The gate shimmered like mist caught in code — a soft oval of static planted near the trees, just east of the city's edge.
Kael arrived early.
He always did now.
The others weren't familiar faces — mid-to-low tier freelancers, hired quick to cover a last-minute Guild delay. No sigils on their coats. Just scattered gear, clipped temp licenses, and the usual distrust in their eyes when they saw him walking in alone.
The tank — tall, impatient, axe already strapped — eyed him first.
"You the backup?"
Kael nodded once. "Names Kael. I'll stay on flank watch."
"Mid-tier?" the tank asked, like he was confirming a bad guess.
"Mid," Kael replied. "But functional."
The healer gave a tight smile. The DPS pair said nothing.
The Gate pulsed behind them — soft blue, flickering too often.
Verdant Flats. Rank B. Biotic forest. Low threat, known pathing.
This shouldn't be unstable.
Unless something's shifted.
Kael's HUD scanned the barrier line.
[GATE ID: 0024-VERDANT.FLATS]
[STABILITY: 87.6%]
[EXPECTED VARIANCE: LOW]
[PASS-THROUGH CODE: VERIFIED]
But it felt… off.
Too warm.
Too quiet.
The kind of quiet he used to hear before rollback points.
The tank cracked his neck and walked through.
The others followed, one by one.
Kael waited until last, touching the edge of the shimmer.
For just a second, the system pulsed.
[USER VERIFIED — PATCH ID: STRYX-K.01]
[LIMITER HOLD: PENDING FIELD TRIGGER]
Kael froze.
Pending?
He stepped through.
The world beyond the Gate was lush. Verdant, just like the name. Light filtered through twisting vines. Air warm and sticky. Birds chirped in a loop that didn't quite sync right.
Kael blinked and watched a hummingbird freeze mid-flap.
It jittered — then resumed.
The others didn't notice.
But Kael's limiter pinged once in his bones.
He rolled his shoulders. Checked his gear. Watched the group form a standard wedge.
The raid hadn't started yet.
But something already had.
The first enemy came quietly — a forest crawler, low-tier, spindly legs chittering over moss.
Easy aggro.
Supposedly.
The tank moved first, issuing a basic taunt glyph with a glowing left-hand sweep.
The crawler paused.
Then didn't react.
Instead, it turned its head toward the healer — locked eyes — and blurred forward.
Through the tank.
"What the hell?" the tank barked, swinging wide. His blade passed air.
The creature should've been stunned. Instead, it twitched — frame skipping left, right, then straight through a tree trunk like it wasn't there.
Kael's eyes locked in.
Frame drift. AI desync. Aggro logic ignored.
The healer screamed as the crawler's claw ripped across her side, sparks bursting from her glyph shield.
"It phased through me! It went through—!"
"Pull it!" the DPS shouted.
The second DPS loosed an arrow — it bounced.
Not missed.
Refused.
Kael moved fast — right arm already raised.
He didn't think.
He patched.
Fingers danced mid-air, tracing a fast aggro-weight override. A ripple of gold shimmered along his HUD.
[LIVE PATCH REQUEST: AI_PRIORITY.RESET=TRUE]
[TARGET ID: MOB-2413-A]
[SCOPE: LOCAL INSTANCE ONLY]
[APPROVE? Y/N]
[--Y--]
A crackle of heat ran up Kael's arm.
Not a burn.
A warning.
The mob jerked mid-motion, then slammed to the ground like gravity reasserted itself. The AI rebooted in real time — blinked, stuttered, and turned back toward the tank.
Now it followed the aggro glyph.
Now it obeyed.
The tank staggered but caught it with a wide cleave.
The mob disintegrated in a soft shimmer.
"That—" the healer gasped, clutching her arm. "That wasn't normal. That thing—"
"Instance error," Kael said calmly.
"What kind of error phases a mob through trees?" one DPS muttered.
Kael didn't answer.
Because he already knew the truth:
This Gate wasn't glitched.
It was watching.
And when he patched it… it obeyed.
But what chilled him more:
His arm didn't crack.
It glowed.
The second mob didn't even wait.
It came leaping from the underbrush, jaws open too wide, teeth jittering between frames like a corrupted model stuck mid-load.
The tank turned to meet it.
Kael didn't let him.
He moved first — one step, two — right into the mob's predicted path. Fingers moved faster than the HUD could catch.
[INITIATE FIELD PATCH: AREA-STABILITY]
[SET FLAG: MOB.PATHLOGIC >> HARD RESET]
[SCOPE: 20M]
[ZONE PERMISSION: UNVERIFIED]
[PROCEED ANYWAY?]
[--Y--]
The air snapped.
Like static caught in a vacuum.
The crawler froze mid-air, suspended for less than a heartbeat.
Then gravity yanked it straight down — slamming it into the dirt so hard its geometry flickered red, then disassembled in a burst of code fragments.
The forest went still.
Even the looped bird sound stopped.
Kael exhaled.
Then pain lanced through his arm.
He looked down—
And saw the scar.
Not a crack.
Not a bleed.
A line of gold, no wider than a fingernail, seared clean across the outer ridge of his right forearm.
Still glowing.
No HUD alert.
No warning tone.
No Debt pulse.
Just… the line.
Permanent?
Or just burned in until reboot?
He touched it.
It was warm.
No pain. Just the feeling of something that shouldn't be there… deciding to stay.
The rest of the party slowly gathered — wide-eyed, confused.
The tank sheathed his axe. "What the hell was that?"
"Instance lag," Kael said without looking.
"Bullshit. That thing slammed like it hit a wall made of admin override."
Kael shrugged. "Guess we got lucky."
But inside, his thoughts raced:
That wasn't luck.
That wasn't admin access.
That was mine.
The patch had worked.
The gate obeyed.
And something inside the system had written it into him.
The rest of the run passed without incident.
The mobs stayed on track. The terrain behaved. Even the healing glyphs synced properly again — latency back under threshold.
But it all felt fake now.
Like the system had gone quiet… because it was listening.
"Well," the tank said, wiping his brow as they emerged into daylight again, "that was less hell than I expected."
"You all fought well," said the healer, still rubbing her side where the first claw had passed through. "I mean… we got glitched, but it held."
One DPS nodded toward Kael.
"That mid-patch move you made — smooth as hell. Didn't even know someone like you could track aggro that fast."
Kael didn't answer.
"Hey," the other added, smirking. "What do they call that? Cheat-tier instincts?"
Laughter. Light, nervous.
Kael forced a nod. "Right place, right moment."
"More like right guy, wrong Guild," the tank muttered. "You ever think about switching sides?"
Kael's smile didn't reach his eyes.
"I'm exactly where I need to be."
Ten minutes later, he stood alone outside the gate perimeter.
Gear cooling. Skin still humming faintly where the scar hadn't faded.
He checked his arm again.
Still gold.
Still perfect.
No crack.
No burn.
No glitch trail.
Just a mark.
One the system hadn't tried to hide.
Then the ping came:
[MESSAGE – ARIA]
SUBJECT: VERDANT
"I saw the post-raid metrics."
"You didn't fracture. You should've."
"That wasn't just luck, was it?"
Kael stared at the message.
No answer came to him.
He closed the tab.
Because even if he wanted to tell her the truth…
He wasn't sure he understood it yet.
And worse — he didn't know if he'd earned it.
The house was quiet.
Night had already settled by the time Kael stepped through the front door, boots soft on the wood.
Liora and Senna were asleep — he could feel it before he saw the soft light from their room, warm like it always was.
But tonight, Kael didn't go in.
Not yet.
He sat on the edge of the living room couch, arm braced across his thigh, and tapped his HUD into manual trace mode.
The glyph on his arm had dimmed slightly.
Not faded.
Just settled.
But he had to know.
[RUN DEBT ANALYSIS: FIELD INSTANCE — VERDANT.FLATS.0024]
[ACTION WINDOW: LAST 2 HOURS]
[GLYPH SURGE DETECTED: 1x]
[LIVE PATCH INITIATED: YES]
[DEBT COST: CALCULATING...]
...
...
[DEBT BURNED: 0.00%]
Kael leaned forward.
Eyes narrowing.
The next line loaded slower.
Almost reluctant.
[OFFSET DETECTED]
[SOURCE: SYSTEM INTERNAL]
[MARK: PERSISTENT]
[COST TRANSFERRED — DESTINATION UNKNOWN]
He froze.
Transferred?
The Debt cost didn't vanish. It was… paid. By something else.
Kael stared at his arm.
The golden scar glimmered faintly, like the line of a sunrise beneath his skin.
He reached out — fingertips brushing the edge.
It pulsed once, in response.
Not hostile.
Not random.
Just… awake.
For the first time since the rollback, Kael felt something he hadn't dared name.
Not power.
Not fear.
Not purpose.
Recognition.
Like the system — or whatever sat behind it — had finally looked back.
Kael stood up from the couch slowly, arm still tingling.
He didn't close the HUD.
Didn't deactivate the scan panel.
Let it hover, transparent in the corner of his vision, like a ghost that wouldn't let go.
[COST TRANSFERRED — DESTINATION UNKNOWN]
[MARK: PERSISTENT]
It didn't even flash red.
Just floated.
Accepting.
Like the system had decided this was… normal now.
He walked down the hall quietly, bare feet on old wood.
The glow from Liora's bedroom door spilled out gently.
Senna had doodled something on it again — crayon glyphs in soft chalk blue and pink, curling like fake runes around the frame.
Kael paused, hand hovering over the doorknob.
Then, without thinking, he glanced to the right.
At the mirror.
It was an old wall-length piece — silver-framed, slightly fogged from years of polish.
And at first, it looked as it always did.
Kael. Mid-30s. Tired eyes. Sleeves half-pulled up.
But then—
The reflection blinked.
Just slightly too soon.
A heartbeat ahead of him.
Kael didn't move.
The reflection did.
And worse—
The scar wasn't on his right arm.
It was glowing on the left.
He stepped back.
The reflection followed.
But the scar didn't correct.
Still on the wrong side.
Still lit.
Still watching.
Kael stared at himself for a long moment.
Then reached out — not to the mirror.
To the door.
He opened it.
Liora stirred slightly in her sleep.
Senna was curled into a tight ball, clutching a crayon notebook like a shield.
Kael walked inside without a word.
Sat down at the edge of the bed.
And for just a second, in the faint gleam of hallway light—
The scar on his real arm pulsed in sync with the one in the glass behind him.