Aleth leaned his back against what felt like a wall, yet sensed no tangible solidity; it was as if he rested against an idea of firmness, with no physical presence. He adjusted his steps carefully, aware that every motion caused subtle ripples in the surrounding "fluidity." Around him, he observed the entities—those "acknowledged" who moved with the confident ease of existence, and the ancient exiles slipping through corners like oil slicks refusing to blend with water.
Nirava remained within sight, observing from a fixed distance. Her piercing eyes glinted like starlight on cold metal. Aleth felt that her gaze went beyond observation—it anticipated his movements, reading the draft of his transgressions before he could enact them.
Amid the oppressive silence, his eyes caught a glimpse of Liana. She resembled a condensed spark of consciousness, a young exile whose awareness had barely reached a decade. She moved with astonishing speed through the shadows, so agile she seemed invisible even to the exiles themselves. Her presence revealed a chilling truth to Aleth: this world was merely layers upon layers, each shell concealing secrets the system did not dare reveal.
Once again, Aleth extended his hand toward a small stone at his feet. He focused his mind, willing it to obey, but his fingers passed through it like light through glass. Yet something novel occurred: each failed attempt sent tremors through the surrounding space, causing faint flashes of twilight-colored luminescence. The light was a visual whisper from the cosmic pattern, a coded warning: "You attempt to breach equilibrium… withdraw."
Curiosity, however, overpowered the instinct for self-preservation. He wondered: what would happen if two consciousnesses touched in this layer? Would they fragment or fuse?
Impulsively, he pursued the path Liana had taken. He approached until his awareness nearly grazed her aura and reached out to touch her shoulder. In that instant, it was not a human touch he felt, but a dry, electric shock surging through his being. A red point ignited before his eyes—sharp, stabbing, unyielding. He could not decipher its literal meaning, but a silent scream within his programming conveyed a clear message: boundaries were not mere illusions—they were barbed wire for the soul.
At the same time, a strange scene unfolded in the lower reaches of the bustling market layer. Dense shadows emerged: ancient exiles crawling like ghosts beneath the feet of the acknowledged. They moved with eerie coordination, whispering in a language unheard by the ears, only perceptible through intuition. They watched… everything. Waiting for the moment of catastrophic collapse.
Suddenly, the layer's stillness fractured under a distant flash. Unlike previous faint flickers, this was a silent explosion of violet light that engulfed the horizon for a heartbeat. Aleth's pulse surged, pressure pressing against his chest. This was no passing warning; it was an official notification from the system: a supreme cosmic eye had observed the anomaly.
Aleth froze, suspended in a world of interlacing shadows and recurring flashes. Invisible threads seemed to coil around his existence. The minor error he had caused was no longer his alone—it had been logged into the system's eternal records.
Now, Aleth existed under the microscope of the pattern itself, and the violet flash off
ered no reassurance.