The door didn't just open; it shattered.
A hooded figure lunged into the small, cramped room. He moved with an unsettling, jerky motion—like a broken film reel. In the dim moonlight, Ian saw the killer's hand. It was clutching a rusted cleaver, but the metal was shrouded in a black, flickering mist.
[ WARNING: High-Dimensional Corruption Detected. ]
[ TARGET: Fragment 04 'The Glitch'. ]
"You... shouldn't... be... here," the killer rasped. His voice sounded like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together.
Ian rolled across the floor, narrowly dodging a strike that turned his wooden bedframe into a pile of black, pixelated dust. He didn't panic. His Auditor's mind was already scanning the killer's movement pattern.
1.5 seconds. Every 1.5 seconds, the black mist on the blade would pulse, recalibrating its existence in this reality. That was the window.
"Requesting local administrative override," Ian hissed, his fingers gripping the iron skillet.
[ ACCESS DENIED. Mental Stability: 72%. ]
[ Emergency Protocol: Forced Logic Erase (Level 1) initiated. ]
As the killer raised the cleaver for a final blow, Ian lunged forward. He didn't aim for the head. He aimed for the flickering wrist.
"Delete!"
A flash of cold, blue light erupted from Ian's fingertips. For a microsecond, the laws of physics in that small space were simply... removed. The killer's wrist didn't break; it ceased to be solid. The cleaver fell through the now-spectral hand, clattering to the floor.
The hooded man let out a silent scream as his entire body began to unravel into jagged lines of code. Ian didn't look away. He reached out and grabbed the largest floating fragment.
[ ABSORPTION COMPLETE. ]
[ Logic Core Restored: 0.0015%. ]
[ New Skill: 'Data Vision' slightly enhanced. ]
Ian collapsed against the wall, gasping. The room was silent again, but the stain on the floor wasn't blood—it was a scorched mark shaped like a weeping eye.