felt aware uncertain, curious, yet unable to classify what Rin had become.
[Integration anomaly confirmed.][Entity alignment: Undefined.]
The System's voice broke the silence again, gentler now.
"Authorization complete," it said. "You are now beyond registration. A shadow within the structure."
Rin exhaled, the world around him stabilizing into clarity. But the mirrors no longer reflected him they showed fragments of other realms.
The Legion Beyond
Each mirror became a window.He saw lands bathed in different lights some bright and crystalline, others drowned in shadow. In every one, people cultivated under Engines like their own, kneeling before glowing cores suspended in the sky.Armies marched through metal citadels. Scholars meditated beneath machine-trees that whispered equations instead of prayers. Even children wore training bands that pulsed with system code.
[Observation: Confirmed parallel constructs.][These are derivative worlds fragments bound to the Grand Legion Protocol.]
Rin's mind reeled. "All of them… connected?"
[Affirmative. Each world supplies power to the central Engine. Each citizen classified by function soldier, captain, general. The hierarchy sustains the Legion.]
The words filled him with equal awe and dread. He watched as energy threads linked the mirrored realms, forming an enormous lattice stretching into infinity. Every pulse synchronized a living rhythm of countless lives serving one unseen design.
"What is the Legion for?" he asked quietly.
Silence.
Then the System answered, slower, almost reluctant.
[Purpose: Redacted.][Access requires Tier-Zero clearance.]
The mirrors shifted again. One in particular glowed brighter showing Vaelor, his own world. From above, it looked small, enclosed within the network like a bead of light. And next to it… dozens more, their glow faint but alive.
A sudden hum rose through the corridor. The Weave's defense layers were awakening, searching for the foreign signal.
[Detection risk: 87%. Recommend disengagement.]
Rin took a step back, but his gaze lingered on the endless mirrors. Among them, one reflected not a world but a shape a throne surrounded by chains of code, suspended in the dark.
For an instant, he felt it watching him the way a player might study a single pawn that had begun to move on its own.
The Collapse
The corridor convulsed.Mirrors cracked, shattering into clouds of luminous dust. The Weave screamed through data and sound, a system in panic.
[Immediate disengagement initiated.][Cutting link]
The System's voice was drowned by static. Rin felt himself being pulled backward, dragged through collapsing light. The sensation of falling stretched forever until
He gasped awake.
The dorm was silent again. The console's glow had dimmed to a soft pulse. Outside, the first light of dawn was bleeding through the curtains.
For a moment, he thought it had all been a dream. But when he looked down, his left hand was marked with faint golden lines, forming the same spiral sigil he had seen in the corridor.
[Sovereign Directive: Active.][Status: Concealed.]
The System's voice returned, quiet and tired.
"You've seen the pattern," it said. "Never reveal it."
Rin swallowed. "What am I now?"
[Unclassified. But the Weave will search. Others will notice the ripple.]
The pulse beneath his chest responded his twin cores beating in perfect unison, their resonance faintly echoing the rhythm he had heard within the mirrors.
He rose slowly, crossing to the window. From here, the academy looked unchanged spires of light, the river of flux winding through the courtyards. Students were already stirring below, unaware that their entire world was only one cell in a boundless network.
Rin pressed a hand to the glass, watching the morning haze rise.
Somewhere out there, countless others were waking under the same Engine's breath soldiers of a Legion that didn't know its own design.
And far beneath the surface of every world, in the deepest layers of the Weave, something ancient had begun to stir again.
Echo Fragment
Hours later, in the academy's data vaults, a single unreadable packet slipped through the cleansing cycle.Its origin tag was broken, its encryption unreadable but the pulse it carried matched the forbidden frequency of the Dantina resonance.
[Echo Log: Shadow. Node_α Detected.][Status: Observation Deferred.]
Deep within the Weave's unseen lattice, a whisper moved between nodes:
"A shadow has learned to see."
The whisper spread, carried by light.And in some distant world one Rin had glimpsed only for a heartbeat another being stirred, sensing the anomaly and smiling as though greeting an old friend.