The descent into the second layer was nothing like the first.
Instead of a bridge or a clear boundary, Arin felt the world fold in on itself. One moment he was walking beside Lyra, the next he blinked—only to find himself standing at the entrance of the layer again, as if they had never moved.
The system confirmed his unease.
[Zone Transition Detected: Corrupted Abyss – Layer 2]
[System Warning: Temporal Logic Malfunction.]
[Risk: Infinite Loop]
Arin cursed under his breath. "Perfect. As if glitches weren't enough, now we're dealing with time breaking."
Lyra scanned the shifting horizon. The landscape looked deceptively calm—a wide meadow under a soft twilight sky. But every detail felt off. The stars above blinked in perfect rhythm, the grass swayed in an identical pattern, and even the distant howl of a beast repeated in flawless intervals.
"This layer doesn't kill you with force," Lyra said softly. "It kills you with repetition. If you lose focus, you'll walk in circles forever—until the Abyss rewrites you as one of its fragments."
Arin clenched his fists. "Not happening."
They began walking across the meadow. For a while, everything seemed normal—too normal. Arin kept his eyes sharp, counting his breaths, watching for changes. But after twenty minutes, his gut twisted.
Something was wrong.
Up ahead stood a crooked oak tree. Its bark flickered like a broken texture, its shadow stretching far too long. But the problem wasn't the tree.
The problem was that Arin had already passed it ten minutes ago.
He froze. "Wait. Didn't we…?"
Lyra nodded grimly. "The loop has started."
And as if the world wanted to prove her right, Arin blinked—only to find himself back at the entrance of the meadow, standing where they had started.
The exact same stars. The same grass. The same distant howl.
Arin's mind raced. Fighting wouldn't help. Running wouldn't help. This wasn't an enemy he could smash with a rock or bind with a glitch cage. This was a logic trap.
He opened his menu, scanning his bug exploits. Pause Function. Code Rewrite. Glitch Bind. None of them screamed "time manipulation."
But then his eyes narrowed. "Wait. Code Rewrite… it's not limited to objects, is it?"
Lyra tilted her head. "What are you thinking?"
Arin smirked faintly. "If this place is running on a repeating script… then maybe I can tamper with it."
They set off again, following the exact same path. When the crooked oak appeared, Arin activated his exploit.
Pause Function: 3 seconds.
The world froze. Arin sprinted to the oak and carved glitch symbols into its bark with his weapon, rewriting the visual code into something impossible—a symbol the system couldn't replicate perfectly.
3… 2… 1.
Time resumed.
And when the loop reset, the oak appeared again—but this time, the symbol was still there.
Arin's heart skipped. "It worked."
A system chime confirmed it:
[Exploit Success: Loop Disruption 12%.]
Before they could celebrate, the meadow rippled. Shadows emerged from the ground, just like the ones in the first layer—but these were distorted copies of Arin and Lyra themselves.
"Of course," Arin muttered. "What's a broken time zone without evil clones?"
The fragments lunged. Arin dodged his own mirror-image, the copy using the same Pause ability he did. The battlefield became chaotic—time freezing and unfreezing as the clones mimicked their every move.
"Damn it—they can use my exploits?!" Arin cursed, barely blocking an attack that mirrored his own style.
Lyra's voice cut through the chaos. "Then stop fighting yourself. Fight the script!"
Her corrupted arm lashed out, dissolving her copy entirely. Arin gritted his teeth, realizing she was right. His exploit wasn't about brute force—it was about rewriting the rules.
He activated Code Rewrite again, targeting the copy's ability itself. He slashed a glowing symbol into the ground, declaring:
[Duplicate Exploit Disabled.]
The clone of himself froze, glitching violently before shattering into corrupted pixels.
[Exploit Success: Loop Disruption 47%.]
The meadow shuddered. Stars above scrambled, the repeating wind stuttered, and the world itself screamed with static.
A massive clock face appeared in the sky, its hands spinning wildly before locking on Arin.
[Final Check: Break the Cycle.]
Arin didn't hesitate. He carved the final glitch mark into the air itself, forcing the code to obey.
[Loop Termination Executed.]
The world shattered. The meadow dissolved into fragments, collapsing inward like broken glass.
When Arin opened his eyes again, he and Lyra stood on a dark stone platform, the twisted oak nowhere in sight.
The system chimed.
[Zone Cleared: Abyss Layer 2.]
[Warning: 5 Layers Remaining.]
Arin slumped to the ground, breathing hard. "Two layers… and I already feel like my brain's fried."
Lyra sat beside him, her expression unreadable. "And it only gets worse from here."
Arin gave a dry laugh. "Perfect. Just how I like it."
But inside, a spark burned brighter. He wasn't just surviving these zones—he was learning to bend them, twist them, force them into shapes that shouldn't exist.
And with every exploit, he got closer to being something more than the Bugged One.
He was becoming the Glitchbreaker.