“What—what is this? What am I looking at?!”
In the basement beneath Windrest Keep, candle flames trembled along the walls.
A floating box of text had appeared in front of Marsas’s eyes. He blinked hard. The box didn’t go away. He turned his head. It followed. He reached out—his bony fingers passed straight through the letters as if they were smoke.
He tried everything: stepping into brighter light, casting spells at it, shifting his gaze—
The box stayed.
“Governor Fell,” Marsas said, voice thin with unease. “Do you see it? Is this… some kind of spell?”
Inside their shared body, Panglos Fell was far steadier. Fear flickered, yes—but the moment he realized the text wasn’t harming them, the Governor forced himself to read.
[SYSTEM]
You have obtained an Earth Core abandoned by another Player. Bind it to yourself?
Binding Reward: Become a Tier 2 Player. Receive one truth about the world.
[/SYSTEM]
He latched onto a single word.
Player.
He looked down at the white spindle in their hand and let out a slow breath.
“Read it,” Fell ordered. “Carefully.”
Marsas obeyed, shoulders tight.
Fell continued, thinking aloud. “He really is a Player—like the ones we’ve captured before. This thing is called an Earth Core. If Chrysalis said there was a ‘treasure,’ this is it. And the ‘truth of the world’—it’s right there in the reward.”
“But ‘bind’…” Marsas lifted the spindle uncertainly. “How do we bind it? A ritual? Blood? A spell circle?”
Fell’s mind raced. Months ago, interrogated Players had babbled about a “System,” “panels,” and “mental control.” One sentence surfaced clearly now:
You can control the System panel with your thoughts.
“Maybe… intent,” Fell muttered. “Maybe you just decide.”
Marsas looked like he’d been asked to believe the moon was a fish. “Bind it by thinking? No ritual? No reagents?”
“Try it,” Fell snapped. “It’s not our world. The rules aren’t ours.”
Marsas swallowed and stared at the Earth Core.
Bind.
At the same time, Fell willed it too.
The text shifted.
[SYSTEM]
Earth Core bound.
You have become a Player.
You have become a Tier 2 Player.
Player System unlocked.
Tabs unlocked: Personal Panel / Inventory / Tasks.
To unlock Talents and the Chat Channel, agree to open a Cycle (15 days) and travel to a new world.
Tier 2 Player status confirmed.
Tier 2 Contribution missions unlocked.
Tier 2 Exchange permissions unlocked.
Tier 2 Mission triggered:
Use the Earth Core to scan the Endless Sea (Tier 5 World) for Creator Fragments and Godheads.
You have received one truth about this world.
[/SYSTEM]
The single box fractured into a full interface with multiple tabs—eerily similar to what captured Players had described. Talent and Chat were grayed out, but everything else was there.
The “truth” arrived.
Not as a whisper.
As an avalanche.
A Creator beyond the stars. Worlds without number, sorted from Tier 1 to Tier 5. People chosen from within a world, torn out, dropped into another body, becoming Players.
Systems. Talents. Missions.
Some Players rose. Many died.
Tier 2 Players were given Earth Cores and a new purpose: find Creator Fragments and relics, repair the System, accumulate Contribution, exchange for Godheads—or hunt for scattered Godheads directly in dangerous Tier 5 worlds.
The body Marsas and Fell shared trembled. They braced against the stone table, breathing hard, forcing their minds to absorb the impossible.
Behind them, the black crystal on the table had already gone dark. Chrysalis withdrew. Whatever he’d done to the smuggler was all the attention he could spare while breaking his restraints.
X’s head lolled as he surfaced from pain-induced blackout.
Sweat soaked his clothes. Blood crawled down his face through tangled hair.
He didn’t feel lucky.
His eyes dropped instantly to the floor at his feet.
The Earth Core was gone.
“No… no, no, no!”
He searched, wild.
He saw it—near the candle wall, the skeletal-faced captor standing with one hand on the table.
The other hand was holding X’s Earth Core.
X understood the rule at once.
If a Player abandoned an Earth Core and someone else took it… the System offered binding.
They’d done it.
Those two souls inside the same body had just turned themselves from natives into Tier 2 Players.
X’s stomach dropped. He’d lost the core that made Tier 2 missions possible.
But he was still alive.
And—thank the Creator—his System was stabilizing now that Chrysalis had withdrawn.
He checked his panel. The static was gone.
Stamina had recovered enough.
Particle Slip was available.
X kept his breathing silent. If the skull-face no longer needed him, they’d kill him the moment their minds cleared.
He triggered the skill.
Electric light crawled over his skin.
The restraints held nothing.
The chair sat empty in the candlelit rot.
A moment later, long robes whispered across the floor as Marsas’s pale apprentice hurried in.
“Master,” the apprentice said, bowing. Then to the Governor: “Representatives from the Violet Eye and the Black & White Court are waiting in the Eye of the Storm. So are Windrest Keep’s ministers.”
Fell’s voice—deep, authoritative—took the mouth again. “For what?”
“They’re still requesting permission to land. And… the ministers want you to allow them in to arrest Lord Marsas.”
The apprentice spoke carefully, eyes flicking once to Marsas’s skeletal face.
Everyone believed the same story now: that the butcher behind the bloodless corpses, the killer of Jory, the monster in the reef caves, was Marsas.
To the Black & White Court, Marsas was a traitor.
To the Violet Eye, he was the murderer of their apprentices.
To the Earth Ring, he was a wanted criminal under the King’s bounty.
They’d come in force—certain Marsas was here.
They had no idea their “Governor” and their “criminal” were sharing a single body.
Marsas laughed, soft and contemptuous. “Let them try.”
Tier 5 Soul-Eater. Tier 2 Player. A System. A clear path to divinity.
The world had just turned into a ladder, and he could see every rung.
“We’re at a critical stage,” Marsas said, impatient. “Send them away.”
He assumed Fell would agree. The System had given them missions—real missions. Why waste time on gnats?
But the Governor stayed quiet just long enough to make Marsas uneasy.
“Governor Fell—”
“Give me the body,” Fell cut in, amusement leaking into his tone. “I’ll meet them.”
Marsas went still.
That smile in the Governor’s voice was new.
And it meant he’d already decided how to use the crowd waiting upstairs.