The problem wasn't that things were breaking anymore.
It was worse.
They were almost working.
Ace noticed it first in the workshop.
Threads snapped—not cleanly, but halfway.
Scissors dulled overnight.
Shelves leaned by a fraction of an inch.
Nothing catastrophic.
Just… inefficient.
Ace's fur bristled.
"This is intentional," he muttered.
Ravenna landed beside him.
"They've shifted tactics. Instead of removing meaning… they're introducing friction."
Ace closed his eyes.
In his old world, this had a name.
Operational sabotage.
---
Incident Report #1: Delays Without Cause
A client arrived early.
The materials arrived late.
Measurements were off by centimeters.
Ace recalculated. Adjusted. Delivered anyway.
The client left satisfied.
But Ace felt it.
The extra effort.
The drain.
---
Incident Report #2: Emotional Misalignment
The boy and the girl stopped syncing.
Not arguing.
Not fighting.
Just… missing each other.
Conversations ended half a beat too soon.
The scarf stayed gray.
Ace watched from afar, unease settling in his chest.
"This isn't random chance," he said.
"They're nudging probabilities."
Ravenna swallowed.
"That requires authority."
---
Incident Report #3: Systems Undermined
At the hoard—
The dragon followed every rule.
Still—
Gold slid back into the wrong piles.
Not because of chaos.
Because the cave subtly shifted shape.
Ace stared at the walls.
"…They're editing the environment."
---
That night—
Ace returned to the Relic.
"Alright," he said quietly.
"Enough passive-aggressive interference."
The relic pulsed.
Images flooded his mind.
The gears.
The pool of starlight.
The figure—clearer now.
Not monstrous.
Not godlike.
Just… tired.
Frustrated.
"You were never meant to stabilize this world," the figure's voice echoed.
"You were meant to expose it."
Ace frowned.
"Expose what?"
"The flaw," the figure replied.
"That meaning creates dependency. That emotion anchors reality in ways that cannot scale."
Ace's tail lashed.
"So your solution is to break people?"
"To correct the system," the figure said flatly.
Ace inhaled slowly.
Then—
He smiled.
A small, dangerous smile.
"You know what we call systems that only work under perfect conditions?" Ace said.
The figure hesitated.
Ace continued.
"Bad design."
The gears behind the figure stuttered.
Ace leaned closer to the relic.
"You're fighting instability by removing humanity."
He shook his head.
"That's not fixing a problem. That's dodging responsibility."
Silence.
Then—
The figure's eyes sharpened.
"You think you can out-design me?"
Ace's answer was immediate.
"Yes."
The relic flared violently—
Not in anger.
In recognition.
---
The world shuddered.
Not breaking.
Reconfiguring.
Ace stumbled back.
Ravenna screamed,
"Ace—something changed!"
Outside—
The sky dimmed.
Not dark.
Muted.
Like color saturation lowered.
Ace steadied himself.
"…They just authorized escalation."
Ravenna's voice shook.
"What do we do?"
Ace looked out at the people he'd helped.
The systems he'd built.
The connections holding.
He straightened.
"We scale."