The jungle whispered as they walked — not in words, but in warnings. Leaves rustled with unseen movement, and the air carried that heavy, waiting silence that comes before something changes.
Lin led the way through the mist, his blade slung casually over one shoulder, though his senses stayed razor-sharp. The map marker flickered in his HUD, dancing between coordinates like it couldn't decide if the place it pointed to existed.
Behind him, the trio followed in quiet rhythm. Aria's steps barely disturbed the leaves. Sera hummed under her breath, low and restless, firelight licking around her fingers. Lina's spear tapped her shoulder in a steady beat — calm, but coiled for trouble.
"So," Sera said finally, voice cutting through the thick air. "What are the odds this 'ruin' is just another boss arena?"
"Eighty percent," Lin said without turning. "Ninety, if the music suddenly gets dramatic."
"Good," she said dryly. "Wouldn't want to get bored."
Lina snorted. "Remind me why we let you near explosives again?"
"Because," Sera said with a wink, "I make things memorable."
Aria's smile was faint, but there. "And combustible."
---
By midday, the trees thinned, revealing a cliff edge draped in vines. Below it stretched a hollow basin, a sunken city half-swallowed by the jungle. Shattered stone towers rose like broken teeth, and waterfalls poured from the cliffsides, feeding a lake glowing faintly turquoise.
Lin stopped at the edge, taking it in. "Looks like someone rage-quit a civilization."
Aria stepped beside him, wind stirring her hair. "Beautiful, in a tragic way."
"Same thing, most of the time," he said.
The system pinged.
[Location Discovered: Elarion Ruins – Tier III Zone]
[Warning: Residual System Code Detected. Anomaly Probability – 76%.]
Lina frowned. "Residual code? You mean… glitches?"
"Could be." Lin's eyes narrowed as the map fuzzed again. "Or a leftover from before this world synced with the main system."
Sera tilted her head. "Meaning?"
"Meaning we might be walking into something that doesn't obey the rules."
Her grin widened. "Finally."
---
They descended the cliff, ropes biting into palms, mist curling around their faces. The air down here was cooler, almost electric. Every step echoed, like the ground remembered being solid once.
The city's main plaza opened before them, littered with moss-covered statues of panthers, serpents, and faceless beings holding orbs. The central monument — a cracked obelisk — pulsed faintly with light, the same turquoise as the lake.
Aria ran her hand along the stone. "These carvings… they're not just art. They're code patterns."
Lin squinted. "Like runes?"
"Closer to programming script. But older — pre-System architecture. Whoever built this wasn't bound by the same laws we are."
Sera circled the obelisk, fire trailing from her fingertips. "So what, we're in someone's debug room?"
"Maybe." Lin crouched, tracing the glowing lines. "But look at this — they're forming coordinates. To something beneath us."
[Hidden Entry Detected – Subsurface Structure "Root Vault."]
[Access Condition: 4 Life Codes required.]
Lina groaned. "Here we go again."
"Life Codes," Aria murmured. "Like the bonds the system tracks?"
Lin nodded slowly. "Which means… us."
The moment he said it, the obelisk flared. Four beams of light shot upward, each color matching one of them — green, blue, red, silver. The ground shuddered. The lake split down the middle, draining in a whirlpool that revealed a spiral staircase descending into darkness.
Sera blinked. "Okay, that's not ominous at all."
"Everyone ready?" Lin asked.
"Define 'ready,'" Lina said.
He grinned. "Alive and still complaining."
They started down.
---
The stairs wound deep under the ruins. Bioluminescent vines lit the way, casting ghostly shadows. The air grew warmer, thicker, pulsing faintly in time with their heartbeats — a strange echo of the Heartbeat Link they'd unlocked before.
Halfway down, Lin's system flickered.
[Warning: Synchronization Interference Detected.]
[Unknown Entity Accessing Party Link.]
He froze. "Hold up."
"What is it?" Aria asked quietly.
"Something's… piggybacking on our bond."
Sera summoned a flame. "Meaning?"
"Meaning something just joined the call."
The vines dimmed. A whisper crawled through the air — a voice neither male nor female, old as static.
"You open doors too easily, little fragments."
The walls rippled. For a heartbeat, Lin saw a figure standing among them — tall, draped in fractal light, its face shifting between code and flesh.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
The figure tilted its head. "I am what remains when a world forgets its maker."
Then it vanished.
[Anomaly Recognized: "Root Ghost."]
[System Directive: Neutralize or Assimilate.]
Lina raised her spear. "Neutralize sounds fine."
"Yeah, except it's inside the network we're part of," Lin muttered.
Aria's eyes glowed faintly. "Then we fight it like code — sync together."
The stairs ended in a vast chamber of roots and crystal. In the center hung a sphere of shifting symbols, glitching between solid and spectral. The Root Ghost pulsed within it.
[Boss Battle Initiated – Root Ghost (Unknown Class)]
[Warning: Conventional attacks ineffective.]
"Of course," Sera said, summoning her fire. "Time to improvise."
---
The fight was chaos and logic intertwined.
Every time Lin swung his blade, it passed through the Ghost — but when he thought of cutting, the code shimmered and fractured. The system was reading intent, not motion.
"Think, don't strike!" he shouted. "Visualize breaking it apart!"
Aria closed her eyes, wind folding around her like circuitry. "Like rewriting the air."
Sera hurled fire that moved like thought, burning in geometric patterns. Lina's spear became a streak of light, piercing the Ghost's data shell.
[System Feedback Detected – Reality Overlap 30%.]
The chamber trembled. The Ghost screamed, its form unraveling into data streams that twisted around Lin. For a moment, he saw flashes — cities made of glass, gods made of circuits, the birth of the first portal.
Then silence.
[Anomaly Neutralized.]
[Reward: Fragment of the First Code.]
[Warning: Fragment is alive.]
The light coalesced in Lin's palm — a shard of pure data, humming softly, whispering in the same voice:
"Find the Source…"
Aria touched his shoulder. "What did it say?"
He looked at the shard, expression unreadable. "A reminder."
Sera arched a brow. "Of what?"
"That we're not the first ones to play this game."
---
They emerged from the vault hours later, the ruins quiet once more. The lake had refilled, calm as glass. Above them, the jungle glowed faintly with the same turquoise hue, alive but watching.
Lina stretched, exhaling. "Next time, we just fight normal monsters, yeah?"
Sera smirked. "Normal's overrated."
Aria met Lin's gaze. "What now?"
He turned the glowing shard in his hand, light reflecting in his eyes. "Now? We find where this came from."
Behind them, unseen, the obelisk's carvings shifted again — new coordinates forming, pointing not east, but up.
Toward the sky.
[End of Chapter 44