The siren wasn't supposed to be on.
Not today.
Kael stopped mid-stride as the red-ringed gate alert pulsed against the alley wall.
Low-grade. D-tier. Wolf den classification.
He blinked.
Frowned.
There hadn't been a gate scheduled here.
He checked his HUD calendar.
[INSTANCE: W-94 | STATUS: UNLISTED]
[PARTY INSIDE: YES]
[STABILITY: DEGRADING]
Unlisted?
That wasn't just rare. That was dangerous.
These zones were supposed to be deprecated, not active.
He stepped closer to the warped archway.
Glitchlight pulsed in slow, unhealthy flickers. The coloration was off — green-gray with threads of violet static. The scent of ozone and mud leaked out like a humid exhale.
Inside, distant shouts echoed.
Metal clashing.
Then: screaming.
Kael crouched by the threshold.
He didn't cross.
Not yet.
Instead, he opened a trace window — not one the system encouraged — and pinged the environment variables.
[PARTY INSIDE: 4 MEMBERS | LOW RANK]
[MOB COUNT: 14]
[INTENDED MOB COUNT: 6]
[ERROR: DENSITY MULTIPLIER FLAGGED — INSTANCE DE-SYNC]
A desync.
Someone had deployed into a malformed gate.
Unstable spawn logic.
Too many mobs for a D-tier group.
Too many wolves.
He peered inside, careful not to breach the veil.
The world on the other side wavered like water behind glass — a forest path bathed in swamp haze. A young shieldbearer — no older than nineteen — was yelling at his squad to retreat. His shield arm trembled.
Kael watched the wolves advance.
He knew this terrain.
This wasn't today's schedule.
This was an old raid. An archived one.
From before the rollback.
"Not again," he muttered.
Then narrowed his eyes.
And prepped the patch field.
The wolves broke from the trees all at once.
Kael didn't move.
Didn't speak.
The tank — young, barely armored, green rank badge stitched off-center on his shoulder — was screaming something.
"Hold the line—hold—hold the—!"
His shield was raised.
But the icon on his HUD glowed red.
Still on cooldown.
[SKILL: IRON REBOUND]
[STATUS: COOLING — 3.4 SECONDS REMAINING]
Kael did the math instantly.
The lead wolf was already in the air.
Its trajectory was locked.
2.1 seconds to impact.
The skill would not be ready.
He's going to die.
Kael's eyes flicked open.
His HUD unfolded — but not the surface layer. He dived beneath the code, into the thread weave. The dev veil flickered into place, rippling blue like a second skin.
[LOCATE: NEAREST ACTIVE INSTANCE / SHIELDBEARER ID]
[ACCESS SKILL THREAD: IRON REBOUND]
[EDIT VALUE: COOLDOWN_TIME_REMAINING → 0.0s]
[APPLY PATCH]
The moment blurred.
A shimmer rippled through the air.
The tank's shield lit up.
Skill activated.
A surge of silver glyphs ran across the metal surface — the sigil of rebound deflection burst forward, and the wolf's claws struck the center with a deafening clang.
The boy didn't fall.
He didn't die.
He stood — blinking, stunned.
Alive.
From Kael's side of the gate, the glyph crack on his forearm pulsed once — not gently.
It throbbed.
Burned.
He exhaled sharply and tucked his hand under his coat.
Inside the gate, the rookie party rallied.
The healer shouted something.
The blademancer swept left to clear the flank.
The wolf pack scattered.
The moment passed.
They were safe.
But the healer was staring at her HUD.
Confused.
"That cooldown was still ticking…" she murmured.
Kael stepped back from the gate.
He never crossed the veil.
Never spoke to them.
Never showed his face.
But in the corner of his eye, a system warning flickered:
[UNAUTHORIZED PATCH DETECTED — FLAGGED: SYNC THREAD DELTA]
[LOCATION: UNKNOWN]
[SOURCE: OBFUSCATED]
The system knew something had changed.
But not who had changed it.
Not yet.
He exhaled through his nose and walked away.
Inside the forest instance, the tension was breaking.
The wolves lay dead or scattered.
The tank dropped to his knees, breath heaving. His sword clattered from his hand, forgotten.
"I thought I was dead," he whispered.
"You should've been," the healer muttered, crouching beside him.
He blinked at her.
"What?"
"Your shield skill," she said, pulling up the log window on her visor. "It still had over three seconds on cooldown when the wolf lunged. Then — poof — it lit up. Zero delay. No prep. Just…"
She frowned.
Her interface pulsed.
[ERROR: SYNC SKIP — NO REGISTERED THREAD]
[COOLDOWN FLAG: OVERRIDDEN | ORIGIN: UNKNOWN]
"...It says your skill cooldown just... skipped," she finished.
"Is that… a bug?" the swordsman asked behind them, shouldering his blade. "Because that was incredible."
"It's not supposed to happen," the healer said quietly.
"Then maybe it was fate," the tank said with a shaky grin. "Maybe I've got a guardian glitched into my code."
She didn't laugh.
Two blocks away, Kael stopped beside a closed café window.
He leaned against the wall, calm on the outside.
His arm burned under the sleeve.
He pulled up his devlog.
[ENTRY: TRIAL RUN SUCCESSFUL]
Instance: Unscheduled D-tier raid
Party: 4 rookies, Bug: Mob density x2
Action: Live patch — cooldown override on tank's skill
Result: Survival
Cost: Glyph surge + minor sync backlash
No system trace of author.
He hesitated.
Then added one more line.
"They called it luck."
Kael's boots clicked lightly against the ferrocrete as he passed through the lower district's old canal overpass.
Sunlight had begun dipping, shadows sliding longer behind street signs and rusted rails.
He walked like nothing had happened.
No one followed.
No alarms.
But halfway across the walkway bridge, a soft chime echoed in his audio field.
Not a system alert.
A guild trace ping.
[INCOMING FLAGGED SCAN — LEVEL 3 | NOTIFICATION FROM: GUILD OPS CHANNEL]
[CONTENT: ANOMALOUS RAID STABILIZATION | INSTANCE: W-94]
[SUMMARY: Cooldown sync irregularity detected in low-tier raid. No system cause. No player-reported bug. Trace inconclusive.]
[DO YOU WISH TO REVIEW TRACE THREAD?]
Kael slowed his steps.
Not enough to draw notice.
Just enough to process.
He flicked the ping open on a secondary layer — not the devlog. Not the live patch view. Just the basic external scan.
He saw the logs.
The spike.
The moment.
The exact 0.02-second dip in cooldown logic, followed by a perfect block animation.
It was subtle.
It was technical.
But it was impossible.
The trace didn't identify a source.
No player ID was flagged.
No foreign skill linked.
The system couldn't attribute it.
But the guild team had seen it.
Someone, somewhere, had eyes.
First ripple.
Kael didn't open a reply.
Didn't file a countertrace.
He selected the packet.
Tapped once.
[DELETE NOTIFICATION]
The ping vanished.
No logs remained on his end.
But it had been sent.
It existed.
The rooftop near tramline 14 was his again tonight.
Nobody came up here anymore. The railing was broken. The access hatch jammed. Even the vending drones had stopped bothering.
It was perfect.
Kael sat cross-legged beside the power conduit box and peeled back the sleeve on his right arm.
The glyph crack glowed faintly, like light trapped under ice.
He winced as he flexed his wrist.
Still spreading.
But slow.
For now.
He called up the devlog — the hidden one.
The one never meant for system review.
[OPEN FILE: PATCH_DIARY.SN | V0.02]
#Entry 07.05: Trial Patch — Cooldown Override
Instance: W-94
Type: D-class malformed gate
Action: Skill thread patch — shield cooldown forced to 0.0s
Result: Successful activation, party survived
Cost: Glyph surge, minor pain spike, system flag (trace ping Lvl 3)
Exposure: No identity tagged, but anomaly recorded by guild ops
Notes:
Patch layering works in real-time under high-stress instance loads.
Environmental threading stable.
Trace flag worrying — even untagged, the anomaly exists.
I am not invisible. Just unnoticed. For now.
He paused.
Fingers hovered.
Then added a final line.
"The patch worked. They lived. But next time, it won't go unnoticed."
And just beneath that…
"Everything I learn, I leave behind — for her."
He closed the file.
Let the silence return.
Only the faint hum of power through the conduits. The blinking city lights. The smear of stars overhead.
Kael rested his head against the wall.
For a moment — one, small, quiet moment — he allowed himself to feel a sliver of pride.