The descent into the third layer wasn't a fall. It was a flip.
One second Arin and Lyra stood on solid stone, the next they were tumbling sideways—only to land on what should have been a wall.
Arin groaned, pushing himself up. "Okay… either I'm dizzy, or gravity just broke."
The system confirmed it:
[Zone Transition: Abyss – Layer 3]
[Environmental Error: Gravitational Logic Unstable]
[Warning: Orientation May Not Be Consistent]
Lyra steadied herself with her corrupted arm, her silver hair flowing in directions that made no sense. At one moment it floated upward, the next it trailed sideways as though caught in invisible currents.
"This layer is meant to disorient," she said softly. "The Abyss rewrites the rules of up and down every few minutes. If you don't adapt…"
She didn't finish, but Arin got the message. If he lost control, he'd fall—or fly—into the infinite void below.
The landscape stretched in impossible ways: pillars rising sideways, rivers flowing upward into the sky, floating shards of stone drifting lazily as though weightless.
Arin stepped cautiously forward—then cursed as his foot lifted off the ground, his body floating helplessly upward.
"Not good!"
He flailed, spinning midair. Lyra extended her arm, the corrupted energy acting like an anchor, pulling him back down to a nearby wall-turned-floor.
Arin's heart pounded. "Great. First time loops, now the floor can't make up its mind."
Lyra smirked faintly. "Welcome to the Abyss."
They pressed deeper. The ground shifted beneath them every few steps, flipping orientation. Sometimes they walked sideways along a cliff wall, sometimes upside-down across a ruined bridge.
It was disorienting, nauseating—but the real danger wasn't the terrain.
It was the creatures.
From the void drifted massive beasts made of fractured stone and glowing runes. Their forms twisted and rotated endlessly, unaffected by gravity's confusion. They moved like predators perfectly adapted to chaos.
One roared, sending shockwaves that flipped Arin's balance mid-stride. He tumbled into the air, spinning uncontrollably.
"Arin!" Lyra shouted.
His instincts screamed. He had seconds before he'd plummet into the abyss below.
And then, a thought sparked.
"What if… I don't fall the way the system wants me to?"
Arin triggered his Code Rewrite mid-air. His hand blazed with glitching symbols as he reached into the environment itself.
[Override: Gravity Vector → Player-Locked.]
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then—snap.
The pull of the void shifted, and suddenly Arin was no longer falling into nothingness. Instead, he pulled himself downward toward the nearest stone shard, landing hard on its surface.
He grinned despite the ache in his knees. "Guess I just hacked gravity."
The system chimed in recognition:
[New Exploit Unlocked: Gravity Anchor]
Allows player to bind gravitational pull to chosen surfaces.
Duration: 30 seconds.
Cost: Exploit Stability –2%
The stone beasts closed in, their bodies rotating as they lunged. Arin leapt sideways off the shard, re-anchoring gravity mid-air to land on another platform.
Each jump was insane, reckless—but it worked. He dashed across floating debris like a parkour master in zero-G, dodging blows that would've crushed him flat.
Lyra followed with eerie grace, her corrupted arm latching onto surfaces and dragging her through the air like a grappling hook.
Together, they struck. Arin used his Pause Function to freeze a beast mid-charge, anchoring gravity beneath it so it plummeted into the abyss. Another he trapped with a Glitch Bind, forcing its rotating form to collapse in on itself.
One by one, the giants fell, until only silence remained.
Panting, Arin sat on the edge of a floating stone, staring into the endless void below. His heart still raced from the battle, but his grin was unstoppable.
"First time loops, now gravity. What's next, logic errors that eat my thoughts?"
Lyra didn't answer immediately. She watched him with a strange softness in her eyes. "Every exploit you discover makes you less… human. You know that, don't you?"
Arin's grin faltered. He looked down at his hands, the faint glitch-light pulsing under his skin. She was right. Each time he rewrote the system, it felt like he was drifting further away from who he used to be.
But then he clenched his fists. "Doesn't matter. If becoming less human is what it takes to survive… then so be it."
The system chimed.
[Zone Cleared: Abyss Layer 3]
[Warning: 4 Layers Remaining.]
The world around them shifted again, stone shards collapsing as if urging them deeper. Arin stood, determination burning in his chest.
"Let's keep going. If this Abyss wants to break me… it's going to have to try harder."