Kai’s body moved before he could even think. Muscle memory and glitch-born instinct fused in a dance that only he could follow.
[Skill Activated: Time Reverb – Local zone rewinding for 0.8 seconds]
The world hiccupped. The entity’s claws missed by milliseconds. Again.
“This thing isn’t just corrupted,” Kai muttered, sliding back across the crystalized floor, “it’s undoing itself and remaking itself constantly.”
[Fusion Instability: 71%]
That number was rising. The Echo Fire in his veins raged like a caged sun, while Null Thread tried to silence everything around it. The pressure of those fused seeds clashed in his core, but Kai didn’t wince. He never did.
The entity hissed—or rather, it echoed. Its voice was raw data corrupted mid-upload:
[“Return to the Void Bank. You are not the One.”]
“Buddy, I AM the one,” Kai growled. “You’re just an error I haven’t deleted yet.”
[Skill Activated: Compression Fang]
He leapt, fist alight with glitched symbols, and struck the creature dead center. Its torso imploded in a silent burst of code, collapsing into pixel dust. But as quickly as it fell apart, it reformed—reassembling itself from corrupted environment code like a virus rebooting.
Kai backflipped away, breathing hard.
“This one’s learning. Great.”
The corrupted entity sprinted again, limbs distorting mid-motion. A claw slashed Kai’s shoulder. Pain sparked, followed by an alert.
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[Code Corruption Detected: Patch Recommendation - Anti-Override Needed]
Kai gritted his teeth and reached deep into his Skillcraft System. A new idea flickered—unpolished, untested, unrefined. Perfect.
[New Skill Constructed: Glitchbreaker Shell – Creates a local domain immune to external system rewriting for 7 seconds. Cooldown: 3 hours.]
The floor rippled beneath him. A hexagonal prism of unstable coding circled his body, pulsing in warped harmonics. The moment the creature reached him again, its form destabilized. It screeched, warping wildly before its claws shattered against invisible boundaries.
The beast began to collapse. This time, it didn’t reform.
[Entity Destroyed. Data Residue Absorbed. Unlocking Hidden Lineage Memory…]
Kai fell to one knee as light flooded his vision. He wasn’t prepared for what came next. Not even close.
Memory Sequence Initiated…
A sterile lab.
Floors that reflected like mirrors. Walls of floating script. Humans in white coats—except some weren’t human. Some had numbers for eyes.
Inside a tank suspended in the center of the lab floated a young boy.
Him.
Not exactly him—but a version. Smaller. Simpler. Blank.
[Prototype: K-0012 – Initiated] [Soul Source: Fragmented – Origin: First Glitch Core]
Outside the tank, a voice. Familiar and clinical:
“His name will be… Kaianus.”
Even in the memory, Kai cringed. “Yeah. Nope. We are never calling me that.”
The memory dissolved into noise.
But not before he saw the truth.
He wasn’t born. He was designed.
Weaponized.
Built from a fragment of the very first glitch the world ever knew.
Kai’s eyes snapped open.
His shoulder still ached, but the corrupted wound was gone.
He stood slowly, watching the last embers of the creature fade into smoke.
[New Passive Ability Acquired: Echo Immunity – Reduced effect from recursive-level corruption attacks]
Outside, the Null Ascent floated quietly.
Inside Kai, something else stirred.
Knowledge.
Rage.
And potential.
He opened his Skillcraft interface again. Not to fight.
To build.
To create something that the world couldn’t predict.
Something it couldn’t control.
[Skill Blueprint: Glitch God Layer – 4% Conceptualized]
Kai grinned.
“Let’s see just how far I can push this.”
End of Chapter 19