The forest was silent again — but it didn't feel peaceful.
It felt… haunted.
Rex sat by a crumbling stone wall, the faint glow of his veins fading after the battle. His hands were still trembling.
The Data Reaper's last words echoed in his head.
"Because it remembers who built it…"
He wanted to deny it.
But deep down, he couldn't.
Every glitch he saw, every system reaction around him — it all recognized him somehow.
He opened the system menu again — this time, it responded.
For the first time since the world broke, it didn't glitch.
A new icon pulsed softly at the bottom corner:
[Memory Trace — Lv.1 Active.]
Rex hesitated, then tapped it.
The world blinked.
The ruins disappeared.
He was standing in a white void, endless and quiet.
And then — it wasn't quiet anymore. Voices, laughter, keyboard clicks, the sound of computers humming in the background.
A memory. A real one.
Rex looked around and saw people — real humans — working in an office filled with screens showing code.
They were building something.
A massive simulation engine… the same symbols, same coding language that he saw in this world's interface.
"This… can't be…" he whispered.
On one screen, the words flashed:
Project: Ethereal Age — Neural Synchronization Test.
He saw himself — younger, tired eyes, drinking coffee while typing at lightning speed.
"That's me."
He moved closer, watching his past self argue with a woman — a developer with a holographic interface on her arm.
"Rex, if this code runs unchecked, it could trap the user's mind inside the simulation," she said.
"No," his past self replied coldly. "It's not trapping. It's freedom. A world without death, without limits."
The woman slammed her hands on the table. "That's not freedom, it's a cage!"
The screen glitched, distorting her voice. The memory started to crack apart like glass.
Rex reached out. "Wait—who was she?"
But the memory shattered before he could hear more.
He fell back into the ruins, gasping for breath. The pain in his skull was blinding.
[Memory Trace Complete — 17% Recovered.]
[Warning: Neural Sync Overload Detected.]
Rex groaned. "So I really did make this world…"
He looked up at the shattered sky. Lightning crawled through the clouds — a storm forming again.
[System Broadcast: Guardian Two — The Prophet Awakens.]
The wind roared, carrying the sound of a thousand whispers.
Somewhere far away, something powerful had just woken up.
Rex clenched his fists, eyes burning with resolve.
"If I built this world, then I'll tear it apart piece by piece."