The air changed before the scenery did.
Arin noticed it first—the forest's glitchy loops, the repeating trees and endlessly hopping rabbits, all began to dissolve into silence. It wasn't natural silence, but the kind that felt programmed, like someone had turned off the background audio of the world.
A warning window blinked in front of him.
[Zone Transition Detected: Entering Corrupted Abyss – Layer 1]
[System Stability: 12%]
[Warning: Environmental Logic Inconsistent.]
Arin shivered. "Environmental logic… inconsistent?"
Lyra stepped ahead, her corrupted arm twitching as though the place itself agitated it. "It means nothing here will behave the way you expect. Time, space, even gravity—this zone is where rules go to die."
And then the trees ended.
They stood at the edge of a chasm, stretching endlessly in both directions. A black void pulsed below, shot through with rivers of red static. Bridges flickered in and out of existence—stone one moment, wood the next, sometimes gone entirely.
At the far end of the abyss, a faint light pulsed, like the heartbeat of something colossal.
Arin tightened his grip on his weapon. "That's… the path to the Core?"
Lyra's gaze didn't move from the horizon. "It's only the first layer. But yes."
They stepped forward, and immediately the world protested.
Arin's foot landed on the bridge—but instead of the solid stone beneath him, he felt water. Cold, heavy water. He stumbled, sputtering, only to realize that he wasn't wet at all. His senses had been rewritten.
A message blinked faintly:
[Perception Error Detected.]
He cursed under his breath. "It's playing with my senses."
Lyra's voice was calm, though her hand tightened on her corrupted arm. "Don't trust what you see. Don't trust what you hear. Trust only what you decide."
Halfway across, the void stirred.
Figures began crawling out of it—shadows stitched together with static, human-shaped but faceless. They climbed the glitch-rivers like spiders, pulling themselves onto the bridge.
Arin's chest tightened. "What the hell are those?"
Lyra's voice dropped into a whisper. "Fragments. Failed players. People who tried to enter the Abyss… but never left."
The shadows lunged.
Arin reacted instantly, slashing through one. But instead of shattering, the figure multiplied. Two identical shadows hissed and lunged again.
"Great," Arin spat. "They split when you kill them."
Lyra darted forward, her corrupted arm piercing through one shadow. Instead of splitting, it dissolved completely, its code absorbed into her. Her eyes glowed faintly brighter.
"They can't be destroyed," she said. "Only consumed… or bound."
Arin's bug-exploit skill flickered, and suddenly, he had an idea.
"Pause Function: 3 Seconds."
Time stuttered. The shadows froze mid-lunge, frozen like statues. Arin darted around them, carving glitch-symbols into the bridge itself with his weapon. As time resumed, the shadows stepped into the marks—and their forms locked, trapped in glitch-cages of frozen static.
Arin blinked at what he had just done. "…That worked?"
A notification chimed faintly.
[Bug Exploit Adapted.]
New Sub-Skill Unlocked: Glitch Bind.
Allows temporary imprisonment of corrupted entities by exploiting paused code. Duration varies.
Arin's lips curved into a sharp grin. "Finally… something new."
But the victory was short-lived.
The bridge ahead began to collapse—not from damage, but from logic itself unraveling. Segments of the path flickered in and out, sometimes vanishing entirely. For one terrifying moment, Arin saw himself ahead on the bridge, fighting enemies he hadn't reached yet, like the world was running multiple versions of him at once.
Lyra grabbed his shoulder sharply, grounding him. Her voice cut through the distortion.
"Focus, Arin! If you lose yourself here, the Abyss will keep every version of you."
He steadied his breath, eyes narrowing. "Then we keep moving. Fast."
They ran.
Shadows clawed at their heels. The bridge flickered between wood, stone, and nothing. At times, Arin had to leap blind, trusting only the faint pulse of the Core's light in the distance.
By the time they stumbled onto solid ground again, both were breathing hard. Behind them, the bridge crumbled into nothingness, swallowed by the void.
The system chimed.
[Zone Cleared: Abyss Layer 1.]
[Warning: 6 Layers Remaining.]
Arin leaned against a cracked pillar, wiping sweat from his brow. His weapon trembled in his hands—not from fear, but from the adrenaline of barely surviving.
He glanced at Lyra. "Seven layers? Just to get to the Core?"
Lyra's expression was grim. "If we're lucky."
Arin let out a hollow laugh. "Right. Lucky."
But in his chest, a fire burned brighter than before. Each layer would try to erase him—but he wasn't Kael. He wasn't going to bend or break.
If the world itself was code, then Arin would learn to rewrite it—bug by bug, exploit by exploit.
And in the distance, the heartbeat of the Core pulsed stronger, waiting.