Chapter 4: Glitch in the System
The sound of the Sentinel's pursuit was a metronome of dread. Not the heavy footfalls of a running man, but a rhythmic, precise tap-tap-tap of armored soles striking pavement at an impossible, consistent speed. It sounded less like a chase and more like a countdown.
"This way!" the Sorcerer gasped, his name revealed in a panicked moment as Leo. He pointed a trembling finger towards a service alley clogged with overturned dumpsters and fire escapes. "The rift signature… it's strongest there!"
Rocky didn't waste breath asking questions. He followed, his own movements silent as a ghost, a side-effect of Cracker's biomass subtly reshaping his footfalls. The black marks on his skin were a constant, warm pulse, a reminder of the volatile power sleeping beneath.
"The Sentinel is a Tier-1 enforcement construct," Orion's voice was a rapid, data-stream in his mind. "Standard loadout: System-augmented physicality, mana-disruption fields, and analytical sight capable of piercing low-level stealth Skills. Your NULL status and CRACKER's exotic biology are its primary unknowns. Use that."
"How do we fight it?" Rocky hissed, ducking under a low-hanging ladder.
"We do not. Probability of victory in direct engagement: 4.7%. Its purpose is capture and analysis. We must become un-analyzable."
They burst out of the alley into a small, debris-filled courtyard. And there it was.
Hanging in the air, about seven feet off the ground, was a tear in reality. It was roughly oval, the edges crackling with unstable violet energy. Through it, Rocky could see a glimpse of another place—a cavernous darkness lit by glowing moss, with jagged, unnatural stone formations. The air around it tasted of static and damp earth.
"It's a tutorial rift!" Leo said, a hint of his academic nature surfacing through the fear. "They're supposed to be safe-ish! For training! But this one's reading as unstable… going critical."
"Precisely," Orion cut in. "The chaotic energy of a collapsing rift will create a massive system interference signature. It will mask our exit and potentially corrupt the Sentinel's tracking data. We must enter and traverse it before the collapse propagates."
The tap-tap-tap grew louder, rounding the corner behind them.
Rocky looked at the rift, then at Leo's pale face. "You don't have to follow me in there."
Leo swallowed hard, looking from the terrifying rift to the approaching, rhythmic taps that promised sterile, system-mandated oblivion. "The Sentinel will dissect me just for being with you," he whispered. Then, with a shaky resolve, he nodded. "I'm in."
"Stay close." Rocky turned and sprinted for the rift. He didn't jump. He ran straight up the side of a rusted delivery truck parked below it, using the enhanced strength in his legs to launch himself through the violent, violet tear.
The sensation was like being pulled through a tube lined with sandpaper and lightning. His body screamed in protest. The mark on his arm flared, and Cracker's biomass instinctively surged, forming a thin, protective carapace over his skin that crackled and smoked as it absorbed the spatial shearing forces.
Then he was through, stumbling onto damp, spongy stone. The air was cold, thick, and smelled of fungi and ozone. The violet light of the rift behind him was the only illumination, casting long, dancing shadows from the strange, tooth-like stalagmites.
Leo tumbled through a second later, landing hard and retching. The rift flickered violently.
"Collapse sequence initiated. Temporal estimate to full closure: 90 seconds."
Before Rocky could take stock of their new environment, the rift flashed again. A figure stepped through with calm, mechanical grace.
The Sentinel.
It was humanoid, clad in seamless, matte-grey armor devoid of insignia or seam. Its visor was a smooth, dark plane that reflected the flickering rift light. It stood just inside the dungeon, completely unaffected by the violent transition. It didn't breathe. It simply observed.
[Sentinel Unit Gamma-7.]
[Directive: Apprehend and Analyze Anomaly NULL-01.]
[Secondary Directive: Detain Associated Entity for questioning.]
Its voice was a genderless, synthesized tone that seemed to come from everywhere at once. It raised a hand. A ring of pale blue light, like a scanner, emanated from its palm and swept over Rocky.
[Scanning... ERROR. Biological matrix inconsistent.]
[Scanning... ERROR. Energy signature null.]
[Scanning... Adopting invasive protocols.]
Thin, needle-like probes telescoped from its fingertips. "You will submit to system diagnostics, Anomaly."
"Run, Leo!" Rocky barked, shoving the Sorcerer deeper into the cavern. He stood his ground, facing the Sentinel. He had no plan. Only defiance.
The Sentinel moved. It was a blur. One second it was ten feet away, the next its hand was shooting towards Rocky's neck, needles gleaming.
Rocky's body reacted before his mind could. Cracker's instincts—the instincts of a creature that had evaded cosmic predators—took over. His torso contorted in a way no human ribcage should allow, the biomass within him shifting violently to facilitate the dodge. The needles grazed his shoulder, and a jolt of numbing, system-based energy shot through him, making his muscles spasm.
"Mana-disruption charge. CRACKER's biology is resisting, but your nervous system is vulnerable," Orion warned.
The Sentinel analyzed the dodge, its head tilting. [Physical capability exceeds NULL parameters. Hypothesis: External bio-enhancement.] It adjusted its stance, and this time, when it struck, its other hand glowed with a nullifying grey light—a mana-disruption field designed to unravel magical enhancements.
It thought Cracker was magic.
The field-wreathed hand closed around Rocky's newly formed, biomass-constructed forearm blade as he tried to block. The grey light flared. Rocky expected agony, for the blade to dissolve.
Instead, Cracker raged.
The biomass wasn't magic. It was alien. It was physical matter, just exponentially mutable. The system' mana-disruption field did nothing to break its bonds, but the attempt to do so was felt as a profound insult by the primal consciousness within.
A roar, silent in the air but deafening in Rocky's soul, erupted from the mark. The blade in the Sentinel's grip didn't dissolve; it multiplied. Tendrils of black, rubbery matter exploded from it, wrapping around the Sentinel's arm, climbing towards its torso with frightening speed. Tiny, red-glowing maws formed on the tendrils, biting and grinding against the matte-grey armor with a sound like grinding teeth on steel.
[ERROR. Enhancement type misidentified. Analysis: Parasitic/Symbiotic Bio-Weapon. Threat reassessment: Upgraded.]
The Sentinel retracted its hand, a pulse of raw kinetic force emitting from its body. The tendrils were blasted away, shredding into black gobbets that then flowed like mercury back towards Rocky. The Sentinel's armor was scored with deep, smoking grooves where Cracker had bitten.
It was learning. And it was done trying to capture intact.
A panel on its forearm slid open. A muzzle emerged. It glowed with a concentrated, white-hot energy. [Lethal force authorized for persistent anomalies.]
"Rocky, DOWN!" Leo's voice shrieked from behind a stalagmite.
Instinct and trust made Rocky drop. As he did, Leo rose, his hands cupped. Not silver light this time, but a swirling, chaotic vortex of grey and black energy—Void Magic.
"Spatial Shear!" Leo cried, thrusting his hands forward.
A distorted wave of energy shot forth, not at the Sentinel, but at the cavern ceiling above it. The very stone seemed to twist and warp. A massive chunk of glowing moss, crystal, and rock sheared off with a deafening crack and plummeted down.
The Sentinel's weapon fired just as the debris hit. A lance of white energy vaporized a section of the falling rock but was buried under tons of stone. The cavern floor shook violently. A cloud of dust and phosphorescent spores filled the air.
"The rift is destabilizing further! Collapse in 30 seconds! This section of the cavern will be sealed!" Orion announced.
"Leo! Which way?!" Rocky coughed, scrambling up.
"Deeper! The system map in my head… there's another exit vector, but it's through the heart of the dungeon!"
They ran, leaving the buried Sentinel behind. The path sloped downward, the glowing moss providing an eerie guide. Strange, fungal creatures scuttled away from their path. The ground trembled again as the rift collapse propagated through the dungeon's unstable structure.
They reached a large, circular chamber. In its center was a pulsing, heart-like formation of crystalline fungus—the dungeon core. And between them and the far tunnel, their exit, was the dungeon's designated "boss."
It was a colossal, six-legged lizard, its back covered in the same glowing moss, its mouth a cave of dripping, crystalline teeth. Its eyes glowed with the same violet energy as the rift.
It roared, the sound shaking loose more rock from the ceiling.
"We can't fight that!" Leo yelled, despair in his voice.
"We do not need to defeat it," Orion stated. "We need to pass it. Rocky, CRACKER reacted aggressively to the system's attempt to nullify it. Hypothesis: It perceives system-based energies as threats or… food. The dungeon core is a concentrated node of unstable system energy."
Rocky understood. A crazy, suicidal idea. "Draw its attention, Leo! Give me five seconds!"
"How?!"
"Make a big, shiny, magical distraction!"
Leo, trusting the insane Null more than the giant lizard, nodded. He began chanting, weaving his hands in complex patterns, pulling on the last dregs of his mana. Silver light, pure and bright, began to form around him.
The Mossback Patriarch turned from Rocky, drawn to the concentrated magical signature.
Now.
Rocky didn't run towards the exit. He sprinted towards the dungeon core. The massive lizard, sensing his approach towards its heart, began to turn back, but Leo released his spell.
"Flash of Revelation!" A blinding nova of silver light exploded in the chamber, not damaging, but utterly overwhelming to senses attuned to the dungeon's gloom. The Patriarch reeled, blinded and confused.
Rocky reached the pulsing core. It was a jagged crystal of violet energy, throbbing like a sick heart. He could feel the wrongness of it, the system's coding made manifest and rotting.
He placed his hands on it. The marks on his skin burned.
"Cracker… eat."
He didn't know if it would understand. He poured the will, the need into the bond. The need to survive, to break the rules, to consume the very system that hunted them.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, a deep, resonant hunger answered him.
Black tendrils, thicker and more numerous than ever before, erupted from every mark on Rocky's body. They didn't strike the core. They flowed over it, encasing it in a living, black cocoon. The red cracks in Cracker's form blazed like lava. A soundless vibration filled the air.
The core's violent pulsing stuttered. The violet light began to dim, being absorbed, drawn into the ravenous biomass. The entire cavern shook more violently. The Mossback Patriarch screamed, not in rage, but in agony and confusion, its connection to the dungeon severing.
"Unprecedented energy absorption! CRACKER is assimilating system code and spatial stabilizers! Biomass reserves overflowing! Redirecting—" Orion's voice was a mixture of alarm and awe.
The black cocoon shrank, the core now gone, completely devoured. The tendrils retracted into Rocky. He gasped, falling to one knee. His body felt like a supernova contained in skin. Power, raw and chaotic, surged through him. The black marks on his skin were now etched with faint, pulsing violet lines.
[ALERT: Dungeon Core Consumed.]
[Dungeon Instance 'Mossback Caverns' collapsing.]
[ANOMALY DETECTED: NULL-01 has assimilated system-native energy. Paradox Level Increased.]
[Sentinel Signal… Lost in collapse interference.]
The far tunnel, their exit, began to crumple.
"ROCKY!" Leo screamed, running towards him.
Rocky forced himself up, the world swimming in his enhanced, energy-overloaded vision. He grabbed Leo's arm, and with strength fueled by digested dungeon core, he hurled them both towards the collapsing tunnel just as the ceiling of the chamber gave way.
They landed in a heap as stone and darkness sealed shut behind them, permanently burying the Sentinel and the remains of the tutorial dungeon.
Silence, save for their ragged breaths and the faint, dying glow of the moss. They were in another tunnel, leading upwards. Towards surface light.
Leo stared at Rocky, who was slowly getting to his feet. The black and violet marks on his skin slowly faded, sinking from view, but the sense of immense, contained power around him was palpable.
"You… you ate the dungeon's heart," Leo whispered, his voice full of horror and fascination.
Rocky looked at his own hands, still feeling the echo of that impossible consumption. He looked at Leo, then back the way they came, where a system hunter lay buried under a mountain of rock.
"It was in our way," Rocky said simply, the words carrying a new, dangerous weight. "Let's go. The surface is changing. And we just made sure the system will never stop looking for us."
As they walked towards the light, a final, glitched notification, tinged with the violet energy he'd consumed, flickered in Rocky's vision.
[Trait Hoarded: 'Spatial Instability Resistance' – (Low-Grade)]
[SYSTEM MEMORANDUM: Anomaly NULL-01 is no longer classified as passive. Upgrade to ACTIVE THREAT pending review.]
The game had just gotten much more serious.
---
[END OF CHAPTER 4]
Author's Note: Rocky and Cracker have done the impossible—they've directly consumed and corrupted a piece of the system itself. The stakes have skyrocketed. What are the long-term effects of having dungeon core energy inside him? How will the system respond to an "ACTIVE THREAT" Null? And what happened to Sentinel Gamma-7?
Next Time on Apex Paradox: Chapter 5 - The Unregistered - Emerging into a changed city, Rocky and Leo must find shelter and allies among other system outliers. The first rumors of "The Covenant" reach their ears. And Cracker, after its first true feast, begins to change...
NULL
Chapter 4: Glitch in the System
(Manhwa × Manga Script Format)
PAGE / SCROLL 1 — SENTINEL PURSUIT
PANEL 1 (LONG SHOT / STREET ALLEY)
Tap-tap-tap of Sentinel's boots echoing like a countdown.
CAPTION:
The sound of pursuit was a metronome of dread. Not heavy footfalls… but a precise, relentless tick.
PANEL 2 (CLOSE-UP: LEO'S FACE, PANICKED)
"This way! The rift signature… it's strongest there!"
PANEL 3 (ROCKY, SIDE VIEW)
Moving like a shadow, footfalls silent. Marks on his skin pulsing faintly.
ORION HUD (overlay in panel):
Sentinel: Tier-1 enforcement. NULL status + CRACKER biology unknown. Avoid direct engagement.
PAGE / SCROLL 2 — DUNGEON RIFT REVEALED
PANEL 4 (FULL-WIDTH / COURTYARD)
Oval tear in reality, violet energy crackling. Through it, cavern darkness with glowing moss.
SYSTEM HUD PANEL:
PANEL 5 (LEO POINTING, CLOSE-UP)
"Tutorial rift… supposed to be safe-ish… but unstable!"
PANEL 6 (ROCKY, SIDE VIEW, FOCUSED)
"Stay close."
PAGE / SCROLL 3 — ENTERING THE RIFT
PANEL 7 (ACTION / ROCKY LAUNCHING)
Runs up rusted delivery truck, jumping through the violet rift.
SFX:
WHOOSH—CRACKLE
PANEL 8 (INSIDE RIFT)
Body pulled through sandpaper-like, lightning-lined tube. Cracker forms protective carapace.
CAPTION:
Sensation like being ripped through reality itself.
PANEL 9 (LEO TUMBLING THROUGH)
Retching, rift flickering violently behind him.
HUD:
Collapse sequence initiated. Full closure in 90 seconds.
PAGE / SCROLL 4 — SENTINEL APPEARS
PANEL 10 (FULL-BODY / HUMANOID SENTINEL)
Matte-grey armor, reflective visor, seamless design, floating slightly above ground.
SYSTEM HUD PANEL:
[Sentinel Unit Gamma-7]
[Directive: Apprehend NULL-01]
PANEL 11 (SENTINEL SCANNER)
Ring of blue light sweeps Rocky.
[Scanning… ERROR. Biological matrix inconsistent.]
[Energy signature null.]
PANEL 12 (NEEDLE PROBES EXTENDING)
Sentinel hand shooting toward Rocky's neck.
ROCKY:
"Run, Leo!"
PAGE / SCROLL 5 — CRACKER VS SENTINEL
PANEL 13 (ROCKY DODGING NEEDLES)
Torso contorts, biomass shifting to dodge.
ORION HUD:
Nervous system vulnerable. Mana-disruption field active.
PANEL 14 (SENTINEL STRIKES AGAIN)
Grey light nullifies magic. Cracker's biomass unaffected.
PANEL 15 (BIOMASS COUNTER-STRIKE)
Tendrils erupt, black and red, wrapping Sentinel's arm, biting at armor.
SFX:
GRIND—CRUNCH!
SYSTEM HUD:
[Threat reassessment: Upgraded]
PANEL 16 (SENTINEL BLASTS TENDRILS)
Black biomass shredded, recoils into Rocky. Armor scored but intact.
PAGE / SCROLL 6 — LEO'S SPELL
PANEL 17 (LEO PREPARING SPELL, CHAOTIC ENERGY)
Grey-black swirling magic vortex, hands thrust forward.
LEO:
"Spatial Shear!"
PANEL 18 (ROCKY MOVING TOWARD CORE)
Lizard-like dungeon core in center, jagged violet crystal pulsing.
PANEL 19 (MOSSBACK PATRIARCH, FULL BODY)
Six-legged boss, glowing moss on back, crystalline teeth, enraged.
SYSTEM HUD:
PAGE / SCROLL 7 — CRACKER CONSUMES CORE
PANEL 20 (ROCKY HANDS ON DUNGEON CORE)
Black tendrils erupt from every mark, encasing core.
SFX:
HUM—VIBRATION
PANEL 21 (CORE DISAPPEARS)
Light dims; mossback Patriarch screams, connection severed.
ORION HUD:
Unprecedented energy absorption! CRACKER assimilating system code!
PANEL 22 (ROCKY KNEELING, POWER OVERFLOWING)
Black and violet marks pulse; immense contained power radiates.
HUD ALERT:
Dungeon Core Consumed. Paradox Level Increased. Sentinel Signal Lost.
PAGE / SCROLL 8 — ESCAPE
PANEL 23 (ROCKY GRABBING LEO)
Leaping toward collapsing exit tunnel. Stone and darkness seal the rift behind them.
PANEL 24 (SURFACE LIGHT IN DISTANCE)
Faint glow, damp tunnel, silence except ragged breathing.
LEO:
"You… ate the dungeon's heart."
ROCKY:
"It was in our way."
CAPTION:
The system will never stop looking for them.
PANEL 25 (FINAL HUD / GLITCHED NOTIFICATION)
[Trait Hoarded: 'Spatial Instability Resistance' – Low Grade]
[Anomaly NULL-01 upgrade: ACTIVE THREAT pending review]
END OF CHAPTER 4