Version 1.1.6 of the world—as the elders called the current era of shifting realities—had brought more than just cold winds. It had brought the , husks of men who moved with a jittery, unnatural speed, their eyes glowing with a faint, digital blue light.

They moved like shadows through the undergrowth. Every step was a gamble against the "glitches" in the landscape—patches of earth that would suddenly dissolve into static or launch a traveler into the sky. To the common folk, it was magic gone wrong; to Elias, it was a failing architecture he had to navigate to survive.

With a final, decisive strike, the guardian shattered into shimmering fragments. The path to the altar was open. Elias stood before the pulsating heart of the realm, a crystalline shard that hummed with the power of a thousand suns. He reached out, his hand trembling.

"Look at that," his companion, Kaelen, whispered, pointing toward the obsidian spires of the Sunken Cathedral.