The room didn't fade; it fractured. The smell of stale coffee was replaced by the scent of ozone and crushed mint. When he opened his eyes, he wasn't in his gaming chair. He was lying on a bed of glowing moss beneath a sky with two moons.

The blue loading bar on the screen flickered at 99%, a digital heart beating in the silence of Kaelen’s darkened apartment. The file— Phantasm: An Isekai LitRPG —wasn't just a game; it was a legendary, semi-mythical "Full-Dive" beta that promised a world indistinguishable from reality. Kaelen clicked "Execute."

He looked down at his hands, which now hummed with a faint silver light. He hadn't just downloaded a story; he had stepped into the final draft. The first quest notification appeared, pulsing with a golden light: “Find the Source Code.”

A translucent blue window hovered in his peripheral vision: [TRAIT ACQUIRED: The Architect’s Eye] [WARNING: Physical body synchronization complete. Death in Phantasm is permanent.]