Arin sat beneath a jagged outcrop of corrupted stone, his arm still flickering with traces of data corruption from the battle. The wound pulsed with strange static, sending faint shocks up to his shoulder. Every few seconds, the HUD reminded him:
[Player Data Corruption: 0.9%]
(Warning: Prolonged exposure may cause instability.)
He clenched his fist. If that fight had lasted even a little longer… I could've lost control.
The image of the Phase Shift user replayed in his head. That strange, glitching smirk. The ease with which he slipped through Arin's creations, like physics and logic were nothing but suggestions. For the first time, Arin realized something unsettling:
I'm not the only one bending the rules here.
He let out a heavy breath and looked at his surroundings. The deeper zones were different now—more unstable, more alive. Trees looped in infinite animations, their branches repeating the same sway forever. Stones floated midair, caught in frozen loops of falling and resetting. And everywhere, monsters prowled, their forms jagged, half-complete, as though they'd been patched together from broken models.
Arin pulled up his status screen.
[Skill Window]
Pause Function (Lv. 2)
Advanced Code Rewrite (Lv. 3)
Duplicate Object (Lv. 2)
New Skill: Adaptive Shift (Lv. 1)
He touched the last one. Adaptive Shift.It had awakened mid-battle, when his instincts screamed for survival. A skill that allowed his body to "bend" with the environment—momentarily syncing with terrain or objects, like a softer, less perfect version of the Phase Shift exploit.
When he first tested it, his hand slid halfway into a rock before the strain forced him back. Painful, but promising.
Arin smirked faintly. "Not bad. At least I'm evolving."
But even as he said it, a darker thought gnawed at him. The stranger's words echoed in his head: Kael is leagues beyond me.
If that fighter was just a test… then what kind of monster was Kael training to be?
Arin stood and stretched, his muscles aching from the clash. He knew one thing for certain: he couldn't keep fighting like this. Using Pause and Rewrite recklessly was draining, and the more he relied on exploits, the more unstable his code became.
He needed discipline. He needed training.
So for the next three days, Arin stayed in the corrupted wilderness.
Each morning, he tested Adaptive Shift, forcing his body to slip into objects for longer intervals. Sometimes he succeeded—blending into a boulder for three full seconds before being spat out. Other times, the skill backfired, leaving parts of his body flickering like torn pixels. Painful, but progress.
At night, he practiced strategy. Instead of brute-forcing fights with raw duplication, he studied monster patterns. He used Pause sparingly, only at critical moments, forcing himself to win fights through creativity.
He fought packs of glitch-wolves by building terrain mazes that confused their corrupted AI. He took down a flying beast by duplicating a chain of rocks midair, making a staircase to intercept it. Each battle sharpened his instincts—not just to use exploits, but to outthink them.
And slowly, his HUD showed results:
[Skill Window]
Pause Function (Lv. 3)
Advanced Code Rewrite (Lv. 3)
Duplicate Object (Lv. 3)
Adaptive Shift (Lv. 2)
Still, it wasn't enough.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Kael. The boy who once smiled at him as a friend, now leading others, gathering exploit-users like soldiers. Arin imagined them together—a small army of broken-code warriors, each with abilities designed to counter normal logic.
If Kael wanted domination, Arin alone wasn't enough to stop him.
On the fourth morning, Arin sat on a fractured log, gazing at the endless horizon of corrupted terrain. His reflection stared back from a pool of glitched water, rippling with digital distortion. His face looked older, harder.
He whispered to himself:
"I need allies."
The words hung heavy in the static air. For so long, he'd been alone, relying only on his exploits, his wit. But now… he understood. If Kael was building something bigger, then Arin would have to do the same.
He clenched his fists. "I'll get stronger. Smarter. And I'll find others who can stand against him. Even if I have to drag them out of the shadows of this broken world."
The corrupted wind howled, carrying echoes of code fragments across the land. And Arin, for the first time since entering the Glitched World, felt the weight of a new purpose.
Not just survival.
Not just revenge.
But the start of something greater.
A rebellion.