The chamber faded behind him, collapsing into broken code as Kael stepped through the flickering threshold. The walls twisted like paper in a storm, folding inward — as if reality itself was trying to forget what happened.
The system didn't like losing.
[⚠️ WARNING: Path Beyond This Point is Unstable]
[Root Layer Detected — Access Level: ADMIN+]
[Verifying Credentials...]
[❌ ACCESS DENIED]
"Of course," Kael muttered.
Still, the air shifted. A staircase of floating code blocks formed in front of him, one step at a time, carved from the system's own broken logic. With each step upward, gravity twisted. His feet sometimes sank an inch into the blocks, other times barely touched them.
[CORE SYNC: 57%]
[Passive Buff: System Feedback Immunity (Lv. 1)]
Kael was no longer just a glitch.
He was becoming something more.
At the top of the staircase, the landscape opened into a void of shifting geometry — spheres, cubes, fractals orbiting around a central spire made of pure white code. It pulsed like a heartbeat. This was the Root Layer — the system's nervous system, and the origin of all commands.
But something was wrong.
[ROOT STABILITY: 14%]
[⚠️ Multiple Rewrites Detected]
[⚠️ Rogue Protocol Active]
Kael's eyes narrowed. "Someone else is in here."
He wasn't the first.
And maybe not the only one evolving.
As he approached the spire, he began hearing voices again — only this time, not from the system.
Human.
Real.
"Get him out of there!"
"His vitals are dropping—"
"No, wait—he's adapting..."
Kael clutched his head. Static seared his thoughts. The voices were leaking in — like echoes from another world.
His world.
[🔄 Dual-Reality Sync Detected]
[Memory Restoration: 3%]
Flash.
A lab. Surgeons. Wires in his spine. Screams.
Flash.
A countdown. A betrayal. His name being erased from the database.
Kael staggered, heart pounding.
He wasn't just someone who glitched the system.
He was put here.
Buried.
Abandoned.
[🎖️ Hidden Trait Awakened: System-Born Human]
Your body is physical. Your mind is digital. You were rewritten into the system as a fallback vessel.
Kael gritted his teeth. "They turned me into code."
Suddenly, the spire cracked — just a thin line at first, then spreading like a spiderweb. A presence emerged, tall and lithe, wearing a cloak of fractal data.
Not a Judge.
Not a system protocol.
A User.
"Kael..." the figure spoke, voice filtered, glitching between familiarity and distortion. "You weren't supposed to wake up."
Kael stepped back. "Who are you?"
The figure's eyes flashed like server lights.
"I'm the one who pressed delete."