The forest had finally gone quiet.
Too quiet.
Erevan's boots squelched in mud that wasn't supposed to exist. The air still hissed with faint static, as if the world hadn't finished rebooting after the storm.
Kaelith crouched near the rock face ahead, fingers brushing over the jagged outline of a cave entrance. "This is where the readings lead. Whatever's corrupting the zone started here."
"Fantastic," Erevan muttered. "A hole in the ground. Because nothing bad ever begins with let's go into the cave."
He leaned against a tree that glitched once under his touch—texture snapping from bark to smooth pixel, then back again. He jerked his hand away. "Right. The trees are made of trauma. Good to know."
Kaelith shot him a look. "You still have jokes. That's a good sign."
"Or brain damage. Fifty-fifty split at this point."
They stepped inside.
The light dimmed immediately, swallowed by damp air that smelled like rust and ozone. The cave walls shimmered faintly, thin veins of blue code pulsing through the stone like veins under skin. Every flicker cast their shadows into something too long, too alive.
([Entering Instanced Zone: The Maw of Error])
([Environmental Stability: 27%])
Erevan exhaled. "Twenty-seven percent stability. That's… what, not dying odds?"
Kaelith adjusted her bowstring. "It means reality might melt if you talk too loud."
"Cool, I'll whisper my screams then."
They moved deeper. Each step echoed weirdly—delayed, distorted, like the sound bounced through two versions of the same space.
Drips of water—or what looked like water—fell from the ceiling and vanished before they hit the ground.
Erevan rubbed his arms, skin prickling. "Feels like the cave's breathing."
"Focus," Kaelith said softly. "Do you hear that?"
He held still. At first, nothing. Then—beneath the static—came a faint scraping sound.
Not the shuffle of rocks. Not wind.
Something moving.
([Unidentified Lifeform Detected])
Erevan's breath hitched. "Please let that be a friendly NPC."
The darkness ahead twitched.
Shapes dragged themselves into the flickering light—bodies half-formed, skin crawling with shifting code. Their limbs moved out of sync, like marionettes controlled by lag.
One looked up, its face a blur of missing textures. Its jaw opened, and the sound that came out wasn't a growl or a scream but a line of broken audio looping on itself.
Kaelith drew an arrow, voice flat. "Friendly enough for you?"
Erevan swallowed hard. "I'm starting to miss the wolves."
The nearest creature lunged.
The first one hit the ground in a mess of static and ash.
Erevan stumbled back, breathing hard. "That—okay, that was definitely not in the tutorial."
Another crawler screeched from the shadows, its body twitching between frames, half in this world, half somewhere else. Kaelith's arrow sliced through its skull before it could reach them, the impact exploding in a burst of pixelated dust.
For a moment, the cave went still again. Just their breathing and the low hum of corruption crawling through the stone.
Erevan pressed his palm to the wall, steadying himself. The texture rippled like water under his touch. "Tell me that's not supposed to do that."
"It's not," Kaelith said. Her voice had that razor calm she used when she was suppressing panic. "They're not just corrupting the area—they're rewriting it."
Erevan laughed once, too sharp. "Awesome. So we're basically inside a blender that occasionally grows teeth."
Something clattered behind them.
They turned just as a third crawler dragged itself from the ceiling, limbs bending the wrong way. Its fingers hooked into stone, leaving deep grooves of light.
"Top," Kaelith hissed.
"I see it!" Erevan shouted back. He swung his sword, cutting through one arm—but the limb kept writhing even after it fell.
The creature dropped on him, heavy and cold. Static flared where its skin touched his armor, sending pain sparking through his nerves.
([Corruption Status: 8% Contamination Detected])
"Not helpful!" he grunted, kicking it off. "Little warning next time before the body horror updates, please!"
Kaelith vaulted over a cluster of rocks, loosing another arrow. The crawler dissolved mid-screech, its remains flickering like bad signal before vanishing entirely.
The silence that followed wasn't relief. It was waiting.
Every drip of glitching water felt louder now. Every breath felt stolen.
They pushed deeper, the tunnel narrowing until Erevan had to duck.
The walls pulsed faintly, veins of blue code turning a darker, redder hue the further they went. The air smelled like iron and static.
Kaelith slowed. "You feel that?"
Erevan nodded. "Yeah. Like the cave's watching."
He wasn't wrong. The light ahead changed—flickering faster, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Then the tunnel opened up.
A vast chamber spread before them, ceiling lost in darkness. At its center floated a crystal, crimson and veined with black, rotating slowly above a pool of fractured reflections.
Every pulse of light made the walls shimmer and groan.
The System chimed, voice barely audible over the hum.
([Object Identified: Codex Fragment – Type: Unknown])
([Warning: High Corruption Density Detected])
Erevan's throat went dry. "That's the same kind of fragment we found before, isn't it?"
Kaelith nodded, eyes fixed on the crystal. "No. This one's… awake."
The crystal pulsed again—faster this time. The air around it cracked, lines of code tearing open like wounds.
Something moved inside the reflection pool.
Erevan took a single step back. "Kaelith. Tell me that's not another crawler."
She didn't answer.
The surface of the pool split—
—and something began to crawl out.
The creature rose from the reflection pool like a nightmare that couldn't decide what shape it wanted.
Its body shifted with every breath—bones bending, skin tearing, reforming into shapes that didn't belong to anything that should exist.
Erevan's sword felt too small, too human, in his hand.
The crystal above them pulsed harder, red light spilling across the chamber walls. Every beat seemed to sync with the pounding in his chest.
([Entity Detected: Unknown Type – Codex Guardian])
([Warning: Power Level Exceeds Safe Combat Threshold])
"Fantastic," Erevan muttered, his voice shaking despite the attempt at humor. "We've officially gone from tutorial boss to game developer's apology letter."
Kaelith didn't even smile. Her eyes were locked on the creature as it turned toward them—its head jerking like a corrupted file, mouth splitting open in too many directions.
Then it screamed.
Not a roar. Not a growl. A sound that tore through the code of the world itself. The floor rippled beneath them, chunks of corrupted data breaking off like shards of glass.
Erevan braced himself as the Guardian lunged. He rolled to the side, his boots skidding across the flickering surface. Kaelith fired arrow after arrow, each one bursting into static the second it struck.
"Nothing's sticking!" she shouted.
"Yeah, I noticed!"
The Guardian swung a limb—too long, too jagged—and caught Erevan across the shoulder. Pain ripped through him like electricity. His vision flared white.
([HP: 46/100])
He bit down a curse, forcing himself upright. "Kaelith, that crystal—it's connected! Maybe if we break it—"
She didn't wait for the rest. Kaelith spun, drawing a new arrow glowing with faint blue runes. She loosed it straight at the floating crystal.
The impact cracked it open.
Light poured out, washing the entire cavern in red and white static. The Guardian shrieked, collapsing to one knee as fragments of its body started to distort.
Erevan didn't hesitate. He ran forward, sword raised, and drove it into the creature's chest.
The blade sank in with a crunch of shattered data. The world froze—the hum stopped, the light dimmed, and for a second, everything went completely still.
Then the Guardian exploded into a storm of glitch-shards.
The force knocked Erevan backward, the air punched out of his lungs as he hit the stone floor.
The crystal's remains floated down slowly, glowing like dying embers.
Silence followed.
He stayed there for a long moment, breathing hard, chest burning. Every muscle trembled from the aftershock. Kaelith was slumped a few feet away, her bow still raised halfway as if she couldn't convince herself it was over.
Finally, Erevan laughed weakly. "Tell me we don't have to do that again."
Kaelith's lips twitched. "If we do, you're tanking next time."
He let out a breath that was half a groan, half a laugh. "Deal."
The System broke the quiet.
([Entity Defeated: Codex Guardian])
([New Item Acquired: Fragment of the Anomaly])
([Skill Tree Access Unlocked – Anomaly Branch])
Erevan blinked up at the floating text. "Wait—Anomaly Branch? That's new."
The fragment shimmered before him—small, crystalline, humming with faint static. For a second, he thought it looked like a heartbeat made of code.
He reached out and caught it.
The instant his fingers touched the shard, something pulsed through him. A flash of memory that wasn't his. A voice—soft, distant, pleading.
Don't let it rewrite you too.
Then it was gone.
Erevan gasped, clutching his chest. The fragment dimmed, settling into his palm like it had never done anything at all.
Kaelith knelt beside him. "You okay?"
"Define okay." He forced a shaky smile, then looked back at the ruined crystal. "Whatever that thing was... it knew me."
Her gaze sharpened. "Erevan—"
"I'm fine," he cut in, too quickly. He wasn't. His hands were still trembling. But if he said it out loud, it would make it real.
They sat there in the crimson-lit silence for a moment longer.
The chamber groaned again. Somewhere deeper in the cave, something clicked—like a lock being undone.
Erevan looked up at the sound. "That's not ominous at all."
Kaelith rose, exhaustion shadowing her expression. "Then let's move before it gets worse."
Erevan followed, the fragment still glowing faintly in his hand.
He didn't see it—the way the reflection pool's surface rippled as they left.
Or the faint whisper that followed, not from the System this time, but something older, quieter.
Anomaly confirmed.
Pattern breach detected.
And then the chamber went dark.