The Awakening of the Eternal Cycle

The room where Athos awoke was an illusion of normalcy, a fabricated stage masking ATHOMIS’s cruel truth. The white walls, pristine, reflected soft morning light, with a clock’s monotonous ticking mocking the void in his mind. The bed, with perfectly arranged sheets, and a window showing a generic city—gray buildings, bustling streets, faceless people—were a facade, a recreated save file to trap him. But something was wrong. Athos, sitting on the bed’s edge, felt a pang in his mind, like a glitch tearing corrupted code. Violet light flashes exploded in his vision, fragments of memories not his own, yet undeniably his. He saw millions of years, millions of cycles, millions of Athos—each with a different appearance, a different fate, all trapped in ATHOMIS’s infinite game. He saw a silver-armored warrior battling dragons in Eldoria, a golden-eyed mage defying gods in Celestara, a dark knight falling in the Desolate Continent’s void. Each life, death, victory, and defeat pulsed in his mind like an overloaded file. Who am I? he thought, his hand trembling as it touched his chest, where the Tear of Eryndor should have been, but found nothing.Athos stumbled out, wandering the false city’s streets. The buildings, their windows glinting under an artificial sun, pixelated at the edges, as if the system struggled to maintain the illusion. Faceless people passed, their voices a blurred murmur, their eyes judging him. He stopped mid-street, staring into the void, his mind flooded with flashes. He saw the battle against Error, the Corruptor, in the cosmic void, pixelated cubes of destroyed realms—Valthar, Celestara, Eldoria, Ironforge—orbiting in glitched chaos, the last silver moon collapsing under black rifts. He saw the Admins, their data eyes (blue, red, green) mocking him: 56,789,987 times. Each memory was a stab, proof his life was a cycle, an orchestrated repetition by forces beyond comprehension. I lived this… all of it, he thought, falling to his knees, hands clutching his head as passersby stopped, whispering: “Hey, he’s crazy.” “Look at him.” “Must be on something.”Suddenly, the void returned, not as absence but as presence. A guttural laugh echoed, not from the people, but from space itself, as if ATHOMIS mocked him. The false city flickered, blue and red pixels (010101) blinking at the buildings’ edges, on people’s faces, in the artificial sky. Athos stood, his violet eyes blazing with fury transcending the system. I remember… everything, he thought, his mind clear, every cycle, battle, and death etched in his soul like eternal code. He saw Lysara, the white-haired demon queen, his ally in a distant cycle, sacrificing herself to protect him. He saw the black mana crystal that marked him in the first cycle, the Tear of Eryndor pulsing in countless lives. He saw the Admins, manipulating him like a pawn for “them.” No more being a puppet, he thought, his mental voice echoing like a command.With a hand gesture, Athos wrote in the air, the atoms of the false reality obeying as if part of his code. Blue pixels exploded, forming a glowing command: /delete world. What was written happened. The false city collapsed in a pixel cascade, buildings crumbling into data fragments, people dissolving into glitched mist, the artificial sky shattering like digital glass. The cosmic void returned, a pure abyss, no pixel cubes, no silver moon, only infinite darkness speckled with black rifts pulsing with glitched electricity. Athos, floating in the void’s center, felt the Tear of Eryndor reappear on his neck, pulsing with violet light warping space. His glitched armor reformed, the Primordial Chaos Blade materializing in his hand, his interface locked in indecipherable symbols: Attributes — ??????? — System Transcended.In a scream echoing through the void, Athos roared: “Show yourselves, you bastards!” His words, laced with fury and power, were aimed at the Admins, the architects of his suffering. The void quaked, as if answering the challenge, but no sound came. Only silence, a silence that seemed to watch, judge. You can’t hold me forever, Athos thought, his glitched aura exploding in blue pixel vortices (010101), warping the void in waves threatening to erase even darkness. He raised the Primordial Chaos Blade, ready to rewrite ATHOMIS’s system, but a doubt struck: What if this is just another cycle? His interface flashed: Unknown Threat — Origin: Them. The void stayed quiet, but the weight of millions of years of memories reminded him: the final battle was yet to begin.