The snow didn't crunch under the hooves of the Night-Mares. It clattered.
Tiny, white cubes bounced off the hard, grey surface of the ground like spilled dice. I reached down from my saddle and caught one. It was cold, but it didn't melt. It sat in my palm, a perfect, featureless cube of ice.
"It's not cold," Tybalt whispered, his teeth chattering anyway out of sheer habit. "I mean, the air is freezing, but the snow... it feels like plastic."
"Low-poly precipitation," I muttered, tossing the cube away. "The Architect didn't waste processing power on weather physics out here. This is the edge of the map, Ty. The budget ran out."
We had been riding for six hours into the Unfinished Zone. The jagged mountains we had seen from the south hadn't gotten any closer. In fact, they looked less like mountains now and more like painted backdrops—flat, 2D images pasted against a sky that lacked stars.
"Ren," Cian called out from behind me. He was riding with his nose buried in the Infinite Scroll, which was glowing with a frantic, erratic light. "The mana density here is zero. Literally zero. My scroll is running on its internal battery. Once that drains, I can't cast."
"It's a Dead Zone," Kaelen said from the front. His voice was steady, but his new heterochromatic eyes—one purple, one gold—were scanning the horizon with intensity. "But the horses are fine. They're feeding off me."
"You're a walking generator," I said. "Just don't burn out. We don't know how far the Source is."
"I see something," Lysandra said, pointing her rapier forward. "Structures. A village?"
I squinted. Through the pixelated snowfall, I saw shapes. Blocky, grey shapes arranged in a cluster.
"A village?" Ria asked, pulling her cloak tighter. "Who would live out here? The Snowmen?"
"Not a village," I said, activating [Observer Vision].
The text that popped up was red and garbled.
[Object Group: Unused Assets_04]
[Status: Corrupted]
"It's a scrap heap," I said. "Rejected buildings. Placeholders the Architect dragged here and forgot to delete."
We rode closer. The buildings were bizarre. One was a house with no door. Another was a castle tower that was only three feet tall. A third was just a floating staircase leading to nowhere.
"It's creepy," Tybalt said, steering his horse closer to Kaelen's. "It feels like a graveyard for houses."
"Quiet," Kaelen hissed. He pulled his horse to a stop. The blue fire of its mane flared up. "Something is moving in there."
We halted. The silence of the Wastes was absolute. No wind. No animals.
Then, we heard it.
Scritch. Scritch. Slide.
It sounded like dry skin rubbing against stone.
"Valen said 'Bonus Round'," I whispered, sliding off my horse. "That means combat. Weapons up."
I drew... nothing. I didn't have a weapon. I cracked my knuckles instead. Kinetic Redirect was my weapon.
Ria drew her glass daggers. Lysandra lit up her rapier, though the holy light looked dim and washed out in this grey world.
From the shadow of the doorless house, a figure emerged.
It looked human. Vaguely.
It was a grey, humanoid shape. But it had no face. No eyes, no mouth. Just a smooth, egg-like head. Its arms were too long, dragging on the ground, and its fingers were just sharp, unfinished polygons.
[Enemy: The Draft]
[Level: ??]
[Concept: Scrap]
"What is that?" Lysandra whispered, horrified.
"It's a sketch," I said. "A character model before the details are added. It has no personality, no voice lines, and no mercy."
The Draft tilted its head. It didn't see us with eyes; it sensed our code.
It opened its chest.
Literally. A seam appeared down its torso, splitting open to reveal a jagged, tooth-filled maw where its ribs should be.
SCREEEE!
It shrieked—a sound like a dial-up modem screaming in pain.
"Contact!" Kaelen shouted.
He didn't wait. He launched himself off his horse, The Prototype glowing with grey light. He swung at the creature.
The blade hit the Draft's shoulder.
CLANG.
It didn't cut. It bounced off.
"It's hard!" Kaelen yelled, landing in a crouch. "Like hitting a diamond!"
"It has no texture!" I shouted. "It's pure collision mesh! You have to hit the seams!"
More of them poured out of the buildings. Five. Ten. Twenty. A swarm of faceless, grey monsters with mouths in their chests.
"They're fast!" Ria yelled, dodging a long, sweeping arm. She stabbed at one's joint. Her Phase Blade managed to chip the grey material. "Ren! Physics check!"
"On it!"
I ran forward. A Draft lunged at me, its chest-mouth snapping.
[Skill: Kinetic Redirect]
[Input: Enemy Lunge]
[Output: Downward Force]
I slapped the creature's arm. I didn't hit it hard, but I redirected its forward momentum straight into the ground.
CRUNCH.
The Draft face-planted into the hard earth. Its polygonal head shattered like pottery.
"They're brittle!" I yelled. "Don't slash! Smash them! Blunt force!"
"Smash them," Tybalt whimpered. "Okay. I can smash."
He raised his staff. "Stone Pillar!"
Nothing happened.
"No mana!" Tybalt screamed. "I forgot! We're in a dead zone!"
A Draft leaped at him.
"Tybalt!" Cian yelled.
Cian didn't have mana either. But he had the Infinite Scroll. And he had a backpack full of heavy books.
Cian swung his backpack.
THWACK.
He hit the Draft mid-air. The creature spun away, crashing into a floating staircase.
"Science!" Cian shouted, adjusting his glasses. "Force equals mass times acceleration!"
"Good hit, nerd!" Ria laughed, kicking another Draft into Kaelen's range.
Kaelen shifted his grip. He stopped trying to cut. He used the flat of his massive blade like a spatula.
WHAM.
He swatted three Drafts at once. They flew backward, shattering against the doorless house.
"They keep coming!" Lysandra shouted. She was fencing with two of them, parrying their claws. "Valen emptied the recycle bin!"
I looked at the swarm. There were too many. And every time one shattered, two more seemed to crawl out of the debris.
"We need an AoE," I said. "Area of Effect."
I checked my Inventory.
[Item: Source Code Fragment (Space)]
[Item: Source Code Fragment (Time)]
[Item: Source Code Fragment (Physics)]
[Item: Source Code Fragment (Mind)]
I had four. Kaelen had the Soul.
"Kaelen!" I shouted over the screeching. "Use the Soul! Pulse it!"
"I don't know how!" Kaelen grunted, blocking a claw with his gauntlet. "It just... happens!"
"Feel the connection!" I yelled, dodging a swipe. "They aren't real! They're rejected data! Assert your dominance!"
Kaelen gritted his teeth. He closed his eyes for a split second.
The grey aura around him flared. It didn't explode outward like before. It condensed. It wrapped around his sword, turning the black metal into a beacon of pure, white static.
[Admin Command: Erasure.]
Kaelen swung.
He didn't hit the monsters. He hit the space in front of them.
A wave of white static washed over the swarm.
Where the static touched them, the Drafts didn't shatter. They simply... ceased to be. They vanished. No dust. No sound. Just delete.
The swarm was gone in a second.
Silence returned to the scrap heap.
Kaelen stood panting, the white static fading from his blade. He looked terrified.
"I..." He looked at his hand. "I just deleted them. I felt it. I felt their code unravel."
"You have the Admin privileges," I said, walking over to him. "That's what Valen does. That's what we're fighting."
"It felt cold," Kaelen whispered. "It felt like playing god."
"Don't get used to it," Lysandra said, sheathing her rapier. She walked up to him and put a hand on his armored shoulder. "You are Kaelen. Not a god. Just Kaelen."
He looked at her, his eyes softening. The gold and purple swirled, settling into a calm grey.
"Right," he said. "Just Kaelen."
"Nice shooting, Tex," Ria said, slapping him on the back. "But look at what you uncovered."
She pointed to the ground where the swarm had been.
The "Erasure" wave had deleted the monsters, but it had also deleted the top layer of the ground.
Underneath the fake grey snow, there was something else.
A grid.
A glowing, green grid of lines running perfectly north to south.
[Zone: The Wireframe]
[Path to Source: Exposed.]
"Follow the green brick road," I muttered.
"Is that... the floor of the world?" Tybalt asked, staring at the glowing lines.
"It's the foundation," I said. "The Architect's blueprint. Valen must be following the ley lines. If we follow this grid, it leads straight to the Console."
"Then we walk," Kaelen said. "The horses might not like stepping on raw code."
He was right. The Night-Mares were snorting nervously, refusing to step onto the green grid.
"We leave them here," I said. "They can find their way back. They're smart."
We unloaded the supplies. We shouldered our packs.
We stepped onto the grid.
It felt weird. Like walking on a vibrating floor. Every step sent a tingle up my spine.
"Ren," Cian said, walking beside me. He had his notebook out, sketching the grid patterns. "Valen's message... 'Bonus Round Unlocked'. If those scrap monsters were the minions..."
"Then the Boss is still ahead," I finished.
"And if he's following video game logic," Cian said, looking at the flat horizon, "the Bonus Round usually has a high-value reward. Or a trap."
"With Valen, it's both," I said.
We walked for another hour. The "mountains" in the distance finally started to render properly. They weren't mountains.
They were walls. Massive, white walls that went up forever.
The edge of the map.
And standing at the base of the wall, waiting for us, was a single structure.
It wasn't a castle. It wasn't a dungeon.
It was a house. A small, cozy cottage with a smoking chimney and a white picket fence. It looked completely out of place in the digital wasteland.
[Location: The Architect's Home]
[Status: Protected]
"A cottage?" Ria asked. "Seriously? We travel to the end of the world, and we find a bed and breakfast?"
"It's not a B&B," I said, gripping the strap of my bag. "It's the only place in this entire world that Arthur built for himself. The only place that's 'real'."
I walked up to the picket fence. There was a mailbox.
I opened it.
Inside was a single letter.
To the Player,
If you're reading this, I'm dead. Or logged out. Same thing.
The Console is inside. But so is the Glitch.
Don't let him out.
"The Glitch," Kaelen repeated, reading over my shoulder. "Is that Valen?"
"No," I said, a cold realization hitting me. "Valen is the Rival. He's an external threat. The Glitch... is internal."
I looked at the cottage door. It was slightly ajar.
"Valen is already inside," I said.
I pushed the gate open.
"Come on," I said. "Time to meet the landlord."