The ground shook.
The battlefield that had already felt unstable now seemed on the verge of collapsing altogether. From the rift overhead, a massive shadow began to form—too large, too heavy, too broken to belong in any world.
It descended like a nightmare given shape.
A colossus.
Its body was a patchwork of corrupted textures—stone, metal, raw code—stitched together in jagged layers. Its left arm was a tower of flickering polygons; its right, a massive blade formed entirely of glitching error messages. Every step it took split the earth beneath, sending shards of land floating into the air.
[System Directive: Deploying Colossus of Fractures.]
[Error Code: Undefined Entity.]
[Objective: Eliminate anomaly → BUGGED ONE.]
Arin's pulse thundered in his ears. His hands tightened on his weapon. "Of course. Why wouldn't it throw a giant at me?"
Lyra's breath hitched, her glow faltering for the first time. "That… isn't just a monster. That's part of the rift itself given form."
The giant raised its blade-arm, the corrupted metal shrieking as it cleaved downward.
Arin reacted instantly—activating Bug Exploit. The world stuttered, reality pausing for three seconds. He dove forward, pulling Lyra with him, the blade missing by a hair as the ground behind them shattered into a crater.
When time resumed, dust and fragments rained around them.
"Three seconds…" Arin muttered, chest heaving. "It's not enough."
The colossus roared, its voice a broken distortion of grinding gears. Smaller monsters crawled out from its body—wolf-shapes, spider-shapes, all incomplete, writhing like parasites.
Lyra raised her hands, silver light flaring, trying to hold them off. But her face twisted with strain. "Arin! If that thing connects even once, you're finished!"
"I know!" he snapped, though his grin betrayed the madness bubbling inside him. "But I've got something new to test."
The corruption in his veins stirred, alive. He focused, letting the static wash over him. The whispers clawed at his mind, trying to rewrite him again.
—You don't belong.—You are not real.—Delete.
Arin snarled through clenched teeth. "Shut. Up."
He raised his blade, and this time, instead of resisting the corruption, he pulled it into the steel. The edge shimmered, not with light but with fractured shadows—jagged lines of raw code twisting around it.
[Skill Activation: System Rewrite – Corruption Manipulation.]
[Effect: Weapon imbued with unstable corruption.]
[Warning: User stability 72% → 65%.]
The colossus swung again.
Arin met it head-on.
The clash was like a thunderstorm ripping the sky apart. His corrupted blade didn't just block—it slid inside the giant's error-code arm, tearing it apart from the inside. A violent burst of static exploded outward, chunks of corrupted polygons falling away as the giant staggered for the first time.
Arin's eyes widened. "It works…"
Lyra gasped, hope flashing in her expression. "Arin—you can actually damage it!"
But the system reacted.
[Countermeasure: Strengthening Entity.]
[Corruption Surge increased.]
The colossus's wounds began to stitch back together, its massive form vibrating violently as it regenerated. Worse, the corruption inside Arin's chest spiked.
[Corruption: 65% → 69%]
His vision blurred. His mind threatened to split, memories flickering between himself and that sterile white room.
"I can't… hold this forever," he hissed.
The colossus raised both arms now, slamming them into the ground. Spires of corrupted crystal erupted upward, encircling Arin and Lyra, trapping them in an arena of jagged death.
Lyra grabbed his arm, silver light flickering around her fingers. "If you push too far, you'll lose yourself. Arin—don't burn everything just to win!"
He laughed breathlessly, a wild edge in his voice. "Lyra, if I don't burn everything, we don't walk out of this alive."
The colossus charged, blade-arm raised for the final strike.
Time slowed—not because of his exploit, but because in that instant, Arin understood.
The corruption wasn't just a weapon. It was language. The colossus, the rift, the monsters—they were all written in the same broken tongue. And now, so was he.
He roared, thrusting his blade forward, embedding it deep into the giant's chest. Not just cutting—rewriting.
Lines of code flared before his eyes:[Delete Function: Regeneration()]
[Override: Corruption → Decay]
The colossus froze, its body trembling. Cracks spiderwebbed across its frame, glowing brighter with every second. Then—
It exploded.
A shockwave of raw static ripped outward, shattering the crystal spires, tearing apart the lesser monsters. Arin was thrown back, skidding across fractured earth, ears ringing, chest burning.
When he finally forced himself up, panting, the battlefield was silent. The colossus was gone—nothing but fragments of glitching dust fading into the rift.
[Boss Defeated: Colossus of Fractures.]
[Bug Exploit Advanced.]
[New Feature Unlocked: Corruption Rewrite – Limited Override.]
Arin blinked, sweat dripping into his eyes. "Override…?"
Lyra knelt beside him, her glow faint but steady. "You didn't just kill it. You changed it. You forced the system itself to obey you."
He let out a broken laugh, lying back against the shattered ground. "Yeah… but at what cost?"
Because deep inside, he could feel it—the corruption wasn't loosening its grip. It was tightening. Growing.
And for the first time, Arin wondered if surviving this world might mean becoming the very thing he fought against.