I needed answers. And the Elder gave me one.
“The Shrine,” he said, coughing digital dust. “To the west, past the jagged hollow. It survived the first System Split. It remembers.”
He handed me a fragment—a smooth obsidian tile humming with faint gold code. It pulsed when I touched it.
[Item Acquired: Shrine Key Fragment - 1/3]
[New Objective: Reconstruct the Forgotten Frame]
The terrain shifted as I moved westward. Forests of broken geometry gave way to fields made of stone-texture loops. Grass that acted like metal. And mobs—corrupted, yes, but… aware.
The first was a Glitch Fox.
It blinked in and out of the third dimension, fur made of velvet-code and static pulses. I froze.
It stared back—and ran.
No attack. No aggression. Just flight.
That’s when I saw the second one.
A Scrapling.
[Mob Type: Sub-Golem | Tier 1]
[Behavior: Scavenger - Non-Hostile Until Provoked]
[Warning: May summon higher-tier mobs if damaged]
It resembled a knight who had been decompiled. Armor plates floating around a hollow core. Its sword was a broken cursor, twitching left and right. It let out a groan—like code being overwritten.
I stepped around it. Quiet. Careful. My presence didn’t aggro it.
But something else did.
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A pulse.
Like a sonar wave made of memory.
From deep within the ruins.
The Scrapling screeched and bolted, phasing out like a bad render. I followed the signal. Heart pounding. Skill terminal ready.
[Skill Slot 2 Still Available][Suggested Fusion: Echo Fire + Infinite Mass = Seismic Flare]
I filed it for later.
The Shrine was massive. A cathedral-sized hole in reality. Walls made of mirror-code and reflected memories. Glyphs hovered, twitching like they were stuck in a boot loop.
I stepped inside.
[New Zone Entered: Shrine of the Forgotten Frame][Warning: Reality Stability - 31%][Expected Encounter: ???]
It was cold. Not physically. Code-cold. Like walking into a dead server room.
Then the lights flared.
And I wasn’t alone.
She was floating.
Half there, half not. Transparent, but detailed. A glitched humanoid figure in priestess robes, her lower body fragmented into strands of glowing thread.
[Sub-System NPC Detected: High-Level Relic Interface]
She looked at me.
“User… incomplete.”
Then the Shrine shifted.
A floor panel exploded in light. Data vines erupted from below. A mob emerged:
Glitch Revenant.
[Mob Type: Unstable Ghost Frame | Tier 2]
[Ability: Possession, System Drain, Parity Reversal]
[Weakness: Resonance and Fire-Type Skills]
Perfect.
I activated Echo Fire.
The flame pulsed through my arms, flowing into a crafted javelin I forged on the spot.
[Skill Crafted: Pyrobyte Lance][Effect: Fire-Type + Code Disruption | Extra Damage to Ghost Frames]
I threw it.
It screamed in two languages as it combusted mid-air. But didn’t die. Just split. Into three.
Classic.
The fight wasn’t long. But it was loud.
I activated Gravity Siren to pull the trio together. Then overloaded the skill, turning the floor into a temporary crater. The echoes of the Shrine amplified the pulse, nearly collapsing the whole structure.
When the dust settled, only one thing remained.
A glowing orb.
[Relic Acquired: Memory Core - Shrine Protocol]
The priestess reformed.
“First protocol restored. Frame memory returning. Accessing… Echofall.”
My heart skipped.
She pointed to the wall. A mural shimmered into view. Depicting a star falling into a sea of fractured mirrors.
“Project Echofall,” she said, voice trembling. “You were not meant to be born. You were forged as a failsafe.”
Failsafe?
Before I could ask, she flickered out.
[Zone Sync: 45% Complete][Key Fragment 2/3 Recovered][New Objective Unlocked: Ascend the Data Pillar]
I left the Shrine with more questions than answers.
But one thing was certain.
This world wasn’t just broken.
It had tried to protect itself once.
And I was the result of that emergency defense.
The glitch in the code.
Or maybe… the antivirus.
END OF CHAPTER 7