Selecting N rows in SQL Server

As commented earlier, it’s because you reached the number of rows of sys.columns. Here is another way to generate list of numbers or what others call Numbers Table or Tally Table.

This uses cascaded CTEs and is said to be the fastest way to create a Tally Table:

DECLARE @Range AS INT = 7374

;WITH E1(N) AS( -- 10 ^ 1 = 10 rows
    SELECT 1 FROM(VALUES (1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1))t(N)
),
E2(N) AS(SELECT 1 FROM E1 a CROSS JOIN E1 b), -- 10 ^ 2 = 100 rows
E4(N) AS(SELECT 1 FROM E2 a CROSS JOIN E2 b), -- 10 ^ 4 = 10,000 rows
E8(N) AS(SELECT 1 FROM E4 a CROSS JOIN E4 b), -- 10 ^ 8 = 10,000,000 rows
CteTally(N) AS(
    SELECT TOP(@Range) ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY(SELECT NULL))
    FROM E8
)
SELECT * FROM CteTally

You could easily add another CTE if you need more than 10,000 rows.

For more information about Tally Table, read this excellent article by Jeff Moden.

For performance comparisons among ways to generate Tally Tables, read this.

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Explanation taken from Jeff’s article:

The CTE called E1 (as in 10E1 for scientific notation) is nothing
more than ten SELECT 1‘s returned as a single result set.

E2 does a CROSS JOIN of E1 with itself. That returns a single
result set of 10*10 or up to 100 rows. I say “up to” because if the
TOP function is 100 or less, the CTE’s are “smart” enough to know that
it doesn’t actually need to go any further and E4 and E8 won’t
even come into play. If the TOP has a value of less than 100, not
all 100 rows that E2 is capable of making will be made. It’ll always
make just enough according to the TOP function.

You can follow from there. E4 is a CROSS JOIN of E2 and will
make up to 100*100 or 10,000 rows and E8 is a CROSS JOIN of E4
which will make more rows than most people will ever need. If you do
need more, then just add an E16 as a CROSS JOIN of E8 and change
the final FROM clause to FROM E16.

What’s really amazing about this bad-boy is that is produces ZERO
READS. Absolutely none, nada, nil.