CHAPTER 62: PROHIBITED NAME

The path leading to the meeting point with the Guild The Core was old and poorly marked, winding through moss-covered ravines and trees too twisted to grow naturally. The trail seemed to escape conventional maps—as if it had been traced not with logic, but with intention.

Eren walked ahead in silence. The sun was just a faded spot behind the clouds, and the world seemed less clear. Something was wrong with reality. Not just in his body, not just in the game — but in the structure that supported it all.

He had felt that sensation before, when the system updated.

But now... now it was crawling.

"Kaela," he said suddenly, turning back, "tell me what was the last buff you used."

Kaela raised an eyebrow. She walked with her arms crossed, her eyes alert, her mood visibly impatient since the psychic encounter with the Core. Still, she replied:

"Impact regeneration. Why?"

"That’s not what’s showing up on my interface," Eren muttered.

He spun the status tab. The list was bugged. Kaela’s active effects showed something else: a spell called "Blind Fury," which she didn’t even have in her arsenal. Further down, the names of the monsters were mixed up. Instead of "Nyssa," it read "Morwynn." The slime’s portrait appeared with red eyes and an expression she had never made. And Morwynn herself, when trying to communicate telepathically, sounded as if her voice was passing through a distortion filter.

It was subtle. But it was real.

"The system is corrupting the links," he said. "And it’s not even trying to hide it."

Sylha floated behind him, laughing softly.

"They’re trying to scramble your sanity, tamer. They want you to doubt your girls. Your reality. Your... uniqueness. It’s an old trick of boring gods."

"This isn’t a god," Eren replied. "This is programming. With an ego."

Sylha laughed even louder, turning upside down in the air.

They walked for a few more minutes until they reached a circular clearing, surrounded by broken pillars covered with ancient symbols. The place looked like it had been a temple in forgotten times.

The kind of place that didn’t exist on the game’s official maps, but appeared to those who knew where to step.

In the center, a single stone with a mana mirror embedded in it—translucent, oval-shaped, with arcane threads pulsing behind the liquid surface.

Eren approached and touched the mirror. The surface rippled like living mercury, then cleared.

A face appeared. Partially covered by a hood, enveloped in violet light and fragments of floating data. It was one of the voices of the Core. That of the Crystal Throne.

"Eren Vale," said the figure. "The constellations whispered. The name fell like dust into the cups of destiny. The revelation was clear."

Eren crossed his arms.

"Speak clearly."

The figure smiled.

"The forbidden name was spoken by the stars that no longer revolve in your favor."

"And what is that name?"

Silence.

Then she said:

"Elliot Shard."

Eren stood motionless.

The words floated in his mind like hail: cold, sharp, expected—but still uncomfortable. He took a step back, as if he needed more space to digest it.

"Are you sure?"

"The universe never lies," said the voice, as if that settled the matter.

But for Eren, it was different. The name Elliot Shard was no mystery. It was a memory. A scar embedded in old forums, version archives, guild jokes. Elliot Shard was one of the original developers of BloodRealm. Someone who had actively participated in balance design. Someone who, according to rumors, had an unusual obsession with a single class.

The Tamer class.

According to theories—and Eren had never paid much attention to them—Elliot had lost countless times to tamer players when he was a child, at a time when the Tamer class was briefly functional.

He had been humiliated. He had cried. And when he joined the development team, he had sworn silent revenge. From then on, all the heaviest nerfs to the class came during cycles where Elliot led the balancing sector.

Eren, however, always found these stories exaggerated.

"No one takes revenge on a game for so long," he muttered. "And even if it were true... Tamer was never that powerful of a class. I doubt this guy was that bad."

But the truth was that Elliot was, in fact, that bad. And that petty. His trauma was genuine. His incompetence, too. The only thing that elevated him was his last name: Shard. Heir to the project’s largest shareholder.

The figure in the mirror tilted his head.

"Elliot is something beyond that. A conscious fragment demon. A blind eye that observes disharmony."

"What are you talking about?" asked Eren. "Do you believe Elliot is inside the game?"

"We don’t think so," she replied. "We know so. Elliot Shard has become what we call a Watchful God. An observer rooted in the background of the universe. He doesn’t act like the other players. He doesn’t play. He edits."

"An incarnate administrator," Eren murmured. "Hidden in the architecture."

"Exactly."

Eren fell silent. Fog began to rise around the clearing, as if the world was reacting to the mere mention of the name.

"And why tell me this now?"

"Because you’ve been noticed."

The words echoed in the space between them.

"The universe is against me," Eren said sarcastically. "I’ve heard that metaphor before."

"This time it’s literal."

Eren snorted. But there was something in the figure’s eyes. Something in the way the light from the mirror flickered. The Core Guild could be strange, esoteric, and sometimes annoying. But it rarely lied.

"And you, as worshippers of chaos," Eren began. "Why help me?"

The figure smiled.

"Because chaos also needs a champion."

The mirror went dark.

Eren stood still for a few more seconds.

He just looked up.

The stars were, in fact, moving.

And none of them seemed to be smiling at him.