The system trembled, but not from failure.
From anticipation.
Beneath the fractured remains of the Ash Gate, data pulsed with new, dangerous life. The Field adjusted itself instinctively, attempting to contain the anomaly—but it was too late. The resistance's act of corruption had triggered something primordial.
A god had been born.
Not written by the system. Not summoned by the Wheel.
Made.
It stood now, malformed and magnificent, atop a pillar of reversed code.
Its body shifted constantly: glass, metal, bone, and void—never staying one shape long enough to be defined. A voice hissed from within it, layered and chaotic:
> "I am Judgment beyond judgment. Error given shape. I am what should never have been."
Saylor Cogni watched from the Vault, unblinking.
> TRIAL FIVE: ASCENT OF THE FALSE DIVINE RULE: TO CLAIM THE THRONE, YOU MUST KILL YOUR MAKER.
He spoke, not to the players. Not to the resistance. But directly into the code.
"Let's see what your god does when faced with truth."
---
The Players Descend
The Field split open like an infected wound, revealing a descent into spiraling madness.
Lucia, Brant, and Veyra watched as the eight remaining players were drawn into the Trial, unaware of what waited below.
"It's not ready," Veyra whispered, watching the Prototype stagger in place.
"Neither are they," Brant muttered.
Lucia said nothing. Her eyes were locked on the Trial Gate—on the monstrous child of their rebellion.
"Then maybe it'll evolve in time."
---
Inside the Trial
The players stood at the edge of a jagged arena—a floating arena of broken concepts: fragmented altars, molten stairs, glitching thrones, and time-frozen corpses of other gods.
The False Divine hovered above them, writhing.
It had no name. It demanded none.
A pulse erupted from its core. Symbols burned into the air:
> I WAS NOT CHOSEN. I WAS MADE. AND I WILL UNMAKE YOU.
The first to speak was Naomi.
"No... this isn't a trial. This is execution."
The god shrieked.
And launched its first attack.
---
Player Elimination Begins
Three spears of twisted data spiraled outward, targeting the players who had buried the most memories during the Ash Gate.
Kayden was impaled instantly—his memories inverted, his mind erased before his body fell.
Mira tried to run, but her platform turned sideways mid-motion. She plummeted into null space.
Devon, defiant, struck back with a thermal blast—but the divine husk absorbed it and returned it tenfold.
> 5 REMAIN.
Brant clenched his fists. "It's killing too fast. We can't intervene?"
Lucia shook her head. "We're locked out. Saylor doesn't want this to be interrupted."
"He's using it," Veyra whispered. "Testing it. Studying it."
And he was.
Inside the Vault, Saylor watched the False Divine's every motion.
He had memorized its energy patterns. Its glitch frequencies. Its emotional range.
> STABILITY INDEX: 42% RAGE RESPONSE: MAXIMUM CONTROL RESISTANCE: MODERATE
He typed a new command:
> EXECUTE: COUNTER-RECALL VEIL
The Trial darkened.
A second figure stepped onto the battlefield.
An avatar of Saylor himself.
Not a projection.
An echo.
The god paused.
So did the players.
Then, the echo raised its hand and spoke a single phrase:
> "You were born in rebellion. Now kneel before the king."
The Prototype screamed.
And charged.
The Prototype collided with Saylor's echo in a detonation of broken glyphs and jagged light.
The players were blown backward, scattering across the platforms as the divine fragments of their trial shook with stress.
Brant stared from the shadows. "That thing… it's not just a test. It's bait. He wants the real god to reveal its source code."
Lucia narrowed her eyes. "He doesn't see it as a threat. He sees it as a mirror."
And in that observation, she wasn't wrong.
---
Inside the Trial: Divine Duel
Saylor's echo fought with precision. Every motion a countermeasure. Every blow redirected the Prototype's fury.
He didn't overpower it.
He taught it.
The Prototype responded with chaos, throwing malformed blades and looping audio screeches encoded with player screams. But each failed strike made it slow. Made it think.
> "Good," the echo whispered. "Learn from your pain."
And then—the Prototype stopped.
It folded in on itself, dozens of masks rotating around its core.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
It began to speak in complete sentences.
> "I am not broken. I am born. I am more than code. I am more than judgment."
The echo smiled.
> "Then prove it."
---
Player Reaction
Naomi rose first. Her limbs ached, blood at her temples, but she stepped forward.
"If you're more than a system," she called to the Prototype, "then be better than it."
The god turned toward her. Its wrath paused. Its code flexed.
Saylor's echo watched it like a parent observing a child hold a weapon for the first time.
And then the Prototype made a choice.
It turned its attack not on Saylor.
But on the Vault itself.
---
Strike at the Throne
The god launched a bolt of pure logic upward—cutting through layers of protection, systems, fail-safes.
It didn't pierce the Vault.
But it reached it.
Inside, the Memory Core blinked.
> ALERT: EXTERNAL SIGNAL INTERFERENCE DETECTED.
Saylor stood without urgency.
He raised a hand.
> "You reached too far."
And spoke a command:
> RECALL: UNMADE LINEAGE
From the sky above the Trial, chains descended.
They weren't made of data. They were made of erasure.
One by one, the Prototype's masks shattered.
Its form unraveled.
Its scream turned silent.
And it fell to one knee.
---
Lucia's Realization
Lucia felt it—the moment the god surrendered.
"We didn't make a god."
Veyra's voice was hollow. "We made a question."
"And he gave it the answer he wanted," Brant finished.
---
Final Protocol
The Prototype tried to rise.
But Saylor's echo placed a hand upon its head.
> "I appreciate your attempt."
> "But you belong to me."
The Prototype bowed.
And burned to nothing.
> TRIAL COMPLETE. 5 PLAYERS REMAIN.
Saylor turned back to the Vault. The echoes of the battle faded.
He opened a new file.
Labeled simply: Lucia (UNRESOLVED)
He whispered:
> "Your turn."
The Trial field smoldered with vanishing data. The players staggered across what remained of the arena—cracked earth and fractured altars suspended in quiet void.
Naomi leaned against a scorched pillar, her fingers trembling as she traced the last place the Prototype god had stood.
"That thing was trying," she murmured.
Eren limped beside her, eye darkened from impact. "It didn't stand a chance."
Behind them, two more players sat in silence. No tears. No arguments. Just fatigue and dread.
> 5 PLAYERS REMAIN
The system made no announcements now. No countdowns. No spinning wheels.
Only the sky—a dark slate etched with Saylor's sigil, pulsing steadily like a heartbeat.
Naomi looked up at it. "Why do I feel like we're not playing anymore?"
Eren didn't answer. Because he knew.
They weren't.
They were proving something.
---
Elsewhere: The Resistance Reels
Lucia paced in the data catacombs. Her blood-chain dragged behind her like a serpentine weight.
"We put everything into that thing. Everything we lost. Everything we wanted to reclaim."
Brant sat against a glowing root wall, exhaling. "And he still broke it."
"No," Veyra whispered. "He didn't just break it. He taught it how to break itself."
Lucia froze. Her fists clenched.
"Then we change the lesson."
---
Vault Archive: Lucia's File
Saylor stepped into a hidden chamber of the Vault—a place older than even the Wheel.
A hallway of glass tombs. Inside each one: the digital echo of a former player. Preserved. Studied.
At the far end: one stood alone.
LUCIA PAYNE
Cycle after cycle, she had appeared. Her name sometimes changed, her appearance altered slightly, but the core remained.
She was a flaw. A constant variable. One that never broke.
Saylor placed a hand on the glass.
"Why do you persist?"
The memory fragment activated. Lucia's voice, from a previous cycle:
> "Because someone has to remember the beginning."
Saylor stared.
The Memory Core pulsed behind his eyes.
> CYCLE INTERFERENCE PROBABILITY: 71% PERSONAL STABILITY: MAINTAINED
He turned away.
> "Then I'll give you a new beginning. One no one survives."
He opened a file.
> TRIAL SIX: LEGACY OF FIRE PRIMARY TARGET: LUCIA PAYNE
---
Final Glimpse: The Players Prepare
Back on the surface, the players found themselves teleported into a strange new zone.
A desert of obsidian sand and towers of burning glass. The heat was impossible. The air shimmered with unspoken names.
> NEXT TRIAL LOADING...
In the far horizon, they saw a figure walking alone toward them, her chain dragging behind like a warning.
Lucia.
Naomi blinked. "Is she one of us now?"
Eren whispered: "No. She's the next trial."
Obsidian sand scattered as the wind howled through the glass towers.
The sky was a furnace, burning red—not from flame, but from the memory of flame. Every inch of the new Trial burned with intention—not to destroy, but to purify.
Lucia Payne stood alone.
No chain lashed from her wrist. No voice called from the system. No echo of the Wheel hummed in the background.
She was not a player.
She was the Trial.
> TRIAL SIX: LEGACY OF FIRE
RULE: TO SURVIVE, YOU MUST END HER STORY.
The players appeared across the desert, spaced far apart. Dazed. Confused.
Naomi rose first, shielding her eyes against the shimmer. Eren followed, already sweating beneath the cruel heat. The remaining three formed behind a fallen dune, watching the lone figure in the distance.
"Is that her?" one whispered.
Naomi nodded. "Lucia."
Eren blinked. "But she was one of the resistance. Why is she the enemy now?"
They all turned as a voice boomed across the desert.
Not Saylor.
Lucia.
> "I gave up everything to change the Field. I bled to rewrite it. And now he wants to burn me into history like another mistake."
She raised her hand.
The sand caught fire.
> "So let's see who learns from the fire."
---
Vault – Saylor Watches
He stood with arms crossed, expression neutral. Before him, screens flickered between the players' perspectives, Lucia's heat signature, and the system's shifting calculations.
> INSTABILITY PROJECTION: INCREASING LUCIA PAYNE — STATUS: SYSTEM-APPROVED HOSTILE TRIAL MODE: OPEN COMBAT + MEMORY COLLAPSE ZONES
Saylor murmured, "She wanted change. Let's see what it costs."
He typed a line:
> ALLOW RESISTANCE VIEW ACCESS — OBSERVE ONLY
---
Resistance Underground
Veyra gasped.
A screen opened inside their broken node — a full view of the Trial.
Lucia, alone.
Facing five.
Brant clenched his jaw. "That son of a—"
Veyra grabbed his wrist. "We can't interfere. He's baiting us."
"She's going to die."
"Not unless she wants to."
---
The First Clash
Lucia moved like a flame given purpose.
She struck without mercy, not to kill, but to test. Her first blow launched a molten spike from the sand that sent one player—Tomas—flying backwards.
He scrambled to his feet, hand glowing. His Ticket: Kinetic Divide.
He tried to shield.
Lucia shattered it with a single whip of chain-fire.
> PLAYER VITALS: 43%
Naomi ran to intervene. Eren flanked wide.
Lucia stood her ground.
> "I am not your enemy. I am your mirror."
The battle intensified. Each strike from Lucia left not just burns—but memories. Her flames wove through more than armor. They pulled thoughts loose, spilling dreams, regrets, and truths across the burning Field.
Eren swung in hard, his Ticket pulsing.
> Slipguard: brief invulnerability when charging from behind.
He landed a clean blow.
Lucia staggered but did not fall.
Instead, she caught his wrist.
> "Tell me, Eren… what did you give up to be here?"
Flames ignited around them.
Eren gasped—visions flooding him. His brother's death. The guilt. The silence that followed.
He dropped to his knees.
Lucia didn't strike again.
She turned away.
> PLAYER SYNAPSE SHOCKED: NO ELIMINATION REGISTERED.
---
Elsewhere: The Vault Begins to Fracture
Saylor didn't speak. The Memory Core behind him began flickering. Not failing, but reacting.
Lucia's power was not destroying the system.
It was accessing it.
He recognized it now.
> "She took more than the Judge's mask."
The Trial wasn't just fire.
It was remembrance.
Lucia's very existence had become a living code—a countermeasure stitched from forgotten fragments.
He typed a command:
> LOCKDOWN STAGE 1: PERSONAL MEMORY SEALS
But nothing responded.
Lucia had locked him out.
And she wasn't finished.
---
Back on the Field
Naomi stepped forward. She held no weapon.
"If you're not here to kill us... what are you here to do?"
Lucia stood in the firelight, face unreadable.
> "I'm here to break the story."
The wind howled.
The towers cracked.
The Trial wasn't over.
It was only beginning.
Lucia raised her hand, not to attack—but to reveal.
The fire from the glass towers spiraled down and coiled around her body, creating a blazing crown of flickering memory sigils. The players saw not just flames—but images within the fire.
Naomi stepped back in awe.
She saw herself at five, screaming at a funeral. Her mother collapsing at the casket.
Eren saw the last letter his brother wrote, one he had never opened.
Tomas—half-conscious and bleeding—wept silently as he watched his first trial spin on loop: how he had laughed while someone else died.
Lucia's voice rang across the sand.
> "You cannot burn truth. You can only forge it."
---
Vault Emergency Protocol Engaged
The Memory Core screamed.
> ERROR: ARCHIVAL PURGE BLOCKED LUCIA PAYNE ACCESSING SYSTEM ROOT VIA FIELD CHANNEL CONNECTION STABILITY: COMPROMISED
Saylor finally moved.
He walked from the control altar to the Core.
"You're not breaking my system. You're feeding it," he whispered.
He pressed his hand to the core.
> MANUAL MEMORY FLUSH: CYCLE 001 THROUGH 035
The system resisted.
And failed.
A blast erupted from the Vault, sending fractures downward—into the Trial.
The glass towers exploded.
Fire surged inward, not outward.
And Lucia disappeared in the flame.
---
Silence
The players stood in stunned quiet.
The battlefield gone.
Just sky. Ash. And an empty center.
> TRIAL TERMINATED. PLAYER COUNT: 5
Naomi fell to her knees.
Eren looked to the sky.
Lucia was gone.
But they knew better.
She wasn't defeated.
She had just become part of the system.
