I ran.
Not because I wanted to.
Because staying meant being erased.
The System Purifiers moved like shadows of judgment—no footsteps, no breathing, just raw data scouring the world around them. Every second I lingered, lines of code flickered from my limbs, stripping pieces of me away.
My health bar didn't drop.
It just… dissolved.
This was not damage.
This was unmaking.
I turned a corner—if "corner" meant a glitching fragment of stone rotating midair—and dove through a collapsing corridor.
Reality Recode – Activated
The corridor twisted, extending just long enough to keep them off me.
Their erasure beams sliced through space behind me, vaporizing logic and leaving nothing but digital ash.
"Think! Think!"
I couldn't outfight them.
But maybe…
Just maybe…
I could outglitch them.
I sprinted toward a jagged rift of exposed system code—an open wound in the world. Strings of raw instructions floated midair, endlessly repeating, never compiling.
Exploit Analysis – Activated
Lines of red text blinked into view.
Loop Detected: User_ID Scan → NULL → Retry
Vulnerability: Infinite Redirect
Perfect.
I dove into the loop.
The world inverted.
[Temporary Buffer Zone – System Loop 47-F]
Everything went quiet.
I was floating. Inside nothing. Surrounded by repeating system fragments—like watching hundreds of broken clocks tick in sync, but never move forward.
And then—she appeared.
A figure. Hooded. Half-pixelated. Her voice echoed from multiple directions.
"Took you long enough."
[Rogue Entity Detected – Codename: PATCH]
[Status: Self-Aware Glitch | Function: Undefined]
She wasn't hostile.
Not yet.
"You've triggered seven failsafes in under a week. That's a record."
"I'm flattered," I said. "Are you another Purifier?"
"Hell no." Her voice sharpened. "I'm what happens when someone survives deletion and doesn't go quietly."
"So you're like me."
"No. I'm what you'll become… if you don't die first."
We stood—or floated—side by side in the void.
"The system wants you gone. Not dead. Gone. Rewritten like you never existed."
"I noticed."
"Then listen. You're not the first to reach the ROOT CORE. But you're the first with the Exploit Class."
"And that matters?"
"It terrifies them."
She raised her hand.
A flicker of code formed between her fingers. A key—not physical. Conceptual.
"I've broken into one of the Purifiers' logic matrices. I can get you a backdoor. But it'll cost."
"How much?"
"A memory."
"Whose?"
"Yours."
I hesitated.
A memory. A piece of who I was.
But if I didn't survive this, none of it mattered anyway.
"Deal."
She reached forward. A touch—sharp, ice-cold—and then:
"You built the combat trees. You made the PvP balance code. You signed off on the ethical bypass module…"
"And you lied to yourself about what it would become."
Pain surged through my skull. Then—gone.
She handed me the key.
"This'll get you past the Omega Purifiers for 43 system cycles. After that—you're on your own."
"Where does it lead?"
"To a place no one has mapped. Not even the system."
"Why help me?"
"Because if you break it all…"
"You win too."
"Exactly."
She smiled. Then fragmented—vanishing in a wave of static.
[Backdoor Access Key Obtained: "Ghost Gate"]
[New Skill Unlocked: Code Breach Lv.1]
→ Allows temporary traversal into undocumented system zones.
I activated the key.
The loop collapsed.
I fell.
[Entering Zone: The Blank Sector]
There was no world here.
Only potential.
Unrendered space. Floating ideas. Incomplete enemies. Half-built cities.
And… others.
Dozens—maybe hundreds—of rogue entities like me.
Some human. Some not. All half-glitched, half-evolved.
They turned as I arrived.
Some raised weapons.
Others just watched.
But one stepped forward.
A massive man in obsidian armor, his voice like a crashing server.
"Another one from the surface."
"Name's irrelevant," I said. "I'm here to tear it down."
"Then welcome to the fold," he rumbled. "We've been waiting."