The next morning, he spawned in his base. Everything was normal—flat clouds, concrete water, cartoon shadows. He walked toward his cathedral, but stopped at the entrance. The rose window. The one he’d spent six hours on.

The letters resolved into chat logs. Old ones. From servers he’d never been on.

He laughed nervously. “Just a weird shader artifact.” He punched the obsidian. The label vanished.

He checked the F3 screen. X: 0. Y: 64. Z: 0. He was standing exactly on the world’s navel.

They began to add things.

Kael dragged the slider to .

The last light of the Overworld’s sun bled orange and violet across the horizon. For most players, this was the most beautiful time of day—a moment to marvel at ray-traced god rays, waving foliage, and water so clear you could count the gravel at the bottom of a river.