The canyon walls flickered like shattered mirrors, fragments of reality blinking in and out with every step Arin took. Each pulse from the ground was like a heartbeat, deep and steady, echoing through his bones. It was the same pulse he had felt ever since they left the desert of eternal sun — only stronger now, as though something beneath the world was calling them.
[Patch Countdown – 2 Days 2 Hours Remaining]
[Warning: Environmental Instability – Maximum Threshold Approaching]
Arin gritted his teeth. The timer ticked away like a noose tightening around his neck. "Two days," he muttered. "That's all the time we've got before the patch wipes us."
Lyra walked a step behind him, her silver hair gleaming faintly in the glitching light. Unlike him, she didn't seem as weighed down by the countdown. Her calm expression hadn't changed since they left the desert, but Arin couldn't help noticing the way her eyes sometimes flickered — like lines of code hidden beneath her gaze.
"Arin," she said quietly.
He slowed, glancing back. "What?"
"You've noticed, haven't you?"
His grip on his makeshift blade tightened. "Noticed what?"
"That the world reacts differently to you than it does to the others."
Arin's throat went dry. He thought back to Kael, to the other trapped players. Their exploits were real, dangerous — but none of them bent the system the way his did. None of them could pause the world, or fuse glitches together.
"What are you saying?" Arin asked carefully.
Lyra stopped walking. Her figure flickered, just for a heartbeat, her form breaking into shards of light before reassembling. "I'm saying you're not just in this world, Arin. You're part of it."
The words hit him like a physical blow.
Part of it?
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Every argument, every denial died on his tongue because deep down… some part of him had always known.
The error in his name.The title The Bugged One.The fact that he couldn't level up normally.
He clenched his fists. "If that's true… then what happens when the patch runs?"
Lyra's expression softened, but her voice carried a weight he had never heard before. "If the patch completes, it will overwrite everything unstable. Players will be released… but you?" She hesitated. "You will be erased."
The canyon fell silent except for the low hum of corrupted energy.
Erased.
Arin's heart pounded, but not from fear alone. Anger boiled in his chest — anger at the system, at the developers who had abandoned this place, at fate for throwing him into this nightmare.
"No," he growled. "I'm not letting some stupid patch decide if I live or die."
Lyra stepped closer, her eyes shimmering. "Then you'll need to reach the Glitched Core before the patch does."
Arin raised his gaze. "And what happens if I do?"
For the first time since he met her, Lyra's composure faltered. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Then the truth will finally reveal itself. About me. About you. About why this world was never truly abandoned."
The ground shook violently, cutting off their exchange. Chunks of canyon wall tore free, dissolving into pixelated dust. A massive chasm opened ahead, and from its depths rose a wave of corrupted monsters — wolves, knights, and twisted forms unlike anything Arin had faced before.
Their bodies flickered between half-rendered polygons and shadows, dozens of them crawling up the chasm walls, glowing red eyes fixed on Arin and Lyra.
[System Alert: Abyss Surge Detected.]
Arin pulled his blade free, exploits surging through him like sparks of electricity. The fear was there, coiled in his chest, but so was determination.
He had two days left. Two days to reach the Core. Two days before the world decided his fate for him.
And Arin refused to go quietly.
"Lyra," he said, his voice steady. "Stay close. I'll clear us a path."
Her eyes met his, and for a fleeting moment, he thought he saw something — not the flat light of an NPC, but something human. Something real.
"I'll fight beside you," she said.
The horde surged forward, the ground splitting further as corrupted beasts clawed their way to the surface. Arin activated Pause Function, freezing the first wave mid-leap. With a thought, he layered Exploit Fusion, chaining Pause with Gravity Anchor. The beasts froze in midair, then slammed violently into the canyon floor as if pulled by invisible chains.
"Come on!" Arin roared, charging into the fray.
Every strike, every glitch-fueled attack pushed them closer to the unseen Core. Every pulse from beneath the earth grew louder, stronger, until Arin could feel it thrumming in time with his own heartbeat.
And as he fought, a single thought repeated in his mind:
He wasn't going to let the system erase him.Not now.Not ever.