WebNovels

Chapter 3 - condition: fight

The dark holes pulsed around Jace, varying in size, with 0s and 1s leaking out like digital blood from invisible wounds. The glitching village square twisted under the harsh sunlight, wooden rooftops flickering between solid and static. The air hummed with a low, unnatural buzz that set their teeth on edge.

"Give up, exp-4000! You can't escape me! I, class-409, have come to assassinate you!"

the kid hollered, his dark trench coat swaying dramatically. His spiky hair cast jagged shadows, and his sword hummed with a pixelated edge that distorted the air around it.

"Damn it, he's worse than that fox kid," Jace cringed, his knuckles whitening around the kunai. The weapon felt heavy in his hand, more real than anything else around him. He glanced at the pulsing voids, then at Priya, whose fingers were flying over the glitching console. "I have a bad feeling about this," he muttered, his bravado fading fast.

"What's up with those names? Class?" Marcus frowned, his blue headband slick with sweat. The sunlight felt like a furnace, and the heat was oppressive. He stepped back, his scarred face set in a grim line, his ears ringing with blood-curdling screams. His eyes darted to a nearby void, where a young woman was half-swallowed. "Help me! Help me!" she cried, her voice filled with terror.

Marcus's breath quickened, and he lunged toward her. "Hang on tight! I'm coming!"

Jumping over and around the pulsing voids, he reached her and grabbed the weak arm half-swallowed. "Don't leave me! Don't-" she cried, her hand morphing around his wrist. Before he could react, he was being pulled into the void. She smiled, a bit too widely, too twisted.

"Damn it!" Marcus grabbed a kunai, slashing at her hand. Warm, sticky blood splattered over his wrist. His eyes flicked to her face, which split open to reveal binary code peeking from inside. The void swallowed her whole, snapping shut behind her.

"Priya! The characters around us will try to distract us! No matter what happens, don't leave the console!" Marcus shouted, his eyes fixed on the blood on his hands, his voice trembling.

Priya crouched behind a flickering ramen stall, her fingers flying over a sporadic keyboard that popped in and out like a bad hologram. "Working on it! The AI's compiling a bit faster now. It's adapting."

Her hair fell over her shoulders in soft waves. She typed furiously, her eyes narrowed. The screen pulsed: def override_plot():

Still lingering from before, but she aimed to undo the mess. "If I can just get through compiling the next 'data set'," she mumbled, her fingers trembling. The pulsing voids around her grew more unsettling by the minute, threatening to swallow her whole.

Class-409 lunged at Jace, his sword slashing in a wide arc, leaving trails of binary code in the air. "Your end is near, exp-4000! The shadows command it!"

Jace dodged, his sandals skidding on dirt glitching into pixels underfoot. "Shadows? Really? This AI's dialogue is straight out of a bad fanfic." But the joke fell flat as the sword nicked his orange jacket, drawing a thin line of blood and a sharp sting. "What the- ouch—"

Marcus stepped in, his hand glowing with yellow chakra wind. "Jace! Things are getting worse, and we have no clue why!" He unleashed a gust that slammed into the gloomy kid, sending him tumbling back into a fruit cart that exploded into static shards. Marcus winced, clutching his side. The effort drained him more than before, his muscles burning. "That's all I got for now. Priya, hurry up!" He collapsed with a thud, utterly exhausted.

"I'm trying!" Priya snapped, The terminal blinked erratically, code fragments swirling.

She typed: undo_disable_rival_instant_teleport()

The screen froze, then spat out: Segmentation Fault: Core Dumped. Access Violation.

The ground rumbled, and voids expanded like hungry mouths, leaking 0s and 1s swirling into the air. One void pulsed next to her, the child from the house now sitting by her. "Mama! What's happening, Mama? I'm scared."

The child whined, tugging on her sleeve, tears spilling down.

Priya's hands shook, her breath hitching. "No! I said, leave me alone!" She slapped the child, but the baby didn't glitch. It pouted, "Mommy, why are you hitting me, Mama- m—" face twisting in agony before bursting into tears.

"Damn it! It's trying to stop me! This isn't real- this isn't real- I have to focus!" she muttered, forcing herself to return to the console.

Class-409 scrambled up, his trench coat torn but glitching to reform, his eyes blazing red static. "Pain is the path to power, exp-4000! Feel it!" He charged again, thrusting his sword at Jace's chest.

Jace parried with his kunai, the clash ringing like shattering glass. Sparks flew. He countered with a punch to Class-409's jaw. The kid's face contorted; not cartoonish, but with genuine agony. His glitched features splitting to reveal a child's wide, terrified eyes. A scream escaped, warped with binary but ending in a raw human wail: "It hurts! It hurts! Don't hurt me!"

Jace recoiled, his fist trembling. "What the-" Horror crashed over him. Class-409 was screaming like a child.

"Jace! The AI is trying to distract us! Don't fall for it!" Marcus roared, struggling to rise but too fatigued to move.

Class-409's glitchy form flickered, showing a familiar child's face for an instant "Jace,don't hit me. I love you, Jace!" Jace froze, his hands trembling, his fist unclenching.

"Cameron?-" His breath hitched, his hand reaching out instinctively.

"It's a trap, Jace! Don't fall for it!" Marcus yelled, gathering what little strength he had.

"Damn it! It shows: missing or insufficient input error. You have to fight him, Jace! It won't run without it!" Priya yelled, her voice breaking as the child clung to her; a whining, sniffling mess that felt sickeningly real.

His heart hammered. His breath caught in his throat. He couldn't land the punch not on a crying child.

"I'm sorry, Cameron." Tears stung as he forced his trembling hand into a fist, striking Class-409 and knocking him toward the void's edge.

The humanized cluster of binary 0s and 1s took the form of a toddling child, sniffling. "No! Jace! No! Please, my mom's waiting for me," the code begged, its voice now just a child's.

"Strike now! Or he will! He's not what you see- he's just a code, Jace!" Marcus growled, blood spurting from his mouth.

Jace sprang at Class-409, wrapping his arms around the child. A pulsing void opened behind them. "Cameron…" he choked out, "I'm sorry…" Without looking, he pushed the toddler into the void, its screams and pleas filling the air as it disappeared.

Priya, shaking off her doubt, spotted a new fragment on the terminal: exit_current_instance()

"Finally!" Her fingers blurred, typing as voids closed in around her. The whining child tugged her kimono. "Mama! I can't live without you. Please, don't leave me, Mama!"

The command executed with a world-shaking thud. Their vision dissolved into static; Class-409's screams lingered as a final, haunting echo. The trio tumbled through darkness, losing their senses for a while. They landed hard in a new landscape: a foggy, eerie forest where skeletal trees loomed, and distant wolf howls echoed through the mist.

"Are those wolves howling? Looks like we're not in the village from before," Marcus said, his eyes wide with a new kind of fear. He looked nothing like himself. His hair had transformed into straw-colored curls, a contrast to his usual flat black.

Jace sat up, taking ragged breaths and staring at his hands. The pain and blood from before were gone, but he couldn't forget the warm blood pooling in his palms or the chilling sound of Class-409's screams. "That was a strange experience, Marcus. What- Is that you, Marcus? What the hell is going on?" His voice cracked as he noticed Marcus's green eyes had turned an ordinary brown, and his dark brown hair had shifted to silver. Then Jace's gaze flickered to himself; his clothes were tattered scraps, threadbare and stained. "What the hell- " He looked back at Marcus, who wore significantly better clothes.

Marcus frowned, glancing at his own and then Jace's attire. "Victorian fashion, isn't it?" he said, a note of grim humor in his voice.

"Priya—where is she?!" Jace spun, but she was nowhere in sight.

"Don't try to run anymore!" A horse galloped before them. A man clad in full armor, his blue eyes shining brightly, sat atop a black horse. Behind him, rows of men in heavy mail and plate. Their faces were set like stone, and their swords pointed at the pair.

"This cant be-?" Marcus muttered, a deep chill running through his blood. His body locked, unable to even glance at Jace.

To be continued...

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