Riverbend was no longer a village; it was a render error.
As Elian and Kaelen crested the hill overlooking the valley, the air turned cold and tasted faintly of ozone and copper. The vibrant greens of the farmland had been replaced by a desaturated gray fog that clung to the ground at knee-height.
But it was the center of the village that drew the eye.
Where the village well used to be, a monstrosity had grown. It looked like a gothic archway made of fused, polished femurs and skulls, pulsing with a sickening violet light. It didn't look like it had been built; it looked like a cancerous growth that had erupted from the planet's code.
"By the Saints," Kaelen whispered, gripping the hilt of the [Debug_Weapon_v0.5]. "The air... it feels heavy."
"That's not weight, it's lag," Elian muttered, his eyes glowing with the blue ring of [Admin Sight].
To Elian, the scene was vastly different. The gray fog was a mess of untextured particle effects. The bone door was surrounded by red error flags.
[CRITICAL ERROR: Dungeon Instance ID#404 not found.]
[WARNING: External script injection detected. File: 'Necro_Plague.exe'.]
"It's worse than I thought," Elian said. "The old reality's residual magic is trying to reject the System installation here. It created a conflict looped and spawned... this."
Movement stirred in the fog ahead. Three figures shambled toward them. They were former villagers, clad in tattered farm clothes, but their movement was deeply unsettling. They didn't walk; they stuttered forward, leaping several feet instantly, freezing, and then jerking forward again.
One of them, a husk of what used to be the village blacksmith, had its head twisted around 180 degrees, facing backward as it advanced.
"Abominations!" Kaelen roared. The fear was still there, but the sudden influx of Strength stats and the hum of the powerful weapon in his hands pushed him forward.
He charged the blacksmith-husk.
Kaelen swung the greatsword with newfound might. The blade, a sleek shard of dark metal with glowing white edges, connected with the husk's torso.
There was no sound of impact. The sword passed straight through the husk's body without resistance, flickering as it did so.
[HIT REGISTRATION ERROR] floated above the husk's head in gray text.
The husk didn't even flinch. It lashed out with a clawed hand, striking Kaelen in the chest.
[Damage: 45 (Physical)]
[Kaelen HP: 210/255]
Kaelen stumbled back, gasping. "My blade... it is ghost-steel! It does not bite!"
"It's not the sword, it's their collision box," Elian said, casually walking toward the combat. He pulled out his notebook. "Their physical assets aren't synced with their hitboxes. You're swinging at where they look like they are, not where the System thinks they are."
Another husk lunged at Elian. It was missing its lower jaw, its tongue lolling out wildly.
Elian didn't dodge. He held up a hand, palm open.
"Query. Identify target ID."
"Target identified: Entity_Vilagar_Zombie_02. State: Glitched."
"Right. Let's try a soft reset." Elian snapped his fingers.
[Admin Command: /reset_position Target_ID_02]
The zombie vanished Instantly. A microsecond later, it reappeared ten feet to the left, standing perfectly still in a default "T-pose"—arms straight out to the sides, legs together. It stopped moving entirely.
"Better," Elian noted. He looked at the blacksmith-husk that was harassing Kaelen. "Vanguard, aim two feet to the left of its actual body."
Kaelen, bewildered but desperate, swung wildly at the empty air beside the monster.
CRUNCH.
The air shrieked as the sword connected with invisible matter. The blacksmith-husk, two feet away, suddenly buckled, cleaved nearly in two by an impact that didn't touch it physically.
[Critical Hit! Damage: 450]
[Target Eliminated.]
Kaelen stared at the dissolving corpse. "This magic is... madness."
"It's Alpha testing," Elian corrected. He stepped past the T-posing zombie, ignoring it as he headed toward the bone door. "Come on. The source of the spaghetti code is inside."
They reached the town square. The bone door towered over them, at least twenty feet high. The violet pulsing light was intense, accompanied by a low, vibrating thrum that rattled their teeth.
Standing in front of the door was the source of the problem.
It used to be the village elder. Now, it was a conduit for corrupted mana. It hovered three feet off the ground, its skin translucent gray, eyes burning with violet fire. Skeletal wings, looking unfinished and wireframe-like, sprouted from its back.
Above its head, the nameplate was flickering so fast it was unreadable.
[E̶̢̛l̴̡͝d̷̨͠e̸̖̿r̵̝͝ ̶̗͑o̶̖͛f̴͇̓ ̶̳͐T̵̡͝h̴̖͛ḛ̴̓ ̵̤͌V̸̡͌o̵͙͋i̴̛̼d̴̦͒]
[Level: N̷̅̌U̵̇̐L̸̈́͗L̸̇̉]
[HP: ∞ / ∞]
Kaelen froze. An aura of pure dread washed over the square.
[Warning: High-Level Fear Aura detected.]
[Willpower Check Failed. You are terror-struck.]
Kaelen dropped to his knees, unable to move, his sword clattering to the cobblestones. "I... I cannot..."
Elian stopped. He looked at the boss's HP bar.
"Infinite HP? That's lazy coding. It just set its health regeneration value higher than any possible damage output."
The Elder-thing raised its hands. A massive sphere of violet energy began to coalesce above it. The air crackled.
"Warning," Query buzzed urgently in Elian's ear.
"Mana density critical. Target is preparing a Tier 8 spell: [Void Collapse]. Estimated blast radius: 5 miles. Survival probability for non-Admins: 0%."
"A Tier 8 spell in a starter zone," Elian sighed, rubbing his temples. A sharp headache was already forming behind his eyes. "This whole instance is FUBAR. I have to scrub it."
"Run, Sorcerer!" Kaelen managed to choke out.
"Can't. If that spell goes off, it crashes the local server node. The whole region gets deleted." Elian stepped forward, directly under the gathering sphere of annihilation.
He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't cast a shield. He opened both hands and thrust them toward the bone door and the hovering entity.
The blue rings in Elian's eyes flared brighter than the violet sun above him.
"I don't have time to patch your AI, and I don't have time to fix your stats," Elian shouted over the roar of the gathering magic. "So I'm revoking your access!"
He slammed his hands together.
[ADMIN EXECUTE:
PURGE_INSTANCE(RIVERBEND_DUNGEON)]
[Authorization: Alpha_Admin_01]
The world screamed. It wasn't a sound; it was the fabric of reality tearing.
The violet sphere froze in mid-air. The bone door stopped pulsing. The Elder-thing looked down at Elian, confusion replacing the malice in its burning eyes as its textures began to peel away, revealing wireframe beneath.
Then, everything gray turned white.
A column of blinding data—pure, raw binary code—fired down from the heavens, striking the town square. It didn't burn; it overwrote.
Where the white light touched the bone door, the door simply ceased to exist, replaced by empty air.
Where it touched the Elder-thing, the entity dissolved into a stream of zeros and ones that were sucked upward into the sky.
The gray fog evaporated instantly, replaced by the normal, late-afternoon sun.
Elian staggered, falling to one knee as blood trickled from his nose. The headache was blinding now. He'd just used enough System resources to power a small kingdom to delete a fifty-foot radius of reality.
[System Strain: High. Cognitive functions impaired by 15%.]
The silence returned to Riverbend. The door was gone. The zombies were gone. Only the empty village remained.
Kaelen gasped, the fear aura vanishing instantly. He scrambled over to Elian.
"Lord Elian! What... what god did you pray to?"
Elian wiped the blood from his upper lip with the back of his leather glove. He stood up shakily, looking at the empty space where the glitch had been.
"I didn't pray, Vanguard," Elian rasped. "I just formatted the drive."
A new window popped up in front of Elian.
[Quest Complete: The First Glitch]
[Reward: Administrator Access Level Up. Current Level: 2]
[New Admin Feature Unlocked: The compendium.]
Elian smiled weakly. "Good. Now I can start documenting these bugs."