Layer Null always smelled the same, every single day. Just a constant, grim cocktail of rusty metal, dried blood, and this heavy, suffocating despair. I'm Kael Serian, eighteen years old, and my lungs burned every time I took a breath in this place. It's basically the world's trash heap, a chaotic mess of busted-up dimensions and souls that nobody wanted. I mean, literally born here, right in the middle of all these messed-up ruins and unsettling glitch creatures that just sort of shambled around in the endless twilight. My hair, dark with those weird faint white streaks at the tips, usually just stuck to my forehead, always sweaty. And my silver eyes, which sometimes, just sometimes, flickered with this faint, eerie blue glow when my power stirred, were always glued straight ahead. I was lean, like kg lean, but tough, you know? My cm frame was all bone and muscle, built for constantly moving, and my skin was covered in these small scars – each one a quiet little reminder of some fight I'd barely won, just to keep breathing.
Today's hunt felt extra rough, even for Layer Null. The glitch beast we were after – a twisted thing born from a broken system – was faster, more unpredictable, just utterly wrong in the way it moved. It twitched and jolted, a total contradiction to how anything should move, really. I knew what I was, a "Glitchborn" – basically, a reject from Layer Null, someone who wasn't supposed to have any special powers, someone the system just flat-out ignored. And out here, where technology and magic barely worked, my own ability was always a total crapshoot.
"Damn it! It's quicker than I thought!" That was Reo Dran, my partner. He was a hot-headed fighter, a real loud guy from some place called the Flamebound Guild, who somehow ended up stuck down here with me. He fought with this wild, untamed energy that, honestly, I kind of respected. I never knew how he got here, but he was real. We were trapped between these twisted, broken concrete ruins, like the giant skeletons of buildings that hinted at a time before the world basically just… shattered.
I didn't answer. I rarely did. Easier to save my breath, and my brain was already working overtime, analyzing everything. I was dissecting every single twitch, every shift of that monster, desperately looking for a crack in its "code of existence". My ability, Void Rewrite, wasn't some fancy magic spell or just raw strength. Nah, it was something way more fundamental: manipulating reality itself. Like, I could rewrite the actual structure of things, change someone's status, even mess with the rules of magic around me. But down here in Layer Null, where everything was already glitching out, my Rewrite was super unstable. It'd often trigger these wild, unpredictable glitches in the already fragile fabric of our reality. It was like trying to fix a bug in a computer program that was already halfway crashed.
The air suddenly got heavy, thick with this low hum that vibrated right in my bones. The glitch beast let out a high-pitched shriek, a sound that just grated on your nerves, then it lunged. Its jagged, bone-like claws, dripping with some gooey, glowing fluid, were aimed straight for my chest. Too late to dodge. But in the split second before it hit me, this really bizarre sensation jolted through my entire body. Not pain, not yet, but this intense, almost overwhelming frequency just vibrating inside me, like something deep down wasn't just stirring, but waking up with a violent, electric jolt.
Then, boom. A transparent window just shimmered into view, right there, overlaid on the dying light of Layer Null. Only I could see it. It was unlike anything I'd ever laid eyes on—clean, sharp lines of data against the total chaos of my world.
[System Detecting: Unauthorized Ascension Host Detected]
[Initiating Protocol Integration: %... %... %... %... %... %... %... %]
I gasped, a dry, choked sound. Ascension Protocol? No way. That was a forbidden system, something whispered about in terrifying legends, supposedly only accessible to the world's absolute elite, the "Ascendants". How could I, a discarded soul from Layer Null, a nobody from the "Core Null", be linked to it? It was like finding a supercomputer hidden in a pile of pure garbage.
The monster slammed into me. But instead of crushing pain, I felt this weird, cold wave of mysterious energy just surge through my body. It was pure, raw power, totally different from the chaotic energy of the glitches I was used to. My silver eyes blazed a brilliant, unwavering blue. The glitch beast froze mid-air, its snarl locked on its face, like time itself had just hit pause around it. A faint, metallic hum filled the air, replacing the constant, annoying whine of Layer Null.
"What… what was that?!" Reo stared, eyes wide with horror, not at the monstrous, suspended creature, but right at me.
Before I could answer, or even process what the hell was happening, the reality around us just started to rip apart. Not like a normal glitch, that unsettling shimmering effect that always signaled crumbling code. No, this was like a giant pane of glass just shattering into a million pieces, revealing this blinding, pristine white light beyond. A mysterious portal ripped open beneath my feet, not a haphazard tear, but a perfect, shimmering circle of pure light, swirling and pulling me down with this unstoppable, silent force.
"Kael!" Reo screamed, his hand reaching out desperately through the swirling light.
But it was too late. I felt my body being forcibly dragged away, this dizzying, hollow sensation of spinning into absolute nothingness, of falling into a void that was both terrifying and strangely calm. Layer Null, its putrid smell, the frozen glitch beast, Reo's terrified face—everything just vanished in an instant. I had no idea where I was going, or why. All I knew was that my brutal, pathetic existence in that forbidden zone had just been violently flipped upside down. I'd been forcibly relocated, whether I liked it or not.
I woke with a jolt, the sharp, sterile scent of antiseptic drilling right into my nostrils. I was lying on this cold, unforgiving metal table. The ceiling was blindingly white, lit up by a bunch of harsh fluorescent lights. This wasn't the dusty ruins or dark, echoing caves I was used to in Layer Null. This was clean. Too clean. I was in some kind of super modern medical facility, a place that felt utterly alien. A network of clear tubes connected to this intricate device was hooked up to my left arm, steadily pumping some clear, gooey liquid into my veins. I could feel faint tremors, like a low-frequency hum, coming from the table beneath me.
A soft hiss came from a sleek, automated door, and then a woman stepped into the room. She had long, flowing silver hair that seemed to just catch the light, falling like moonlight over her shoulders, and these sharp, intelligent golden eyes that somehow missed nothing. She was wearing a pristine white combat uniform, perfectly tailored, with this prominent emblem of a celestial faction on it. Sera Eynhart. I recognized the name from the fragmented whispers I'd heard—rumors of the "Lumen Astra" faction , one of the main rulers of Layer Apex. They were the elite, you know, the ones who called themselves the protectors of the world's order, wielding supreme martial arts and spiritual power, and seriously known for hating anything they deemed "weak" or "unclean".
"Subject is conscious," Sera stated, her voice as clear and cold as ice, absolutely no warmth in it. She looked at me with this dismissive gaze, like I was just some fascinating but totally insignificant lab specimen under a microscope. "We've never encountered an anomaly quite like you. Born in Core Null , a zone that shouldn't even be acknowledged, yet possessing an Ascension Protocol that activated spontaneously. You shouldn't exist in this system, in this reality."
"What… what happened to me?" My voice was a rough whisper, my throat dry and tight. I tried to push myself up, but a dull ache resonated through my limbs, and my body felt surprisingly weak, like all my strength had just been sucked out of me.
"You were found on the border of Layer Rise, unconscious," Sera explained, her golden eyes quickly scanning the data on a sleek, translucent tablet she held. "The system detected an anomaly within you. Specifically, an 'Unauthorized Ascension Host'. We brought you here, to Nexus Academy, for study". She paused, a hint of something that might have been curiosity, or maybe just pure disgust, flickered in her golden eyes. "Nexus Academy is the primary training ground for 'Prospective Ascendants' , a place where power can be bought, influence wielded, and status inherited by blood. You, a Glitchborn from Layer Null, are, by definition, an error".
"I'm no error," I retorted, a flicker of my usual defiance sparking in my silver eyes, even though my body felt like dead weight.
"You are a research subject," Sera countered, her tone unwavering. "We intend to understand how the 'ancient, lost system—Protocol Zero' that you possess could have activated. This 'Ascension Protocol' is something that should only be accessible to the highest echelons". She waved a hand vaguely at the room. "Here, your strength is measured by your connection to the system, your lineage, and your potential to ascend. You have none of those, not in the recognized sense." She rattled off info about the tiered system of the academy, how students were shoved into castes based on their innate abilities and social standing. Me? Without formal magical or martial arts training, without a traceable family tree? I was just summarily assigned to the "Omega Class"—basically, a dumping ground for failed students and experimental subjects, those they deemed useless or disposable. The irony wasn't lost on me: the one who had nothing, yet somehow harbored the most forbidden system.
Sera turned to leave, her pristine white uniform rustling softly. "Tomorrow, you will undergo the Entrance Trial. Don't expect much. You're just a reserve in the lowest class. A footnote."
I watched Sera go, the automated door sliding shut behind her with a soft click. My heart was just this chaotic mess of anger, confusion, and this bitter, all-too-familiar sense of injustice. This world was clearly not Layer Null. It was far more structured, way more insidious. This was a new prison, a new trap, a place where I'd have to fight for survival all over again. But this time, my enemies weren't just chaotic monsters; they were the system itself, and the elite who guarded it with such cold, clinical precision. They called me weak. They called me useless. But they were about to find out, this error could rewrite their entire reality. The low hum of the medical equipment seemed to mock me, but a deeper hum, the nascent stirrings of the Ascension Protocol within me, promised something else entirely. Something dangerous.
My head was spinning.
My brain was a mess of conflicting thoughts. The sheer, sterile whiteness of Nexus Academy was such a stark contrast to the gritty, ruined existence I'd always known. In Layer Null, survival was all about instinct, about raw, brutal adaptation. You just did what you had to do. Here, though, it seemed to be all about rules, about systems, about a meticulously constructed hierarchy that felt… suffocating. I remembered the feel of the rough, broken ground beneath my feet back home, the constant, biting chill, the faint, lingering metallic tang of decay that just permeated everything. Here, the air was filtered, climate-controlled, totally devoid of any scent except for that damn antiseptic. It felt… unnatural. Like a performance.
I could still feel the residual tremor from the Ascension Protocol's activation. It wasn't a skill, not like a spell or some fancy martial art. It was a fundamental shift, a rewiring of my very being. The transparency of that system window, the clinical language of "Unauthorized Ascension Host," it all felt too precise, too… engineered. I was a glitch, yeah, but I was also a living, breathing being. Could they really just dissect me, analyze me, and then "delete" me if I didn't fit their parameters? The thought sent a cold dread through me, a familiar feeling from Layer Null where existence itself was always precarious.
I thought of Reo. The guy was a total pain, loud and impulsive, but he was real. A survivor. I wondered if he'd made it through that portal, if he was still back in that crumbling, forgotten zone. Weirdly, I missed the raw, unfiltered chaos of Layer Null. At least there, the threats were obvious. Here, everything was veiled in pristine white and polite, icy words.
This Academy place was clearly designed to be a crucible, to forge "Ascendants". But me, who had seen the true face of the world's failures, I suspected it was more than just a training ground. Sera Eynhart's words about "status inherited by blood" and "power could be bought" really grated on me. It just reinforced my long-held belief that this world was totally corrupt, built on the backs of those they deemed weak and forgotten. My time in Core Null, where I was just a "child of the forbidden zone," had left this deep, nasty wound inside me. I was smart, yeah, cold, analytical, a survivor who kept everyone at arm's length. But beneath that hardened shell, this hidden idealism still burned, a quiet, almost desperate desire to change the world. I just hadn't known how. Now, maybe, the Ascension Protocol was giving me the way.
I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate. I could feel it now, a subtle hum just beneath my skin, a constant connection to the Ascension Protocol. It was like having an extra layer of awareness, a constant feedback loop of information. It felt… foreign, yet strangely natural, like it had always been there, just sleeping. I knew I needed to understand it, to master it, before it just took over me. They called me an anomaly, an error that shouldn't exist. But what if the real error wasn't me, but the system itself? What if I was the debugging tool?
I tried to envision the Codex, that "buku sistem manual" that Sera had unwittingly referred to. Was it really somewhere inside my mind? I pushed, gently, mentally. A faint, almost imperceptible shift occurred, like the quiet click of tumblers in a complex lock. I wasn't sure what I was accessing, but I knew it was something powerful, something that had been hidden even from me.
I was in a world that recognized "Aspect" (the basic elemental core of a character, like Void, Flame, Time, Soul, Ether, etc.) and "Code" (the specific type of unique ability, like Rewrite, Fusion, Erasure, etc.). My Aspect was Void, my Code was Rewrite. These weren't just labels; they were fundamental definitions of power here. I was still a total blank slate in terms of "Rank" (F-SSS+, determined by success in trials or combat) and "Echo" (traces left by defeated opponents, which could be accessed for extra power), but I knew that would change. It had to.
The memory of the glitch beast freezing, of time seemingly bending to my will, replayed in my mind. I wasn't just adapting to my environment anymore; I was influencing it on a fundamental level. This wasn't the brute force of Layer Null. This was precision. This was control. This was rewriting.
I lay there for a long time, the antiseptic smell slowly fading into the background as my focus sharpened. I wasn't just Kael Serian, the discard from Layer Null, anymore. I was Kael Serian, the unauthorized host, the anomaly. And I was going to survive. Not just survive, but understand, and perhaps, eventually, dismantle this perfect, cruel system from the inside out. I had nothing to lose, and a whole reality to potentially rewrite.