The gate grew.
Not slowly.
Not dramatically.
Just… inevitably.
Each second another ring unfolded from its center, massive bands of pale light rotating in opposite directions. Symbols carved into them rewrote themselves constantly, lines of code dissolving and reforming like thoughts changing their mind.
Below it, the sky warped inward.
Reality bent toward the gate the same way water bends toward a drain.
Do-hyun stared up at it, jaw tight."So the system's just… leaving?"
"Not exactly," I said.
A faint pulse of pressure rolled through the air.
The system message expanded.
[FINAL DIRECTIVE — WORLD MIGRATION PROTOCOL][DATA PRESERVATION: ACTIVE][NON-ESSENTIAL STRUCTURES: MARKED FOR DELETION]
The words non-essential flickered across the skyline.
And suddenly a building two streets away vanished.
Not exploded.
Not destroyed.
Just gone.
One frame it existed.
The next it didn't.
People screamed below.
Do-hyun's grip tightened on his sword. "It's deleting the world."
"It's cleaning the draft," I said quietly.
The gate above us pulsed again.
More system text spilled across the sky.
[ESSENTIAL ENTITIES IDENTIFIED]
Three names appeared.
JIHO — NARRATIVE ANCHOR
DO-HYUN — PROBABILITY STABILIZER
ELVASTIA — CORE ARCHIVE
Do-hyun blinked. "Wait."
He pointed at the third name.
"Elvastia?"
Right on cue, a familiar voice groaned inside my head.
[Oh for f***'s sake.]
"Perfect timing," I muttered.
Do-hyun looked at me. "That him?"
"Yeah."
[First of all, rude. Second of all, why am I on the evacuation list?]
"You tell us," I said.
Elvastia was quiet for a moment.
Then—
[…that's bad.]
"How bad?" Do-hyun asked.
[Bad like "ancient secrets are about to ruin everyone's day" bad.]
I sighed. "Just say it."
[Fine. If the system is migrating, it means it's abandoning this version of reality and creating a new one somewhere else.]
"Yeah," Do-hyun said. "We figured that part out."
[But it can't rebuild the world without its original data.]
My stomach dropped.
"The archive," I said.
[Exactly.]
Do-hyun slowly turned toward me.
"…You mean him."
Elvastia sighed.
[Congratulations. The annoying voice in your friend's head is apparently the single most important library in existence.]
Do-hyun blinked twice.
Then once more.
"So the fate of the universe is… sarcasm and bad jokes."
[Hey.]
"You literally called Lucien pretty boy."
[He is pretty.]
I rubbed my face. "Focus."
Above us, the gate's rings spun faster.
A new message appeared.
[ESSENTIAL ENTITIES — RETRIEVAL COMMENCING]
Beams of light shot downward.
Not at random.
At us.
Do-hyun reacted instantly.
His sword ignited with blue fire.
"Move!"
The beam slammed into the rooftop—
And the entire building vanished.
We were falling before the sound even registered.
Wind tore past my ears as gravity snapped back into existence.
Do-hyun grabbed my arm midair.
"Hold on!"
He drove his sword into the side of a nearby building.
The blade scraped down the wall, sparks exploding as it slowed us enough to land roughly on a lower balcony.
We crashed hard.
Do-hyun coughed. "This is getting ridiculous."
The sky pulsed again.
More deletion waves rippled across the city.
Entire blocks flickered out of existence like broken pixels.
"Jiho," Do-hyun said.
"Yeah?"
"If the system takes us…"
I already knew what he meant.
"It wins," I said.
"Can we stop it?"
I looked at the gate.
At the swirling rings.
At the center where the light was forming a tunnel to somewhere else.
And for the first time—
I saw something inside it.
Not machinery.
Not code.
A door.
And on the other side—
Another world.
"Yeah," I said quietly.
"We can stop it."
Do-hyun raised an eyebrow.
"How?"
I smiled faintly.
"We go with it."
He stared at me.
"You want to jump into the apocalypse portal."
"Pretty much."
Elvastia groaned.
[Why do I live with idiots.]
Do-hyun exhaled slowly.
Then—
He grinned.
"…Alright."
Above us, the gate opened wider.
And the beam returned.
Stronger this time.
Ready to take us.