Ren didn’t stop running until his lungs felt like collapsing stars.

  He ducked into the lowest sector of the residential ruins—an area where gravity behaved almost normally. Almost.

  The air still felt wrong. Too heavy. Like the sky was thinking about falling.

  He leaned against a rusted container and pulled it out.

  The black fragment.

  It wasn’t metal.

  It wasn’t stone.

  It looked like a tear in space.

  Rain angled downward in a different direction here. Loose debris drifted slowly upward in the next alley.

  But the fragment didn’t react to anything.

  No pull.

  No shift.

  No weight.

  “I shouldn’t have touched you,” he muttered.

  The fragment pulsed.

  Then—

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  《Connection established. Vital signs within acceptable deviation.》

  Ren froze.

  That voice.

  Not through the air.

  Inside him.

  “What did you just do?”

  His vision flickered.

  Geometric patterns bloomed across his sight like fractures in glass.

  Heart rate.

  Local gravity variance.

  Atmospheric density.

  And at the center:

  【Subject: Ren】

  【Status: Severe Observation Error】

  “…Mira.”

  Static condensed in front of him.

  Her form assembled from noise.

  Silver hair. Expressionless eyes.

  But sharper now. Closer.

  “You are no longer external to the system,” she said calmly.

  “Our observation streams are synchronized.”

  “You’re inside my head.”

  “Yes.”

  No hesitation.

  No apology.

  “I will see what you see. I will record what you feel.”

  Her gaze shifted toward his hand.

  The fragment glowed faintly.

  “You shouldn’t have picked it up.”

  “You said that already.”

  A faint tremor passed through her projection.

  Something like interference.

  Before Ren could press further—

  The sky shifted.

  A circular glow descended beyond the rooftops.

  Scanning light.

  Ren swore.

  “If it finds me—”

  “This sector will be redefined,” Mira replied.

  Red lines overlaid his vision, highlighting escape routes.

  “Run.”

  “Aren’t you here to monitor me?”

  “Your termination would invalidate my task.”

  That pause.

  Too long.

  Ren didn’t argue.

  He moved.

  The scanning ring washed across the street behind him.

  Buildings dissolved soundlessly.

  Matter unraveled into weightless dust.

  Ren leapt sideways onto a vertical wall as gravity pivoted ninety degrees.

  Pain stabbed through his ribs.

  The fragment in his hand grew hot.

  Then hotter.

  His heartbeat synced with it.

  Thud.

  Thud.

  Thud.

  The world blurred—

  White room.

  Cold restraints.

  A voice crying and laughing at once.

  “Ren… don’t forget my weight—”

  He collapsed.

  Clutched his head.

  This wasn’t backlash.

  This was memory.

  “Ren!” Mira’s voice cracked—just slightly. “Your neural instability is broadcasting. Suppress it.”

  Her projected hand reached for his.

  For a second, it felt warm.

  The scan passed.

  Silence returned.

  Ren dragged in a breath.

  “What was that?”

  No response.

  He looked down.

  His shadow stretched wrong.

  Not toward any light.

  But toward the distant core of the city.

  As if something there was pulling him.

  The fragment vibrated violently.

  Then—

  It melted.

  Not into the ground.

  Into him.

  It sank through his palm like liquid gravity.

  Ren gasped.

  His right eye flooded red.

  A new interface appeared.

  Different font.

  Different source.

  Not the Administrator.

  Not Mira.

  A single line pulsed across his vision.

  —Are you ready, past me?

  Darkness swallowed the screen.