"Power without guidance becomes its own cage."
The days after Skyfall's collapse blurred together.
Jiwoon found no joy in victory. He had rewritten a divine law… and the system said nothing. No punishment. No praise. Just quiet.
Too quiet.
System Status: Unstable
[Network Response: Delayed]
[Log Synchronization: Failed]
[Monitoring Unit: Unknown entity detected inside system core.]
Even his own skill tree had stopped updating. No new quests. No sin tallies.
The Sin System was… paused?
Or… hiding?
Eri's Warning
"You broke something, Jiwoon," Eri said, arms crossed as she stood by a burned-out archive. "Whatever the system was guarding—it wasn't just laws."
Jiwoon looked away. "I know."
She hesitated. "We've received signals… new ones. Not from the Tribunal. From a depth level we never accessed before."
[Encrypted Pulse: Origin Layer Echo Detected]
[Warning: Code Anomaly Approaching – Entity classified as 'Nullborne']
Jiwoon's jaw clenched.
"Is it coming for me?"
Eri didn't answer. But in her eyes was the truth.
Memory Rift
That night, Jiwoon dreamed.
Not of battle. Not of sins.
Of a door. Ancient. Covered in chains forged from divine tongues.
And behind it: a heartbeat.
Louder. Heavier.
Matching his own.
[System Notice: Fragmented Memory Accessed – Forbidden Archive Entry]
[Keyword Match: "The First Sin… wasn't committed. It was coded."]
Waking
He jolted awake, breathing hard. His hand—burned with shifting glyphs.
They weren't his skills.
Not yet.
But they were… waiting.
End Scene
Somewhere in a forgotten layer of the system, something stirred.
It didn't serve the Tribunal.
It didn't fear Codebreakers.
It remembered the time before all judgment.
And it had just noticed Jiwoon.