The ceiling groaned with a heavy, rhythmic vibration above me, a sound like grinding teeth that seemed to echo the instability of the entire sector. Dust, thick and grey, choked the narrow side passage, swirling in the frantic light of my flickering interface. I ignored the agonizing burn in my lungs, pushing past the exhaustion that threatened to buckle my knees, and kept running. Kaela's warning echoed in the hollow chambers of my mind, a frantic loop that I couldn't silence.
"Don't use the main gate."
If the main gate was a trap—or worse, a site of total data erasure—then this cramped, forgotten maintenance tunnel was my only hope of reaching the surface. But the darkness here was different; it felt heavy, viscous, as if the shadows themselves were clotting.
A high-pitched, digital screech suddenly tore through the suffocating silence, vibrating in my eardrums. In the gloom ahead, small pinpricks of light began to manifest. Red eyes. Dozens of them, blinking in a synchronized, predatory rhythm that sent a chill down my spine.
[Warning: Hostile Swarm Detected]
[Name: Corrupted Plague Rats]
[Level: 3–5]
[Status: Glitched / Aggressive]
The rats weren't the fuzzy, brown nuisances I remembered from the early game patches. These creatures were aberrations. Their fur was matted with glowing blue pixels that drifted off their bodies like digital dander, and their teeth looked like jagged, translucent shards of glass. They didn't squeak or hiss; instead, they emitted short, violent bursts of white noise that sounded like a radio caught between stations.
I skidded to a halt, my boots throwing up a cloud of grit. The tunnel was barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast, leaving me with no room to maneuver. The swarm moved as one, a carpet of living static that rippled across the stone floor toward me.
"I don't have a weapon,"
I hissed, my voice trembling. I frantically checked my inventory, but the grid was a series of empty, mocking boxes. My MP bar was still dangerously low, struggling to recover after the massive drain of the floor restoration.
The first rat leaped, its glass teeth bared. I swung my heavy leather satchel with a desperate grunt, batting the creature mid-air and slamming it against the masonry wall. It didn't leave a corpse; it burst into a pixelated cloud of flickering data that vanished before it hit the ground. But for every one I struck down, ten more surged forward to take its place, their collective white-noise chittering rising to a deafening roar.
I backed away, my eyes searching the walls for any tactical advantage. This was a maintenance corridor for the old ruin's cooling system—a relic of a time when the game world required simulated thermodynamics. Then, I saw it—a rusted bronze valve protruding from the damp stone, encrusted with centuries of mineral deposits.
[Object: Steam Valve (Corroded)]
[Status: Structural Weakness Detected]
[Action: Modify?]
"Interface, override safety limits! Do it now!"
I shouted, my voice echoing off the narrow walls. I lunged for the valve just as the leading edge of the swarm reached me. The rats were inches from my boots, their tiny, jagged claws clicking on the stone. One managed to leap high enough to bite into my ankle, its teeth tearing through the reinforced leather and sinking into my flesh.
[HP: 32/50]
I gripped the freezing metal of the valve and twisted with every ounce of Strength my Level 9 stats could muster. The metal screamed in a high-pitched protest of grinding rust. Then, with a violent snap, the pipe burst.
A horizontal geyser of scalding white steam exploded into the tunnel with the force of a jet engine. The rats caught in the direct path of the spray didn't even have time to emit a final burst of noise. The high-pressure vapor cooked them instantly, their "glitch" fur sizzling and dissolving into raw, unformatted code as the heat overwhelmed their corrupted forms.
[Target Neutralized]
[Target Neutralized]
[Target Neutralized]
A cascade of notifications flooded my vision, a waterfall of golden text that obscured the carnage. The tunnel was suddenly filled with floating, glowing orbs of soft blue light. They were the "Essences" of the fallen monsters—the raw data that made up their existence.
Suddenly, my chest felt a strange, magnetic pull, a sensation as if my very soul were being dragged toward the glowing orbs. A vacuum opened within me, a hunger I hadn't known I possessed.
[Unique Ability Triggered: Essence Integration]
[Subject: Lia]
[Absorbing Raw Data...]
The blue lights flew toward me, spiraling into the palm of my hand like moths to a flame. A sudden, overwhelming warmth flooded my veins, tingling like a thousand needles under my skin. It wasn't just the cold calculation of experience points; it was something deeper, something structural. I could feel the world becoming clearer, more logical.
[Integration Successful]
[Skill Acquired: Night Vision (Passive)]
[Attribute Gained: +2 Agility]
[Level Up: 9 -> 11]
The world shifted in an instant. The pitch-black tunnel, which had been a terrifying shroud, suddenly became visible in sharp, high-contrast shades of monochrome green. The shadows lost their weight, becoming transparent veils. I could see every minute crack in the ancient stone, every copper pipe, and every remaining charred rat carcass with a clarity that surpassed natural sight.
"I can... I can see everything,"
I whispered, staring at my hands in wonder. Small, flickering sparks of blue light danced between my fingers, a visual manifestation of the debugger authority I was beginning to wield. I wasn't just playing a game anymore; I was consuming its broken parts to rebuild myself.
But the intoxicating warmth of the level-up didn't last. The steam began to clear, revealing the wreckage of the corridor. The valve I had broken was still venting, but the sound had changed. It was no longer the sharp hiss of escaping steam; it was a rhythmic, deep vibration that seemed to pulse from within the earth itself.
The walls began to glow with a dull, sickening red light, thrumming in time with the vibration. My new "Night Vision" showed me something the darkness had hidden from my human eyes. At the far end of the corridor, the stone wasn't stone anymore. It was a wall of writhing, glistening black tentacles, thick as tree trunks and fused directly into the ruin's core.
And in the center of that pulsing mass, a human face was trying to push through the membrane of the world. The skin was pale, almost translucent, and as the face opened its eyes, I felt my heart stop.
They were exactly like mine.
[Warning: Critical Identity Error]
[Unauthorized Duplicate Detected]
The thing in the wall opened its mouth to scream, its features contorting in a mask of pure agony. But the sound that came out wasn't a monster's roar. It was my own voice—the exact pitch and cadence of my speaking voice in the real world.
"Help me, Rin... please, it hurts,"
The monster sobbed, its eyes locking onto mine with a terrifying, soulful recognition. My blood ran cold, turning to ice in my veins. Rin. That was my name—my real name, the one I used outside of the interface. Nobody in this world should know that.
Not even Kaela.