The ground didn't shake this time. It dissolved.
Beneath Erevan's boots, the grass flickered and fragmented, breaking into floating squares of raw geometry, glowing faintly like dying stars. Kaelith's fingers dug into his arm, trying to anchor him as entire swaths of the forest shattered like dismantled scaffolding. Sir Quacksalot flapped frantically, wings spread wide, squealing in protest as tiny voids opened beneath his feet, threatening to swallow him whole.
The air itself smelled sharp, like ozone and burnt circuits. Reality wasn't shaking—it was tearing, pixelating, snapping. Every sound was distorted, warped as if the world had become a broken recording of itself.
Kaelith's voice trembled. "Erevan… the world… it's unraveling."
Erevan's shard pulsed violently against his chest, heat burning through his skin and bones. He staggered, gripping it tight, teeth gritted. "No… not unraveling. Being reset. They're trying to delete everything around me until I have nowhere left to stand."
The void whispered in subtle frequencies, a mechanical hum that grated at his nerves. The world convulsed. Above them, the sky turned black, grids of green lines snapping into place, cutting across the void like a developer's debugging screen. Every tree, every boulder, every stray blade of grass transformed into wireframes—bare outlines of what once had been real. Birds hung frozen mid-flight, feathers caught in polygons that shimmered like broken glass.
Kaelith's hands shook as she clutched her bow. "Zone 17… everything here…"
Erevan's lips twisted into a grim smile. "Figures. Can't beat me, so they just… wipe the board."
In the distance, villages flickered like candles in a storm, people frozen mid-action, mouths open in screams that would never leave their faces. The forest behind them disintegrated into cubes, floating and spinning, dissolving into nothingness. Sir Quacksalot pecked at Erevan's leg, quacking indignantly, as though to say: Do something, idiot.
Erevan chuckled through bloodied lips. "Yeah, yeah. Working on it, little buddy."
The void shimmered, and dozens of figures emerged from the collapsing landscape. Humanoid, unfinished, their gray forms smooth and blank-faced, each holding weapons forged from raw, glowing code. They moved with perfect synchronization, their silence more threatening than any shout.
Kaelith's bow was drawn, but her hands trembled. "What… what are those things?"
Erevan smirked grimly. "Patch notes with legs. And apparently, they hate bugs."
The first Nullifier lunged. Its blade wasn't metal—it was syntax, glowing symbols slicing through reality itself. Trees blinked out mid-cut, earth evaporated in geometric fragments.
Erevan rolled, dodging, feeling the air hum with the shear force of logic being rewritten around him. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
He lashed out with Code Rend, his glitching hand tearing through the first Nullifier's chest. It split into half, collapsing into a shower of corrupted letters that shimmered before vanishing. The system chimed mockingly in his head: Nullifier eliminated. Reward: 500 Glitch Points.
Three more rushed him simultaneously. They moved faster than he could track with the human eye, and Kaelith's arrows dissolved midair, phasing harmlessly through their smooth forms.
"They're ignoring my attacks!" Kaelith shouted.
Erevan grunted, blocking a strike with a shimmer of barbed-wire threads sprouting from his skin. "Because you're not the target, Kaelith. I am."
The shard in his chest pulsed, violent and insistent.
"Option: Activate Pathbreaker?" His mind echoed with the shard's suggestions, warning him that his body couldn't survive much more.
He grinned through the pain. "Unstable? That's my middle name."
He slashed. Pathbreaker flared. Reality screamed. One Nullifier's blade shattered, its perfect geometry fracturing into nonsensical polygons. The faceless head twisted, symbols scrambling before exploding into static.
The remaining Nullifiers froze, then adapted. Their blades transformed into jagged, glitch-fire, mirroring Erevan's own code signature.
"Oh, that's cheating," Erevan muttered, eyes narrowing.
Kaelith yanked on his arm. "Then don't fight them the same way! Outsmart them—that's what you do!"
He flashed a grin, blood-streaked and dangerous. "Always."
The three lunged, weapons crossing. Erevan didn't counter. He ducked, letting them collide. Geometry fractured. Perfect forms broke upon impact.
He leapt, Code Rend tearing through two at once, and they dissolved in showers of corrupted fragments.
The last Nullifier stumbled only for a moment as Sir Quacksalot leapt onto its head, quacking furiously, pecking and clawing at the smooth face until cracks formed. Erevan didn't hesitate. Pathbreaker flared again, tearing the final Nullifier apart. Static lit the void like fireworks.
For a heartbeat, silence ruled. Kaelith's breathing was sharp and ragged, and Erevan's chest burned as if his ribcage had been turned inside out. Sir Quacksalot strutted proudly on his shoulder, chest puffed out.
But the system was not done.
From the collapsing void, a figure began to stir. Larger, darker, and heavier than the others. The Nullifier Prime.
The Nullifier Prime stepped forward, colossal and silent. Twice the height of Erevan, it was plated in shifting glyphs that shimmered with corrupted energy, a crown of symbols floating above its head. The air vibrated around it, each step compressing reality like a hammer against fragile glass.
Kaelith's hands shook as she raised her bow. "Erevan… that thing… it's alive… kind of."
Erevan squinted at it, his shard pulsing violently in his chest. "Alive? Alive enough to ruin my Tuesday, apparently." He rolled his shoulders, feeling the burning ache of his chest, the shard searing like molten iron. Unstable, unsafe, unkillable… yeah, my kind of fun.
The Prime raised its massive weapon—a blade of pure deletion, humming like a live wire across dimensions. One swing and everything behind it vanished. Entire wireframe forests blinked out of existence, leaving void and static. Kaelith yanked Erevan aside just in time, her breath ragged.
Erevan gritted his teeth, staring at the empty space where reality used to be. "Okay… that's slightly scarier than I thought." He glanced down at Sir Quacksalot. The duck stared back, feathers bristled, quacking with ridiculous determination. "Right, buddy. Don't die. Solid plan."
The Prime's movements were deliberate, precise. Each swing tore through the air, rewriting it. It didn't just attack—it erased, it corrected, it "debugged" Erevan from existence.
And then, the impossible happened.
The sky cracked open, jagged lines of raw light tearing the void. A figure appeared, cloaked in shifting shadows, eyes glowing with chaotic, unpredictable light. This wasn't a system-born entity. Not an NPC. Not a Nullifier. Something… human, or at least almost human, but amplified through code, glitch, and entropy.
"Finally," the figure drawled, voice like glass scraping metal. "The anomaly who broke the path. I was wondering when we'd meet."
Kaelith stiffened, bow drawn, arrows trembling. "Who… who are you?"
The figure's grin was crooked, shifting unnaturally with the shadows around him. "Me? Just another glitch. But unlike you…" His glowing eyes locked onto Erevan. "…I chose it."
Erevan swallowed, feeling the shard in his chest flare in response, pulse syncing with the intruder's energy. Oh great. Another wildcard. He rolled his neck, cracking joints that felt like wireframe skeletons. "Chose it, huh? That your way of saying you like trouble?"
The figure laughed, low and eerie. "Trouble? No… I'm your test."
The Nullifier Prime paused, its massive head tilting slightly as if acknowledging the newcomer, but not stopping its forward march. Its weapon glowed brighter, humming a warning that erased the hairs on Erevan's arms.
Erevan's shard burned violently. Pathbreaker tingled along his nerves, the world around him stretching and snapping like wet cardboard. If I try a straight fight… I'm toast. If I hesitate… also toast. Great options.
Kaelith tugged on his arm. "Erevan… think! We need a strategy—"
"I've got one," he cut her off, smirking despite the blood and static coursing through him. "Step one: survive. Step two: see what the glitch wants."
The figure in the shadows shifted again, a motion too fast, too wrong for human eyes to track. Symbols pulsed around it, glitching into forms that almost resembled a face. "I've been watching your… creativity," the voice hissed, sharp as broken glass. "Not bad. But power like yours… it's dangerous. Fun, yes—but dangerous."
Erevan's fingers flexed. He could feel Pathbreaker reacting, the shard urging him to rewrite reality, to bend the Nullifier Prime, even bend the shadowed figure. This is insane. Absolutely insane. But… my kind of insane.
Sir Quacksalot flapped to his shoulder, quacking indignantly as if to remind him: We're still alive, but you're tempting fate, buddy.
Kaelith muttered, nearly to herself, "I've never seen anything like this… Not in simulations, not in the archives, not ever…"
Erevan ignored her, eyes locked on the shadow glitch. "Alright, mystery man, glitchy friend… let's see what you really want."
The air vibrated with tension, reality bending in arcs of green wireframes and static dust. Trees warped and twitched, the ground heaved like it was trying to reject existence. The Nullifier Prime raised its blade again, glowing with deletion, ready to cut the last remnants of anything Erevan touched.
But Erevan's grin only widened. "Bring it," he muttered. "Because I'm done playing by your rules."
And then… everything pulsed. Reality, glitch, and chaos aligning in a perfect storm. The shadow figure's eyes flared, the Nullifier Prime braced, and Erevan felt his shard burn hotter than ever. He was no longer just fighting. He was rewriting the battlefield.
The system didn't know what to do. The anomaly had taken control.
And Erevan? He was ready.