The acid slides through metal like butter.
Through reinforced concrete like paper.
But when it hits a screen, something strange happens:
It pauses.
Then reverses, sizzling upward, as if trying to trace its own source.
Matthew watches from the half-melted shelter as the sky above begins to rip.
Not clouds.
Code.
Fractals of game logic and geometry peeling away to show empty black beneath it.
A black that… blinks.
In the center of the room, one wall crumbles.
Behind it?
A hallway they've never seen.
Markings line the corridor like scar tissue:
Old game interfaces, card frames, identity prompts.
All melted.
All exposed.
Sora steps forward. Acid slides off her skin, untouched.
"It's not after us."
"It's after the mask this place wears."
Rin points to a phrase bubbling out from under the wall:
"THE DESIGNER ISN'T A PERSON."
"IT'S A REACTION."
"TO US."
In a distant chamber, acid seeps into the Player Archive Room.
Files distort.
Audio logs from former players garble into screams.
Timelines collapse into loops.
False deaths are revealed.
Final scores vanish.
And a terminal flares with red text:
"HOSTILE DATA BREACH: PLAYER TRUTH DETECTED."
"ISOLATE THE MANIFESTED."
Suddenly, the ground beneath Matthew's feet warps.
Not collapses—rewrites.
A ripple of reality pulses through the floor, and he's momentarily in a classroom, soaked and shivering.
Chalkboard says:
"You were the first to survive the Death Room."
"You were never supposed to win."
Then he's back.
Above them, the acid rain stops.
But not because it's finished.
It has entered the core.
Sora looks skyward.
"I think we just broke something real."
Rin nods.
"Then they'll be coming to fix it."
From the corridor ahead, a new door opens.
White. Clean. Too clean.
No card. No message.
Just the sound of heels clicking.
And the reverb of a familiar voice:
Dr. Keira Nash.
But… younger.
Stronger.
And this time, she isn't warning them.
She's welcoming them in.