Akhil stared at the screen, his heart still racing from the shock of seeing Rao Shin alive. The man's expression was grave, weighted with knowledge that seemed to age him beyond his years.
"I know you have questions," Rao began, his voice steady but tinged with exhaustion. "And I wish I had better answers to give you. But first, you need to understand what really happened when the game launched."
He paused, as if gathering his thoughts—or perhaps his courage.
"The error message you all received at the beginning... the one that made you think you'd been transformed into mutants, that you were trapped in mutated bodies in the real world—that wasn't what happened at all."
Akhil's breath caught in his throat.
"You were never turned into mutants," Rao continued, his words deliberate and careful. "You're still human. You're still yourselves. But you're not in the real world anymore, Nexus. You're inside the game."
