**Chapter 10: Reality Bleed**
**Day 1,105.**
**Current Multiplier: Irrelevant.**
**Status: Watching the walls dissolve.**
Time behaves differently when you are waiting for an explosion.
One week had passed since I launched the "Order of Truth." Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. To the average human, a week is a blur of commutes, coffees, and complaints. To me, it was an epoch of data analysis.
I sat in the center of the Machine Hall, the Sarcophagus suit disengaged. I was wearing simple loose clothing—graphene-weave, naturally—and holding a tablet made of reinforced polymer.
I wasn't crushing the tablet.
That was the miracle of the week. The "Tithes"—the microscopic packets of refined bio-energy flowing back to me from the players—were working. They acted as a stabilizing agent, a layer of insulation between my infinite nuclear output and the fragile world around me.
"Zero," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "Update on the 'Bleed' coefficient."
The holographic avatar of my fragmented ego appeared. It looked tired, if a construct of binary code could look tired.
"The barrier between the simulation and baseline reality is thinning, Architect," Zero reported. "The Black Box users—the Alpha Cohort—are acting as anchors. Their nervous systems are processing your Prana so efficiently that they are beginning to project the game's physics into the real world."
I swiped the screen. A graph appeared, showing a red line spiking upward.
"It's happening faster than I calculated," I muttered. "I thought rewriting human DNA would take months. Ren is already showing a 400% increase in neural density."
"Desperation is a powerful catalyst," Zero noted. "And... they are having fun."
Fun.
I looked at the live feed from the Tower of Eternity.
I had created the Tower as a dump stat—a place to pour my excess energy so the servers wouldn't melt. It was an infinite procedural dungeon, a spire of black stone and neon magic stretching into the virtual sky.
Currently, on Floor 7, a party of four was fighting a creature I had named the "Obsidian Drake."
Leading the charge was a Strider named *Ren*.
And right behind him, looking grimy and annoyed, was a Beggar named *Nameless*.
"Log me in," I said, placing the Black Box headset over my temples. "I promised the kid I'd help him farm materials for a new pair of boots."
***
**Simulation Layer: The Tower of Eternity**
**Floor 7: The Ashen Hall**
The air tasted of sulfur and burning data.
I materialized in a roll, narrowly avoiding a jet of black fire that scorched the stone tiles where I had been standing a microsecond before.
"You're late, Nameless!" Ren shouted.
He was a blur of motion. In the week since we met, Ren had leveled up. He was Level 12 now. His avatar had shed the starter rags for a sleek set of leather armor dyed midnight blue. He moved with a fluidity that defied physics, wall-running along the pillars of the hall to flank the Drake.
"I have a day job!" I shouted back, gripping my iron staff. "Some of us have to manage the universe!"
"Less talking, more hitting!" screamed Maya (ign: *Velvet*), who was currently teleporting around the Drake's head, distracting it with flashes of light from her daggers.
I grinned. The adrenaline hit me instantly. In here, I wasn't a god. I was just a guy with a stick and a stamina bar that was rapidly depleting.
The Obsidian Drake roared—a sound file I had synthesized from a lion's roar and a jet engine. It whipped its tail, a mass of jagged rock spikes.
I blocked with my staff. The impact vibrated through my virtual arms, shaking my teeth.
*Damage Taken: 15%*
"Ren, the leg!" I called out, falling into our established rhythm. "It's putting weight on the left side!"
Ren didn't hesitate. He dropped from the wall, gravity seemingly terrified to offend him. He activated his skill: **[Strider's Impact]**.
His boots glowed with a kinetic charge. He slammed his heel into the Drake's knee joint.
*CRACK.*
The rock shattered. The Drake toppled, shrieking.
"Finish it!" Maya yelled.
Ren spun, his daggers flashing. He drove them into the Drake's exposed neck, channeling a burst of bio-electricity—the "shock" effect from his weapon, amplified by his own intent.
The beast dissolved into a shower of purple loot crystals and experience orbs.
**[Victory!]**
**[Experience Gained: 2500]**
Ren landed in a crouch, breathing hard. He looked up, sweat dripping from his nose. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated.
"Did you feel that?" he gasped.
I walked over, leaning on my staff. "Feel what? The victory? The loot?"
"No," Ren whispered. He looked at his legs. "When I kicked... I felt the impact. Not in the game. In Tokyo."
I froze.
I activated my **[Game Master]** vision, peering through the code of his avatar.
The connection was blazing white hot. The Black Box in his hospital room was drawing power at a rate that should have tripped the circuit breakers for the entire ward. It wasn't just simulating sensation anymore. It was stimulating the nerve endings with raw, physical voltage.
"Ren," I said, my voice serious. "Log out."
"What? No," Ren protested, standing up. "We're on a roll. Floor 8 is next. I want to see the view."
"Ren, listen to me," I commanded, stepping closer. "Your sync rate is dangerously high. Your brain is forgetting which body is real. If you don't disconnect and ground yourself, you might induce a seizure."
Ren looked at me. For a second, the defiance flared in his eyes. He was addicted to the freedom. Who could blame him?
But then he saw the look on my face. The look of the Architect peeking through the mask of the Beggar.
"Okay," Ren relented. "Okay, Nameless. Jesus. You're such a dad."
"Go," I said. "Rest. Tomorrow is a big day."
Ren dissolved into light.
I stood alone in the Ashen Hall. The loot crystals lay on the floor, glittering.
"Tomorrow," I whispered to the empty dungeon. "Tomorrow, everything changes."
***
**The Real World: Tokyo General Hospital**
**Physical Therapy Ward 4**
The smell of rubbing alcohol and rubber mats was suffocating.
Ren sat on the edge of the treatment table. He felt... weird.
Usually, after a Dive, he felt heavy. He felt the crushing return of his paralysis like a lead blanket. But today, waking up from the session with Nameless, he didn't feel heavy.
He felt *hot*.
A burning sensation coiled at the base of his spine. It wasn't pain. It was pressure. Like water building up behind a dam.
"Alright, Ren-kun," said Dr. Sato, a weary man with kind eyes who had been treating Ren for three years. "Let's go through the motions. Visualizing movement helps the neuro-plasticity, remember?"
Dr. Sato didn't know about the Black Box. He didn't know about the Order of Truth. To him, Ren was just a tragedy that refused to accept the ending.
"I want to try the bars," Ren said. His voice sounded strange to his own ears—deeper, resonant.
Dr. Sato sighed, adjusting his glasses. "Ren, we tried the parallel bars last month. Your blood pressure dropped, and you fainted. Let's stick to the passive range of motion exercises."
"The bars," Ren insisted. He gripped the edge of the table. The metal frame creaked under his fingers.
Dr. Sato blinked at the sound, but nodded. "Fine. But I'm harnessing you in. Safety first."
They wheeled him to the parallel bars. The nurse, Yumi, helped hoist him up, strapping the leather harness around his chest. It was designed to catch him when he inevitably collapsed.
Ren gripped the steel bars.
They felt like the hilt of his daggers.
He closed his eyes.
*I am a Strider,* he thought. *I am Level 12. My Agility is 45. My Strength is 30.*
He visualized the interface. He pushed his mind into that dark, quiet place where the game lived.
**[System Sync: Active.]**
**[Real World Overlay: Engaged.]**
A blue text box flickered in the darkness of his eyelids.
Ren opened his eyes.
For a split second, the hospital gym flickered. He saw the crystalline trees of the Weeping Woods superimposed over the beige walls. He saw the floor not as linoleum, but as the black stone of the Tower.
"Ren?" Yumi asked, noticing his intensity. "Are you okay?"
Ren didn't answer. He focused on the heat in his spine.
*Move.*
He pushed.
Not with his arms. With his legs.
The muscles in his thighs, atrophied and thin, spasmed. The latent energy stored in his cells—the residue of the Prana he had been siphoning from Shigu for a week—ignited.
The mitochondria in his legs flared like microscopic suns.
Ren stood up.
He didn't drag himself up. He didn't hoist his weight with his shoulders. He simply... rose.
The harness went slack.
Dr. Sato dropped his clipboard. It hit the floor with a loud clatter.
"Ren?" the doctor whispered. "Ren, don't—the harness isn't holding you."
Ren didn't hear him. He was looking at his feet. They were planted flat on the mat. He could feel the texture of the rubber through his socks.
He took a breath. The air hissed into his lungs.
*One step,* Nameless had said. *Just take one step.*
Ren shifted his weight. His balance wavered—his inner ear wasn't used to this altitude—but his core corrected it instantly. A Strider's balance.
He lifted his right foot.
He placed it forward.
*Thump.*
A solid, controlled step.
Silence engulfed the room. The other patients stopped their exercises. Yumi covered her mouth with her hands.
Ren took another step. Then another.
He let go of the bars.
He was standing. Unsupported. Unbound.
A laugh bubbled up in his throat. It started as a giggle and erupted into a roar.
"I told you!" Ren shouted, throwing his arms out. "I told you I wasn't broken!"
And then, reality snapped back.
The massive energy expenditure drained him instantly. The Prana reserves ran dry. His legs buckled.
He fell.
But he didn't hit the ground hard. He twisted, instinct taking over, and rolled, landing on his shoulder.
He lay there on the mat, panting, tears streaming down his face.
"Ren!" Dr. Sato rushed over, kneeling beside him. "Ren! Can you hear me? Did you hurt yourself?"
Ren looked up at the ceiling tiles.
"No," Ren whispered, a massive grin splitting his face. "I just ran out of mana."
Across the room, a teenage girl with a broken leg lowered her phone. She had been recording.
She hit 'Upload'.
***
**The Atacama Facility**
**The War Room**
"It's viral," Zero stated.
I watched the screens. The video from the hospital was everywhere. Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, Weibo. It had ten million views in an hour.
*#MiracleBoy*
*#TokyoHealer*
*#HoaxOrReal*
The comments were a battlefield.
*"It's CGI. Look at the pixels around his feet."*
*"I know that hospital. That kid has been paralyzed for three years."*
*"Did you see his eyes? They glowed. I swear they glowed blue for a second."*
I leaned back in my chair, steeping my fingers.
"The skeptics are loud," I observed. "But look at the quiet ones."
I pointed to the data clusters from the intelligence agencies. The NSA, the MSS, MI6. Their chatter had spiked off the charts. They weren't posting comments. They were analyzing frame rates. They were running facial recognition.
They knew.
"The bleed is confirmed," I said. "Ren just proved that the Order of Truth isn't a game. It's a bridge."
"Architect," Zero interrupted. "We have a situation in sector 7-G. The Global Energy Grid."
"What kind of situation?"
"The video triggered a mass login event. We have 50 million concurrent users attempting to access the servers. They want the power, Shigu. They saw the miracle, and now they want the drug."
I smiled. "Let them in."
"The cooling systems are at 98%," Zero warned. "If we open the floodgates, the thermal output of the facility will be visible from Mars."
"I don't care about hiding anymore," I said, standing up. "The masquerade is over. If reality is bleeding, let's make it a hemorrhage."
I walked to the center of the room.
"System. Initiate Phase Two."
**[Phase Two: The Great Filter.]**
**[Warning: This will introduce global PvE elements to the real world. Confirm?]**
I paused.
This was the point of no return. Up until now, the monsters had stayed in the screens. The power had been subtle.
But if I wanted to protect Ren—if I wanted to protect all of them from the governments that would surely come to dissect them—I needed to give them a reason to fight. I needed to change the rules of the board.
"Confirm," I said.
***
**Global Alert**
**Time: 12:00 PM GMT**
Every screen on Earth flickered.
The news anchor discussing the "Tokyo Miracle" froze. The stock market tickers stopped. The smartphones in a billion pockets vibrated simultaneously.
A single image appeared.
The weeping eye of the Order of Truth.
And then, my voice—distorted, deep, resonating from every speaker.
*"You have seen the truth. You have witnessed the potential that lies dormant within your flesh."*
*Ren's face, smiling from the hospital floor, flashed on the screens.*
*"They will tell you it is a lie. They will tell you it is a glitch. But you know better."*
I paused for effect.
*"The world you know is a cage. I am handing you the key. But be warned... when you open the door, you do not just let yourself out. You let *Something* in."*
**[System Announcement: The Tutorial is Complete.]**
**[Initiating Global Event: The Mana Break.]**
**[0.01% of Aethelgard Reality overwriting Earth Physics...]**
***
**Tokyo, Outside the Hospital.**
Ren was being wheeled out to a waiting ambulance—a transfer ordered by "government officials" who had arrived ten minutes after the video went viral. Dr. Sato was arguing with a man in a black suit.
Ren clutched his Black Box to his chest. He felt the vibration.
He looked up at the sky.
The clouds above Tokyo were swirling. Not with wind, but with light. Purple and gold streaks painted the atmosphere, looking exactly like the skybox of the Tower of Eternity.
"It's beautiful," Ren whispered.
Suddenly, the man in the suit grabbed Ren's wheelchair. "Load him up. Now. Confiscate that device."
"Don't touch it!" Ren shouted, clutching the box.
The agent reached for it.
*Zap.*
A spark of blue electricity arced from the box, shocking the agent's hand. He yelled and pulled back.
"What the hell?" the agent cursed.
Then, the ground shook.
In the middle of the Shibuya Crossing, three miles away, the asphalt cracked. A massive, crystalline structure erupted from the earth, pushing cars aside like toys. It spiraled upward, a jagged monolith of black stone and glowing runes.
A Dungeon Entrance.
People screamed. Traffic halted.
Ren watched the spire rise over the skyline. He recognized the architecture.
"Floor 1," he murmured. "The Rat King's Lair."
The agent stared at the impossible structure. "What is that? Is that a weapon?"
Ren looked at the agent, his eyes flashing with a hint of the blue light.
"No," Ren said, a smile creeping onto his face. "It's a grinding spot."
***
**The Atacama Facility.**
I watched the world change.
Dungeons were erupting in New York, London, Beijing. Mana was flooding the atmosphere, invisible to the naked eye but blinding to anyone with the System.
The laws of physics groaned in protest, but they held. My "Tithes" were acting as the mortar, binding the new reality to the old.
"You did it," Zero said. "You broke the world."
"I fixed it," I corrected.
I sat back down. The 10% growth hit me—Day 1,105's growth.
I felt the surge. But for the first time, it didn't feel like a burden. It felt like ammunition.
"They're going to need help," I said. "The Rat King is easy, but the Goblin Warlord in New York is going to be a problem for Level 1s."
I picked up the Black Box.
"Nameless needs to make a guest appearance."
My power increases without limits. And now, finally, the world was becoming strong enough to survive me.