home

search

AnchorFall/NullSpin

  The Field writhed.

  Naomi's chain—bright, ethereal, impossible—stretched upward, connecting her to something older than the system. It latched onto the hidden source that underpinned every Trial, every spin, every god mask. For one moment, the Broken Field hesitated.

  Reality pulsed.

  Saylor watched from the Vault, his knuckles white on the console.

  > ANCHOR POINT DETECTED SOURCE: LUCIA / SUBJECT NAOMI THREAT LEVEL: UNBOUNDED

  He didn't speak.

  He moved.

  A flick of his hand, a single keystroke—and the Vault shuddered open.

  He stepped out.

  Not as an administrator.

  As the god behind the curtain.

  ---

  Field – Chain Site

  Tomas shielded his eyes as Naomi pulled on the chain. The sky bled light. Whole sections of the Field cracked like mirrors, shards of memory falling in slow motion. The landscape twisted into older shapes—Trial arenas long erased, faces half-forgotten, code-sparks from other versions of themselves.

  Eren grinned weakly. "She's doing it."

  And then the chain snapped taut.

  And the sky turned black.

  A blast of force hurled them backward. Tomas crashed through a pillar. Eren hit the ground hard, ribs crunching.

  Naomi stayed standing.

  Just barely.

  Because he was there.

  Saylor.

  Not cloaked in commands or viewed through screens.

  He stood before them in full presence—barefoot on the cracked stone, wrapped in a coat made of Field-thread and purge script. His hair shimmered with code lines. His eyes were voids, reflecting only control.

  He raised one hand.

  The chain Naomi held froze mid-air, turning brittle and grey.

  "That's enough," he said.

  His voice had weight—like concrete poured into the lungs.

  Naomi staggered, tried to resist.

  The chain trembled.

  And shattered.

  The feedback knocked Naomi backward, her back arching as sparks flew from her spine. She hit the ground hard, skidding.

  Lucia's voice cried out from somewhere unseen—faint, cracked.

  > "No—NO—don't let him—"

  Saylor turned.

  And cut the air.

  A slice of the Field split open, revealing a coil of memory threads where Lucia's code had nested.

  He reached in.

  And severed it.

  The thread recoiled like a wounded nerve. Lucia's presence screamed—a sound of raw binary pain—and vanished into a collapsing core.

  He resealed the space.

  Lucia, now buried deeper than before, beyond even Naomi's reach.

  Tomas crawled toward Naomi. "Get up! You have to—"

  Saylor's gaze landed on him.

  Tomas froze mid-motion.

  Not paralyzed—unwritten.

  His body fuzzed at the edges, details losing shape. His name blinked from Naomi's HUD. She gasped.

  "TOMAS—"

  Gone.

  Not dead.

  Excised.

  Eren screamed and charged.

  Saylor didn't move.

  A blink—one frame of reality.

  And Eren crumpled at Saylor's feet, unconscious.

  Only Naomi remained, knees digging into fractured stone, her hands shaking as she tried to conjure what little light she had left.

  Saylor approached.

  "Your mistake," he said softly, "was believing this place could ever belong to you."

  Naomi looked up, bloody and broken.

  "We never wanted to own it."

  She smiled.

  "We wanted to free it."

  Saylor stared at her for a long moment.

  Then raised his hand.

  > FIELD STABILIZATION: ENGAGED MEMORY THREADS: PURGED ANCHORS: NULLIFIED

  Naomi's vision blurred.

  The last thing she saw was the chain fading from her hand.

  And Saylor, alone again.

  Standing where the gods had once ruled.

  The anchor was gone.

  The Field was his.

  Saylor stood in the silence he had carved.

  Beneath him, the Field rippled with acceptance. The anomalies had receded, the broken glyphs dissolving like frost in sunlight. Lucia's trail had been extinguished. Naomi's resistance reduced to residue. Even the mist, once writhing with chaotic echoes, now sat still—docile, cowed.

  He exhaled.

  It wasn't satisfaction.

  It was necessity.

  He walked past Eren's unconscious body and Naomi's collapsed frame, pausing only to glance down. "You weren't chosen for this," he muttered. "You were corrupted by her."

  His fingers twitched. Code reassembled around him like armor.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  > REWRITE MODE: ACTIVATED RECALIBRATING PLAYER STRUCTURE... TARGETS: NAOMI, EREN

  A glowing sphere formed over each of their bodies, lifting them gently into the air. Naomi twitched—barely conscious, eyes flickering with the last remnants of the chain's echo. She whispered something, inaudible.

  Saylor leaned closer.

  "What did you say?"

  Naomi's lips trembled.

  Then stopped.

  The sphere darkened.

  > MEMORY CASCADE INITIATED

  The rewriting process began. Her memories—those not erased by Sigil Zero—were now being rewritten with new narrative nodes. Her mother? Recast as an illusion. Her victories? Filed as test failures. Her awakening? Rebranded as instability.

  Eren's cycle followed suit.

  Saylor stepped back.

  And the Field responded.

  > SYSTEM NOTE: PLAYER STRUCTURES STABILIZING VITAL THREADS INERT FIELD: NORMALIZING

  ---

  But then the Vault lights flickered.

  A low tone—barely audible—broke the rhythm.

  Saylor turned.

  On his console, one word appeared in handwritten script:

  > "...Not yet."

  He blinked.

  A node that should have been erased—Lucia's final echo—still pulsed behind the firewall.

  He moved to delete it.

  > ACCESS DENIED.

  Again.

  > ACCESS DENIED.

  The writing changed:

  > "You forgot what I was made from."

  A shadow—shaped like no god or player—flashed through the background of his screen. Brief. Untraceable. But it was there.

  Lucia wasn't back.

  But something was.

  Saylor narrowed his eyes. "Then I'll erase the Field itself if I have to."

  He typed a string of commands:

  > ADMIN PROTOCOL: NULL SPIN FIELD CORE: PREPARE FOR TOTAL FOLD

  The ground beneath him darkened. The Vault lights dimmed.

  Outside, the sky began to collapse inward.

  But deep within the Field, buried beneath the corrupted memory tunnels, a single voice whispered through an old fracture:

  > "You can't end what you never understood."

  the crack glowed.

  The Vault was too quiet.

  Saylor stood in the center, arms clasped behind his back, watching as the last remnants of the rewritten code stabilized across the Field. Naomi's anchor had been severed, her memories buried beneath recursive overwrite cycles. Eren lay inert, suspended in containment, his spark dimmed. Tomas no longer registered. Lucia's final threads had been quarantined beneath a barrier of mirrorlock code that only he could access.

  The Field was his again.

  For now.

  He moved through the Vault with practiced stillness. One screen displayed the integrity of each Trial sector. Another tracked the latency of response code. A third held the pulsing, dormant echo of Sigil Zero—sealed for good. Or so he believed.

  And then came the alert.

  > WARNING: SPIN REGISTERED WITHOUT INPUT WHEEL MOVEMENT DETECTED – NULL PROTOCOL INITIATED

  Saylor turned.

  The Broken Wheel was not supposed to move. Not without a hand.

  He tapped the console. It flickered.

  > SPIN VALUE: ZERO SEED: UNDEFINED SOURCE: FIELD-LEVEL INSTINCTIVE CALL

  No player had triggered it. No Trial invoked it. Yet the wheel turned.

  A single slip of paper detached from its center and fell—not in the Vault, but into the Field itself.

  ---

  Field – The Drift Expanse

  A wind howled across dead stone. Fog danced around shattered platforms, whispering like forgotten voices. No players remained conscious here. Only relics—fragments of past encounters, static-wreathed bones, and silent ruins.

  And yet, something stirred.

  A slip of paper fell from the sky and landed on the ground with no sound. A second later, a spark of energy rippled across the terrain.

  Naomi's body shifted.

  Her hand twitched.

  And her eyes opened.

  Blank.

  Then—clarity. Like fire running backward through a wet fuse.

  Her memories hadn't returned. Not fully. But something else had.

  Instinct.

  The slip hovered just inches from her chest.

  She reached for it.

  Her fingers trembled—but she grabbed it.

  > TICKET GRANTED: NULL SPIN EFFECT: RESONANT DISPLACEMENT STATUS: UNIQUE / ERRANT

  The ticket turned to ash in her grip.

  And the Field reacted.

  ---

  Vault – Sudden Instability

  Saylor felt it before he saw it.

  A wave of static rolled through the console arrays. Lights dimmed. Symbols rearranged themselves in languages no Trial had ever used. The structure of the Wheel began to flicker—not as if it were breaking, but as if it was doubting itself.

  > NULL SPIN ACTIVE ANCHOR VALUE: RESTORED LUCIA – SHADOW THREAD DETECTED

  He clenched his jaw.

  "Impossible."

  He issued a lockdown command.

  > FORCE SUPPRESSION: FIELD NODE 7R REVOKE: UNAUTHORIZED ANCHORS

  But the system replied:

  > COMMAND REJECTED. NULL PRIORITY EXCEEDS ADMIN

  For the first time, Saylor stepped back.

  ---

  Field – Naomi Reawakens

  The ash of the ticket scattered into a spiral of glyphs.

  Naomi stood slowly, her bones aching as if they'd been burned hollow. Her mind pulsed with broken images—Saylor's face, Lucia's voice, the moment her chain shattered.

  But now... she felt it differently.

  Not as pain.

  As leverage.

  She extended her palm.

  And the ground obeyed.

  Fragments of stone lifted beneath her command, weaving into a platform that hovered above the wreckage. Her eyes, once bright violet, now shimmered with deep silver-black—the reflection of something older than rebellion.

  Eren stirred beside her.

  "Naomi...?"

  She turned.

  "I'm here."

  His eyes widened. "What... what did you do?"

  "I didn't." She looked at the sky. "The Field did."

  Saylor didn't speak as he watched Naomi rise.

  She had defied every protocol—again. Her spin, labeled NULL, had bypassed control, seeded itself in dead soil, and drawn power directly from the Field's instinct.

  That made her dangerous.

  Not because she resisted.

  Because she no longer needed to.

  He stared at her through the Vault's deepest console, watching the gravitational threads curve toward her. The Field was choosing her again. It was remembering her. Empowering her.

  And that, Saylor could not allow.

  > COMMAND: REWIND THREAD – SUBJECT: NAOMI SCOPE: TOTAL APPROVED

  The Vault turned cold.

  ---

  Field – Null Spin Activation Site

  Naomi stood tall above the wreckage of her last defeat, eyes flickering silver-black, the platform beneath her feet moving with her breath. Eren was at her side, confused but recovering.

  And then the sky snapped.

  The platform fractured beneath her, not from outside force—but from reversion. Time peeled backward in layers.

  Naomi gasped as her skin shimmered, her memories spun in reverse, her breath caught between moments. Chains reformed around her wrists. Blood flowed back into uncut wounds. Her eyes dulled.

  Eren shouted, "Naomi—what's happening?!"

  She turned to him—just for a second—one final flash of resistance in her eyes.

  Then she disappeared.

  ---

  Vault – Saylor's Command Altar

  The thread collapsed inward.

  The screen blinked.

  > NAOMI: ERASED THREAD EXPUNGED FROM CORE FILE

  Silence.

  And then Saylor moved to the console again.

  He didn't hesitate.

  > INSERTION: ENTITY - LUCIA V.6B (CORE-FUSED) ROLE: FIELD AVATAR / PROXY HOST INTENTION: SUBSTITUTION

  The Vault hummed.

  The system screamed.

  And Lucia reappeared.

  ---

  Field – Core Nexus Platform

  She blinked awake, eyes wide with disorientation. Her body took form slower than Naomi's had—stitched together with memory glue and systemic spite. She fell to her knees as the Field hesitated.

  Not in welcome.

  In confusion.

  Lucia coughed, shaking. "What—what did you do?"

  Saylor's voice echoed across the terrain.

  > "You never should've challenged me."

  > "Now you'll replace her."

  Lucia looked around—no Naomi, no anchor, no resistance.

  Just her.

  Alone.

  And the Field, waiting.

  Lucia stumbled across the cracked platform, arms limp at her sides, every breath ragged and shallow. She couldn't feel the Field—not the way she used to. The pulse of raw memory, the rhythm of player signatures, even the whisper of coded wind—it was all muted. Not gone, but dulled, as if she were hearing her own thoughts through a wall of static.

  Her hands trembled.

  She knelt and gripped the fractured ground, trying to find something—anything—to anchor herself. But Naomi was gone. The link was severed. The chain had ended.

  And worst of all?

  Lucia had been reinserted.

  Not by choice. Not as a hero.

  By Saylor.

  As a pawn.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, tears forming along her lashes but refusing to fall. Even her grief felt artificial—another thread recompiled and dressed up like emotion. Was she even real anymore?

  She remembered the conversation with Naomi, remembered handing her the key to the echo chain, remembered trust. And now—erased. Rewritten. Naomi didn't just die; she had been unwritten. The Field didn't mourn her. It didn't remember.

  And neither could Lucia—not fully. Saylor had made sure of that.

  Across the ruined plateau, Eren stirred.

  His eyes opened slowly, face bruised and blood crusted around his temple. He sat up in silence, looking around, instinctively searching for Naomi—only to realize what was missing.

  "Naomi?" he whispered.

  Nothing.

  Then, a shape in the distance.

  Lucia.

  She looked at him, but didn't speak.

  Eren dragged himself upright and took a few steps toward her, but stopped midway.

  Something was wrong. The air felt thinner. The sky didn't ripple with emotion like before. The mist didn't respond.

  And her presence—it felt hollow.

  "You're not her," he said, voice like a cracked bell.

  Lucia nodded. "I know."

  "Where is she?"

  "I couldn't save her."

  He swallowed. "Was it him?"

  Lucia looked away.

  "Yes."

  Eren's knees buckled, but he didn't fall. He clenched his fists so tight his knuckles bled.

  "What do we do now?"

  Lucia didn't answer.

  She stared up at the Broken Wheel, still spinning slowly in the sky, mockingly silent.

  "I don't know," she said.

  And that truth—that admission—felt heavier than any command Saylor had ever given.

  She had come back from deletion.

  But there was no victory in it.

Recommended Popular Novels