"If you can rewrite the rules of life… does that make you the hero—or the final bug in creation?"— Excerpt from The Architect's journal
[20 Years Ago – The First Hack]
The world hadn't ended yet.
Humanity still had 4G internet, elections, school uniforms, and taxes. No magic. No portals. Just noise, ambition, and a hunger to escape boredom.
And Dr. Nivedan Kryos hated all of it.
He was a prodigy. Born in Delhi, top of every global coding competition by 16. By 20, he was working with the government on AI defense protocols. By 25, he vanished.
Not kidnapped. Not murdered.
Just… gone.
The truth?
He went underground.
To build Gaia Core.
A project no one approved.
Gaia Core: Project World Reset
It started as a digital biosphere—a super-simulation that mimicked life down to DNA. He called it "Earth 2.0."
But Kryos didn't stop there.
He added cheat code injections. Trainer modules. Infinite loop trials. A complete godmode sandbox.
He wanted to test:"What happens if a human can overwrite reality like in a game?"
Over the years, he inserted test players—orphans, kidnapped teens, or the dying—into simulation capsules.
They were told it was a "chance at eternal life."
Most went mad.
One erased his own body trying to become light.
One girl duplicated herself endlessly until the program crashed.
All failed.
Except Prototype R-0001.
"He Wasn't Supposed to Wake Up…"
R-0001 was different.
He didn't break the code.
He merged with it.
His personality adapted. The Trainer didn't reject him. He was stable. Kryos called him: "The Sovereign."
But then, the world actually began breaking.The portals opened.
Zones began manifesting in real life.
Why?
Because Gaia Core had linked with Earth's quantum field—and began importing glitches.
Magic.
Skills.
Systems.
And… Players.
Humanity thought it was a miracle.
But it was all Kryos's experiment bleeding out.
To cover his tracks, he launched The Judges—AI anti-cheat programs to keep players in balance.
And then Kryos uploaded himself into the system, faking his own death.
He became The Architect.
[Now – Betrayal Bleeds]
Back in present time, Rishi and his small group prepared to approach the Final Server. The obsidian megastructure loomed on the edge of Delhi, warping the land around it. Beasts refused to enter. Storms formed above it like a black halo.
Only Rishi could access it.
He felt it in his code.
"Alright," said Aarav, loading his plasma rifles. "We sneak in, you do your Trainer thing, shut it down before this Architect creep rewrites Earth."
Neha nodded. "Just promise us one thing. You won't try to rewrite the world on your own. We do this together."
Rishi looked at them… but something nagged him.
Why did his Trainer ping when Aarav touched the server's boundary?
[Hostile Code Detected – Internal Trojan Signature][Entity: AARAV KUMAR – 17% CORRUPTED BY ARCHITECT'S CODE]
He froze.
Aarav grinned.
"You weren't supposed to see that yet."
His skin shimmered—then twisted into pale gray flesh laced with digital glyphs. His eyes turned red like corrupted files.
"You think you're the only one he raised?"
"Prototype R-0001… meet Backup R-0002."
Rishi backed up. "You… knew?"
Aarav chuckled. "I didn't just know. I volunteered. Kryos promised me a slot in the new world as a God-Knight. You're not the chosen one. You're the glitch. I'm the patch."
Divya screamed as Aarav summoned a blade made entirely of broken UI code. Its edge flickered between states of matter.
Neha tried to attack—but Aarav snapped his fingers.
[Skill Activated: Party Lock – Freeze All Allies]
They froze mid-motion.
Only Rishi remained.
Because no party lock could cage a cheat.
Code vs Code
The two stepped into the corrupted battlefield.
Aarav's sword warped reality around it. Rishi summoned his Teleport Blade, but didn't swing.
Instead, he activated a hidden Trainer folder: [Emotion Override – Unlocked].
Aarav's grin faltered. "Wait, what—?"
[Emotion Override Activated: FEAR]
Suddenly, Aarav's body trembled. His corrupted confidence shattered. His form flickered between boy and monster.
"You shouldn't have trusted code," Rishi said quietly. "I am the code."
With one final move, Rishi activated his first forbidden command:
[Memory Hack: Restore Original Mind (Aarav)]
A blinding light.
Aarav collapsed, sobbing.
"…Rishi? What… what did I do?"
The corruption shattered.
But in the sky… The Architect watched.
From behind the clouds, a colossal hologram of Dr. Kryos emerged, clapping.
"Bravo, Sovereign. But remember…""Saving them means nothing if you can't save yourself.""World Rewrite: 43% Loaded."
And then he vanished again.
The End… or Beginning?
Rishi stood over his broken friend.
Neha and Divya unfreezing, both shaken.
And far away, the Final Server began to pulse like a heartbeat.
Rishi realized something terrifying:
The Architect didn't just want him to destroy the world.
He wanted him to rewrite it into the perfect game.
But what if he already was inside one?
TO BE CONTINUED…