Erevan had about sixty seconds to process what a "Glitch Storm" even was before the world decided to rip itself apart.
It started with the sky.
Not a fade into darkness, not a crack of thunder — it fractured.
Thin, white fissures spread across the blue like glass under pressure, webbing outward until the entire dome of heaven looked ready to shatter.
And through those cracks… wasn't sunlight.
Wasn't clouds.
Wasn't even sky.
It was text.
Lines of glowing white words scrolled against an endless black backdrop — error logs, hundreds of them, thousands, bleeding across reality like the world's code had just thrown up its secrets.
A low buzz crawled across Erevan's skin. The wind howling through the village wasn't air anymore — it was static, a harsh electric scream that clawed at his teeth and made every hair on his body rise.
The villagers began to scream.
Roofs collapsed mid-fall, flickering out of existence before they hit the ground. Walls glitched transparent, leaving only the wireframe skeleton of a world that had forgotten what it was supposed to be.
The System spoke, calm as ever, its tone almost cruel in how normal it sounded.
([System Alert: Glitch Storm Approaching])
([Recommended Action: Evacuate Safe Zone Immediately])
([Failure Condition: Data Corruption])
The earth lurched.
Erevan stumbled, barely catching his balance as the cobblestones beneath his boots peeled upward like torn paper. The grass texture ripped loose, glowing particles lifting into the air before disintegrating into static.
He looked up, heart pounding, and saw Kaelith already sprinting toward the village gate — bow bouncing against her shoulder, eyes locked forward.
"Move!" she shouted, voice sharp, cutting through the roar.
Erevan ran.
His lungs burned instantly, the air thick with static that scraped down his throat. Each breath tasted like ozone and iron.
Behind him, chaos.
A villager stumbled mid-run, froze, and began to convulse. Her body flickered — once, twice — then her face dissolved into a blur of shifting code.
Erevan's eyes widened in horror. "What—"
The woman shattered.
No scream. No time. Just a burst of jagged fragments scattering like glass, swallowed by the wind.
Erevan's stomach twisted so violently he nearly fell. "What the hell is happening to them?"
Kaelith didn't even turn. Her braid whipped behind her as she sprinted.
"They're NPCs," she shouted over the storm. "The code goes unstable first. You want to join them, keep asking questions."
NPCs. Just data. Just lines of code.
Except that woman's eyes — they'd looked real.
Erevan gritted his teeth, forcing the thought down. There wasn't time. He just ran, boots hammering over terrain that flickered between stone and raw gridlines.
The gate loomed ahead, half-solid, half-glitching — one side still stone, the other collapsing into unfinished geometry.
Static wind howled around him. His vision shook.
And then they were through.
The world behind them screamed — or maybe it was the sound of reality breaking — as the village flickered, folded, and finally disappeared.
Kaelith didn't stop running.
Neither did Erevan.
The air ahead was no cleaner, but at least it wasn't tearing itself apart — not yet.
The forest didn't look like salvation.
It looked broken.
Erevan had seen forests before — real ones, with earth that smelled like moss and bark that stayed where it belonged. But this?
This was wrong.
Trees bent at impossible angles, twisting like giants caught mid-fall. Roots clawed upward instead of down, curling into the air like skeletal fingers. Branches burrowed into the soil, trembling as if the ground itself was breathing.
Leaves flickered through entire lifetimes in seconds — budding, greening, withering, dying, then doing it all again in a dizzying, endless loop.
Erevan had to look away. Staring too long made his stomach lurch, like the world was trying to desync with him.
The ground wasn't helping either. Every few steps, it jittered, skipping forward a frame or jerking backward. Once, his boot landed on grass that blinked into cobblestone, then mud, then grass again. His ankle screamed.
He nearly fell face-first into a flickering bush.
"Yeah," he muttered through clenched teeth. "This is fine. Totally fine. Love what they've done with the apocalypse."
Kaelith didn't even glance back. She moved through the warped landscape like she'd done it before, bow steady across her back, gaze sharp despite the chaos.
"You've done this before, haven't you?" Erevan asked, breath ragged, voice half panic, half accusation.
"Once," she said without looking. "That was enough."
"Great," he shot back, almost tripping again. "Glad I'm here for the sequel."
No reaction. Either she didn't hear him or she was ignoring him on purpose — both options felt equally insulting.
The System chose that moment to chime again, tone as calm as a spreadsheet.
([Glitch Storm Duration: 59:12])
Erevan groaned. "You've got to be kidding me. An hour? An entire hour of this nightmare?"
Kaelith kept her pace. "Less if the terrain holds. More if you keep talking."
"Oh, I see how it is. Snark under fire. Real inspiring leadership, Captain Static."
A flicker of movement caught his eye — a nearby tree trunk glitching, stretching like taffy before snapping back.
Erevan swallowed hard. His pulse was so loud he could barely hear his own thoughts. "Where are we even going?"
"There's a cave system up ahead," Kaelith said. "Natural formations resist corruption longer. Less for the storm to eat."
"Define less."
Before she could answer, the System interrupted, as if delighted to provide bad news.
([Environmental Hazard: Reality Collapse])
([Stability: 42%])
Erevan threw his hands up. "Fantastic! Just what I needed — numbers of doom!"
As if the world had been listening, a roar tore through the forest.
Not animal. Not mechanical. Something in between.
It started as a growl, deep and guttural, then broke into static, warping pitch until it rattled the ground beneath his feet. The air vibrated. The trees bent away, glitching in submission as something enormous shoved its way through.
A shape broke from the distortion.
A wolf.
Except it wasn't just a wolf.
Its fur flashed between textures — one second brown, the next red, then black, then raw gridlines. Its eyes glowed a searing red, pupils shaped like code. Teeth flickered into polygons mid-snarl.
The System confirmed it, far too casually.
([Enemy: Corrupted Wolf Lv. 5])
([Status: Unstable Entity])
Kaelith moved instantly. Her bow snapped up, the string thrummed, and an arrow streaked forward in a flash of blue.
It hit the wolf square in the muzzle.
For a second, Erevan thought that was it. Done.
Then the wound pixelated, rippling out like cracks across glass — and healed.
The wolf didn't even flinch.
"Oh," Erevan said, voice breaking. "That's fair. Totally fair."
It lunged.
The ground under it flickered from dirt to stone to empty space. Every time it touched down, the terrain warped, like reality couldn't handle its weight.
Kaelith fired again, aiming for the eyes, but the arrow vanished into static before it hit.
Erevan's throat went dry. "Okay, you do the arrows. I'll do the—uh—whatever this is."
He thrust his hand forward, summoning instinct kicking in.
A fluffy white sheep popped into existence at his feet, bleating in confused innocence.
Above its head, the familiar countdown appeared.
3… 2… 1…
The wolf pounced.
BOOM.
The explosion lit up the forest. Static fire roared outward, branches tore free, and Erevan hit the ground hard as the shockwave sent dust and pixels spiraling skyward.
For a heartbeat, everything went silent.
Then the smoke cleared.
The wolf still stood.
Half its body was missing — gaping holes revealing glowing wireframe ribs — but it was still moving, dragging itself toward him with a snarl that sounded more like static than sound.
The System chimed.
([Enemy Damaged – HP -35%])
Erevan's voice cracked. "Thirty-five? That was a goddamn nuke! What's next, tactical sheep deployment?!"
The wolf lunged again.
He dove sideways, rolling through grass that turned into water halfway through. Cold soaked his entire side. He gasped, slipping, scrambling to his feet.
Kaelith's next arrow flared with blue light — she'd switched to enchanted shots. It slammed into the wolf's ribs, detonating in a crack of pure energy.
The beast staggered, snarled, then turned its flickering, hateful gaze straight back on Erevan.
"Your turn, anomaly!" Kaelith shouted.
"Oh sure, hand me the spotlight when the death-wolf's looking right at me! Thanks!"
He summoned again. This time, two sheep blinked into existence.
Both stared up at him, wide-eyed, as their timers began.
3… 2… 1…
Erevan shoved them forward. "Go, you fluffy little heroes!"
The explosion that followed shook the forest. Trees split. Dirt warped. The entire landscape flickered between real and broken.
When the smoke faded this time — the wolf was gone.
Shards of corrupted code hung in the air like glowing ash before fading into nothing.
The System's voice rang out.
([Enemy Defeated])
(EXP +400)
(Loot Acquired: Corrupted Core – Unstable)
Erevan collapsed backward onto the cracked ground, gasping, every muscle trembling. "This… is… insane."
Kaelith didn't give him a chance to rest. She grabbed his arm and hauled him upright, strength belying her slim frame.
"Save the panic for later," she said, scanning the horizon. "More are coming."
Erevan blinked, dazed. "More? No, no, that was the boss fight. You don't get more after the boss fight. That's cheating!"
Kaelith just kept moving.
Behind them, the forest began to twist again — bark textures peeling, red corruption bleeding like rot through the roots.
Pairs of eyes flickered open in the shadows.
Erevan's stomach dropped. "We're so screwed."
Kaelith smirked faintly, though her knuckles were white on the bowstring. "Not if you keep blowing up sheep like that."
The wind howled. The sky above them cracked wider, glowing veins of white running through the dark.
The timer in the corner of Erevan's vision kept ticking, merciless and slow.
([Glitch Storm Duration: 52:44])
And somehow, it felt like this was still only the beginning.
Smoke curled around them, thick and bitter, stinging Erevan's eyes.
His lungs burned. His ears still rang from the blast, and the world flickered at the edges like it couldn't decide if it wanted to exist or crash entirely.
He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the hammering rhythm beneath his ribs. "Okay… okay, that happened. That actually worked."
Kaelith didn't slow. She was already scanning the horizon, bow half raised, every muscle drawn tight. The glow from the fading explosions reflected off her eyes like silver fire.
Erevan tried to laugh, but it came out as a rasp. "You know, I think I deserve a break. Maybe five minutes? Ten? A full nap, maybe?"
Kaelith ignored him. She hooked a hand under his arm, hauling him to his feet again with a grunt.
"Save the jokes," she said. "We're not done."
Erevan blinked at her, sweat dripping into his eyes. "Not done? What do you mean not done? I just nuked that thing with two explosive sheep! What more does the universe want from me?!"
Kaelith didn't answer.
The silence between them stretched, uneasy.
Then the world twitched.
A flicker rippled across the ground — just a shiver at first. Then another. Then the trees began to bend, warping like reflections in broken glass.
From somewhere deeper in the forest came a sound.
A crack, like metal tearing. Followed by something wet, heavy, alive.
Erevan's pulse tripped over itself. "Please tell me that was thunder."
Kaelith's expression hardened. "Thunder doesn't breathe."
The System chimed in, too calm to be comforting.
([Warning: Entity Detected])
([Stability Field Dropping – 31%])
"Yeah, that's— that's exactly what I didn't want to hear," Erevan muttered, forcing himself to look toward the sound.
Between the trees, the air shimmered. The static deepened.
Then the shape appeared.
A wolf — but wrong, even by glitched standards.
It was huge, towering over the twisted forest, shoulders nearly brushing the warped treetops. Patches of its fur had been stripped away entirely, replaced by shifting error textures that cycled through colors too fast for the eye to follow.
Red. Blue. Black. Then nothing at all.
Its jaw hung open too wide, joints clicking like breaking glass. Inside its mouth, not teeth — code, sharp and luminous, rewriting itself in real time.
The ground around it decayed just from its presence. Grass turned to static, dirt flickering into raw wireframe grids.
Erevan took a step back before he even realized he'd moved. "That's… that's not a wolf."
Kaelith's voice was low, steady, but even she sounded strained. "It's worse."
The System's tone sliced through the static.
([Enemy: Corrupted Direwolf Lv. 8])
([Special Trait: Reality Anchor – Spreads Corruption on Contact])
Erevan stared at the glowing words, every drop of blood in his body turning to ice.
"Reality… anchor? What does that even—"
The trees beside them started rotting in reverse. Bark peeled back into polygons, the air thick with the stench of burning ozone.
The answer came on instinct. It didn't just exist in the storm — it was the storm's heart.
A walking epicenter of decay.
"Oh no," Erevan whispered. His voice broke. "Nope. Absolutely not."
The wolf turned toward them. Its glowing eyes flickered once — and locked on him.
For a second, time seemed to freeze.
The only sound was the storm's distant roar, the faint crackle of static under his skin, and the single, terrible heartbeat pounding in his ears.
Then the beast moved.
Reality tore with it.
The wolf lunged.