I sat alone beneath a shattered tree, its bark humming with low-code frequency like a dying heartbeat. The villagers had retreated into their semi-glitched homes after helping patch up my wounds with strange, flickering bandages that rewrote themselves every few seconds. They didn’t speak much. Just nodded at me like I was both a protector and a threat.
The ruins loomed in the distance, gray monoliths wrapped in shifting scripts. I knew I had to go back—those cloaked hunters didn’t just disappear. They retreated. Watched. Calculated. And that meant time was thin.
But for now, I had a brief moment to breathe.
[EXP Balance: 103,200][Skill Slot 2: Available][Crafting Interface: Idle]
I flicked open the terminal in my vision. The faint green-blue UI shimmered over the landscape like a ghost overlay.
[Choose Fusion?]
- Echo Fire + Infinite Mass
- Null Thread + Destructive Beam
- Break Existing Skills for Recombination?
Too many options. Too much power, too soon.
Instead, I shut it down. I needed more intel. More understanding of what this world was. Why it was broken. Why I was here.
So I wandered.
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The village was small. Maybe twenty buildings, half of which blinked in and out of existence depending on where you stood. A paradox barn that looped its roof like a skipping frame. An inn whose door sometimes led to the third floor first. I passed a child drawing with chalk that left glowing binary trails on the ground. She looked up, smiled sadly, and whispered:
“You’re the one the Code dreams about.”
I didn’t ask what she meant.
Instead, I approached the elder’s hut—barely holding together with code-ropes and physical planks nailed into shifting walls. He sat cross-legged inside, eyes glowing with static. His voice was a distortion.
“You shook the sky with that last scream, Outlander. The world noticed. You’re marked now.”
I asked him what this world used to be.
He chuckled. “Used to be? No one remembers ‘used to be.’ Only what is. A system meant for balance, now eaten from the inside. You’re not the first ghost here. But you’re the first to burn like a falling star.”
I told him about the hunters. The Wyvern. The mobs. He just nodded.
“They’re not the worst things you’ll meet. Some mobs still remember who they were before the glitch. Others were born broken. You’ll need allies. Even this world has its loyal code.”
I stayed the night in the inn—glitch-be-damned. My bed reset its location every hour, but I was too tired to care. My dreams were filled with fragmented voices, skill trees fracturing, and a name I didn’t recognize: “Project Echofall.”
Morning came like a screen refresh—sudden and harsh. I woke up to an urgent alert:
[New Zone Detected: Sub-Layer: Fragment 09 - Glitch Ruins: Western Corridor][Mob Activity: Low-to-Moderate][Relic Potential: High]
I strapped up, pulling on what remained of my half-coded armor. Villagers handed me supplies—glitched fruits, system-stable water packets, and a compass that only pointed toward “Disruption.”
This was the calm before the storm, and I felt it in my bones. The real journey hadn’t started yet.
But it would. Soon.
And this time, I’d be ready to shape the world, not just survive it.
END OF CHAPTER 6