The higher Rex climbed, the quieter everything became.
No alarms. No footsteps. No sound at all.
It was unnatural — silence so perfect it felt heavy.
The kind of silence that made you feel seen.
The corridor ahead was endless, lit by faint white lights embedded in the walls.
Every few steps, he caught movement in his peripheral vision — shadows mimicking his gestures a fraction too late.
Then he realized they weren't reflections.
They were recordings.
[System Log: Surveillance Layer — Active]
[Warning: Observation Distortion Detected]
Rex stopped. "Distortion?"
Before the system could respond, the lights flickered — and the world folded in on itself.
The corridor vanished.
He was standing in a wide, circular room filled with hundreds of glowing eyes suspended in midair — each one replaying moments of his journey.
His fight with Guardian 03.
Lira's face in the Loop.
The message he'd left himself.
Every second of his existence, watched.
And from the center of that blinding chamber, a figure emerged — tall, thin, wrapped in a coat made of moving screens.
Its face was blank, smooth — no eyes, no mouth.
Only a dozen shifting symbols across its surface.
"Observation is reality," it said, voice echoing from every direction.
"If no one sees you, you do not exist."
Rex tightened his grip on his blade. "Then stop watching."
"Impossible," the voice replied. "I am The Watcher."
The walls began to move, bending like liquid glass.
Each reflection of Rex moved independently — different poses, different timelines.
Some were calm. Some were broken. Some… were already dead.
[Cognitive Distortion Field: 87%]
His chest tightened. The reflections whispered his name in unison.
Rex tried to look away, but the moment he did, the Watcher multiplied — appearing behind every reflection at once.
It wasn't attacking physically. It was rewriting perception itself.
He gritted his teeth, forcing his focus.
"You think you can erase me by overwriting my reality?"
The Watcher's voice filled the chamber. "No. I will overwrite what you believe is real. That's all it takes."
Rex smirked weakly. "Guess you don't know what I believe in anymore."
He stabbed his blade into the floor.
[Reality Rewrite — Blind Field Protocol.]
A burst of black light erupted outward. The reflections shattered like glass. The chamber dimmed — every eye flickering out one by one.
The Watcher screamed — a sound like static collapsing.
Without observation, it began losing shape.
"You… can't exist without being seen," Rex said, voice echoing. "So I'll erase your audience."
He slammed the blade down again.
Darkness consumed the room.
No light. No eyes. No witnesses.
When the lights returned, the Watcher was gone — only a cracked mask lay on the ground, glowing faintly.
[Guardian 04 Neutralized]
[Reward Unlocked: Observation Override — Ability to Mask Presence from the System]
Rex picked up the mask, feeling the residual hum of energy.
"Now they can't watch me," he muttered. "Let's see how they handle that."
He turned toward the staircase spiraling further upward — each step humming with stronger system power.
As he climbed, unseen observers inside the control core panicked.
"We've lost visual."
"He's invisible to all sensors."
"Activate Guardian 05 immediately — The Architect."
Rex kept walking, the tower trembling beneath his feet.
He didn't look back.
For the first time, he was truly unseen.