The coordinates led them to madness.
Not the screaming kind — the quiet kind. The kind that made the air too still, the trees lean a little closer, and even the sun hesitate to shine.
They walked for half a day before the jungle thinned into a plateau of cracked white stone. From up here, the world stretched wide — layers of emerald forest, silver rivers, and the distant glow of the ruins they'd left behind. The air shimmered like heat, but the sky above wasn't blue anymore.
It was… alive.
Veins of light pulsed through the clouds — circuitry embedded in heaven itself, moving like the heartbeat of some sleeping god. The others stared. Lin just squinted, as if trying to read it.
Sera broke the silence first. "Okay, I'll say it: that's not weather."
Aria's eyes narrowed. "No. It's code."
[System Notification!]
[Zone Discovered: The Sky Lattice – Tier IV Zone]
[Caution: Gravitational Distortions Detected.]
Lin rubbed his temples. "The sky has an operating system now. Great."
Lina adjusted her spear, scanning the horizon. "No visible threats."
"Yet," Sera added, fire flickering nervously along her wrist.
---
They approached the plateau's center — a vast circle carved into the stone, covered in glowing sigils. At its heart was a floating pillar of crystal, humming low like it was breathing.
Lin stepped closer, palm out. The system reacted immediately.
[Access Node Detected.]
[Requirement: Fragment of the First Code.]
He lifted the shard he'd taken from the Root Ghost. It pulsed, resonating with the pillar.
A single line of text appeared in the air: "Upload or Merge?"
"Upload," Lin said without hesitation. "I'm not letting it rewrite my DNA again."
The moment the fragment touched the crystal, the plateau came alive. The sigils rotated. The air shimmered. And suddenly the sky wasn't above them anymore — it was around them.
---
They floated in a space between dimensions. Vast grids of light stretched into infinity, lines of data forming paths and bridges that drifted through nothingness. Below, glimpses of other worlds flashed by — desert kingdoms, frozen citadels, floating isles of crystal.
Sera's jaw dropped. "Are we inside the system?"
"Not inside," Aria whispered, awestruck. "Between. This is where the code sleeps."
Lin's HUD exploded with data. Messages overlapping, glitching.
[Warning: Reality Anchor Weakening.]
[Stability – 64%.]
[Presence Detected: Administrator-Class Entity.]
"Oh, come on," Lin groaned. "We just got here."
A voice thundered through the digital void — calm, precise, and terrifyingly aware.
"Unauthorized fragments detected. Identify purpose."
Lina raised her spear. "Not friendly?"
Lin sighed. "When has an 'Administrator-Class Entity' ever been friendly?"
The void rippled, and something took shape — a humanoid figure made of living light, runes crawling across its body like constellations. Its face was blank, except for a single vertical line where eyes should have been.
"This layer is not for users. Return to your assigned world."
Sera stepped forward, fire flaring. "Or what?"
"Erasure."
---
The battle didn't begin so much as it happened.
The entity moved faster than thought — one moment distant, the next in Lin's face. He barely blocked, the impact sending him spiraling backward across a platform of light that cracked under the force.
"Aria—wind barrier!" he shouted.
She reacted instantly, spinning ribbons of air into a vortex that slowed the entity's advance. Lina dove in, her spear leaving trails of gold as it struck — sparks flew where it connected, but the being barely flinched.
[Damage: 1.7% Integrity Reduction.]
Sera swore. "It's a damn firewall!"
"Then burn it hotter," Lin snapped.
She grinned. "Gladly."
Her flames turned white, screaming across the void. The Administrator raised a hand, absorbing the blast, and turned it into lightning that shot straight back at them. Lin threw himself in front of the others, taking the hit — his body flickered, edges glitching.
[Health Critical.]
[System Instability Rising.]
For a second, everything went silent.
Then his bond pulsed — the Heartbeat Link.
He felt their emotions flood into him — Aria's fear, Lina's fury, Sera's fire. It was overwhelming, raw, human. The system couldn't compute it.
The screen glitched again.
[Override Possible – Emotional Synchronization at 98%.]
[Command Input?]
Lin gritted his teeth. "Override this."
He plunged his hand into the crystal floor, forcing his thoughts into the system — not commands, not code. Will.
Every bond, every death, every laugh, every scar — he pushed them all into the network.
For a breathless instant, the whole Sky Lattice felt alive.
Then everything exploded in light.
---
When the glow faded, the Administrator was gone — fractured into drifting shards of code. The system text blinked weakly.
[Anomaly Purged. Unauthorized Override Logged.]
[Designation Created: Lin – The Glitched Hunter.]
[Reward: Access to Skyforge Nexus.]
Lin stood shakily, smoke rising from his armor. The others rushed over.
"Still breathing?" Lina asked.
"Define breathing," he rasped.
Aria caught his arm, steadying him. "You did it."
"Yeah," he said, looking up at the grid of lights now flickering like stars. "But the system noticed."
Sera frowned. "Meaning?"
He showed them the new line flashing in red at the bottom of his HUD.
[Admin Override Request Pending – Source Unknown.]
He smiled faintly, though his eyes were hard. "Meaning we just got promoted to target status."
---
Back on the plateau, the portal behind them remained open, humming quietly. Above, the living sky pulsed slower now — almost like it was… watching.
And somewhere far beyond the clouds, in a realm none of them could see, something ancient opened its eyes for the first time in centuries.
[End of Chapter 45 – The Glitched Hunter]