The white flames of Arthur's sword didn't just burn; they hummed. Every time the blade swung, the air itself seemed to crackle and disintegrate.
Han-ul threw himself behind a massive, moss-covered boulder. BOOM. The top half of the rock vanished into white pixels a second later.
"Arthur, snap out of it!" Han-ul yelled, his lungs burning.
"The System is light," Arthur droned, his voice echoing with a terrifying, multi-layered resonance. "Light has no shadows. You are a shadow, Han-ul. You are an error in the calculation."
Arthur moved with mechanical perfection. He didn't tire, he didn't hesitate, and he didn't miss. He was no longer a man; he was a scripted event.
Han-ul scrambled to his feet, his mind racing through the [Patch Notes] he had memorized in the Trash Bin.
[Note 8: Combat Scripting]
The 'Blessed' move along the shortest vector to their target. Their logic is binary: Search and Destroy. They cannot interpret 'Irrational Movement'.
Irrational movement, Han-ul thought. He's a computer now. And computers hate paradoxes.
Arthur leaped again, the white sword raised for a finishing blow. Instead of running away, Han-ul ran directly toward him. At the last millisecond, Han-ul didn't dodge left or right. He dropped to his knees and slid between Arthur's legs, reaching out to grab a handful of dirt and throwing it—not at Arthur's eyes, but at the golden Altar behind him.
Arthur twisted mid-air, his body contorting in a way that would have snapped a human spine. Because Han-ul had moved toward the "source" of the blessing while attacking, Arthur's internal logic glitched.
[HERO #1: LOGIC CONFLICT]
Priority A: Delete Anomaly.
Priority B: Protect the Altar.
Status: Recalculating...
Arthur landed awkwardly, his knees buckling for a split second. The golden light in his eyes flickered.
"Now!" Han-ul hissed.
He didn't run for the exit. He ran toward a specific tree—a gnarled, blackened oak that looked dead. In his [Patch Notes], this tree wasn't a tree at all. It was a [Debug Pole]—a placeholder the developers forgot to remove from the Tutorial map.
Arthur recovered instantly. He turned, his sword glowing brighter. "Irrelevant. The shadow will be purged."
He pointed his sword at Han-ul. A beam of white light gathered at the tip.
Han-ul reached the blackened tree and pressed his hand against its bark. "Administrator Key... recognize Debug Pole. Trigger: Collision Error!"
[ADMIN KEY: 0.5% STABILITY CONSUMED]
[WARNING: Environment Manipulation in progress...]
Arthur fired. The beam of white light, capable of erasing anything it touched, streaked across the clearing.
But as the light hit the space in front of Han-ul, it didn't explode. It bent.
Because Han-ul had triggered a 'Collision Error' on the Debug Pole, the area around the tree became a "Non-Euclidean Zone." To the system, that specific patch of air didn't exist in three dimensions.
The beam of light entered the zone, looped around Han-ul in a perfect circle, and shot straight back toward Arthur.
"What—?" The golden light in Arthur's eyes widened. For a brief second, a flicker of the real Arthur—the confused athlete from Earth—showed through the mask.
CRACK.
The beam slammed into Arthur's own shoulder. The "Hero" was sent flying backward, crashing into the Altar of Ascension. The impact caused the golden light of the Altar to shudder and turn a violent shade of static-orange.
[CRITICAL ERROR: Friendly Fire Detected.]
[Tutorial Integrity: Compromised.]
[Initiating Emergency Reboot of Beta Phase.]
The sky began to peel away like old wallpaper. The nebula was being replaced by a void of pure black.
"This wasn't supposed to happen," a voice whispered.
Han-ul turned. Standing near the Altar was a girl—the Archer from before. She hadn't touched the Altar yet. She was staring at Han-ul with a mixture of terror and awe. She had seen everything. She had seen a "Level 12" Paladin fight like a Level 1 rat and win using the world itself as a shield.
"Who are you?" she asked, her bow trembling in her hand.
"Someone who's tired of being deleted," Han-ul said.
The ground beneath them dissolved. The Tutorial was ending prematurely.
As Han-ul fell into the darkness of the "Reboot," a final notification appeared before his eyes. It wasn't from the System. It was a flickering, violet message from the USB drive.
[ADMIN KEY MESSAGE:]
Variable successfully edited. The System has noted your 'Behavior.' > * Difficulty for Phase 2 increased to: HELL MODE.
Han-ul felt a grim smile tug at his lips as the world vanished. Hell Mode? Good. At least in Hell, the rules are honest.