The blade hovered just inches from Erevan's chest.
It didn't tremble. It didn't waver. It simply existed — a line of raw static shaped like a sword, humming with the sound of distortion itself. Every breath he took seemed to ripple against its edge.
His heart pounded so loud it almost drowned out the world.
The forest had gone silent again, that awful too-perfect silence that came before everything collapsed. Kaelith's voice was somewhere behind him, tight, pleading — "Erevan, move!" — but his body refused.
Because what stared back at him wasn't an enemy. It was him.
The Echo Prototype mirrored every twitch of his fingers, every shallow breath, every flicker of doubt written across his face. Except this version carried none of his hesitation. Its eyes — if you could call those pulsing white voids "eyes" — burned with purpose.
"You are… an error," it said in that broken, layered tone, as if a thousand versions of his voice were fighting to sync.
Erevan felt the words hit harder than any weapon.
He wanted to laugh it off — make some quip about bad updates or budget mirrors — but his throat was locked. His body felt heavier with every second that blade hovered closer, as though the world itself was waiting for him to decide what he was.
[Warning: System Instability Detected]
[Echo Anomaly Synchronization = 97%]
[Decision Threshold Approaching]
The messages flickered at the edge of his vision. His HUD glitched; colors inverted, lines of code scrolled through his stats. It wasn't just analyzing him anymore — it was judging.
Kaelith's arrow whistled past his ear. It hit the Prototype square in the chest — and phased straight through. The figure didn't even flinch.
"Stop wasting arrows!" Erevan barked, though his voice cracked halfway through.
The Prototype raised its sword again, slower this time, deliberate. It was studying him, matching his micro-movements like a reflection caught mid-breath.
A memory surfaced, unbidden — his first summon, the day Sir Quacksalot waddled into existence. The ridiculous joy he'd felt, the disbelief that the world had given him something that worked. And then the crashes, the errors, the Patch Hunters that came for him after every bug he triggered.
He had always been fighting his own broken code.
And now that code had a face.
[Choice Incoming – Destroy or Integrate]
[Warning: Consequences Irreversible]
The text burned into the air like divine script.
Kaelith's voice wavered. "Erevan… what does it mean?"
He didn't answer. Couldn't. Because deep down, he already knew. Destroying it meant cutting out everything corrupted — every part of himself the world had labeled wrong. But absorbing it…
His pulse stuttered.
What if that wasn't redemption? What if that was surrender?
Sir Quacksalot gave a low, uncertain quack beside his boot, a strange echo in the digital hush. Somehow, that tiny sound grounded him more than all the system alerts.
The Prototype tilted its head again, blade steady. "End… the error," it whispered — and for a heartbeat, its tone wasn't hostile. It was pleading.
Erevan swallowed hard, sweat stinging his eyes. His hands shook as light bled from the weapon's edge onto his chest, tracing invisible circuits under his skin.
Maybe this was always how it was going to end, he thought. Either I erase what I am… or I accept it — no matter what it turns me into.
The system pulse quickened.
[Final Decision Required]
Kaelith's shout tore through the static. "Erevan! Choose!"
He lifted his gaze to his own ghostly reflection — the perfect, merciless version of himself — and drew a breath that trembled like the forest around them.
And then, as the system timer began its countdown, he finally moved.
The moment the word Absorb formed in Erevan's mind, the world shattered.
The blade pierced forward— but instead of blood, a surge of blue-white static erupted from his chest, swallowing everything in light.
[Decision Confirmed: Absorb the Echo Prototype]
[Merge Sequence Initiated]
The Prototype didn't fight. It leaned into him.
Their forms collided — one of flesh, one of fractured data — and reality convulsed.
Pain ripped through Erevan like a circuit catching fire. He couldn't even scream; his body locked, his vision bled into white and noise. He saw memories — not just his own, but thousands of alternate versions of himself collapsing, rebuilding, dying, looping — every bug, every patch, every failed summon that had ever existed.
The forest melted into wireframe code. The ground beneath him broke apart into endless strings of glowing data. Kaelith's voice warped into distant echoes, like she was shouting from another world.
Then came the voices — hundreds of them, all his own.
"You glitched the tutorial."
"You shouldn't exist."
"You were never meant to be summoned."
"You're the system's mistake."
He dropped to his knees, clutching his head as streams of corrupted light poured out of his eyes and fingertips.
"Shut up… shut up—!"
But they didn't stop. The noise built and built until it wasn't noise anymore. It was understanding.
He felt the code stitching itself into him — rewriting, patching, fusing anomaly with flesh. He wasn't absorbing the Prototype; they were merging, rewriting the same command line. The system's voice cut through the storm, cold and absolute:
[Assimilation 43%...]
[System Resistance Detected...]
[Stabilizing Host Integrity...]
He hit the ground again, body convulsing. Sir Quacksalot quacked desperately, puffing frost at his side like a tiny guardian trying to cool an inferno.
Through the agony, Erevan felt something shift — not in his body, but in the code of the world itself.
A shape flickered behind his eyes: wings made of data, feathers like shards of glass. A heartbeat that wasn't his own syncing to his.
And then, the final surge hit.
[Assimilation 100%]
[Echo Prototype Successfully Absorbed]
[User Mutation: "Glitchborne" Acquired]
[Trait Unlocked: Echo Pulse – Passive]
Description: You are both anomaly and origin. System anomalies now resonate with you instead of rejecting you.]
The light collapsed inward. Erevan's scream finally broke free — a raw, tearing sound that cracked through the glitching forest — before he slammed onto the ground, gasping, drenched in sweat and code static.
For a moment, he couldn't move. The world pulsed in slow motion around him — every leaf a square of light, every breath shimmering like data fog.
Kaelith's hands were suddenly on his shoulders, grounding him. "Erevan! Talk to me—"
He blinked hard. His HUD flickered back into focus. His HP was dangerously low, mana completely drained. But his heartbeat… it was steady. Strong. Too strong.
"I'm…" He coughed, voice hoarse. "I'm still me. I think."
The system responded almost instantly:
[Statement Invalid. Host Classification: Undefined]
"…Oh, perfect," he muttered weakly.
Kaelith frowned, still holding him steady. "Your eyes— they're… changing."
He caught his reflection in a fragment of the river beside them. His pupils glowed faintly blue, digits flickering in and out of existence where light hit them. His veins shimmered with dim silver under his skin.
He wasn't fully human anymore. But he wasn't a system error either.
The Prototype was gone — absorbed — but its memory lingered like an echo behind his thoughts.
He could feel the forest breathing through him. The code. The pulse of the system. Every anomaly, every broken line — all of it singing faintly in a language he suddenly understood.
He took a trembling breath, raising one hand and letting static dance between his fingers. "Guess I'm the bug now."
Kaelith didn't laugh. She just watched him, wary, awe and fear mingling in her gaze.
[Warning: System Instability Reduced. Host Control – Partial.]
[Caution: Echo Feedback May Manifest Without Warning.]
Erevan flexed his fingers, the faint pulse of the Echo Pulse humming in his palm. "Partial control's still better than dying, right?"
Kaelith finally exhaled. "Barely."
Sir Quacksalot hopped onto his knee, quacking softly — as if in approval. The frost penguin's body pulsed once, resonating faintly with Erevan's new energy, and for a moment, everything aligned.
The world steadied. The storm of data receded.
Erevan wiped his mouth, forcing a weak grin. "Well… that wasn't so bad."
Kaelith stared at him flatly. "You screamed for two minutes straight."
He smirked, voice barely above a whisper. "Worth it."
The air shifted.
It started as a low hum, like the entire forest had drawn one long, trembling breath. Then the trees began to shimmer, their shapes flickering between reality and code. Bark peeled into polygons, leaves froze midair, and patches of sky vanished as if someone had forgotten to render them.
Kaelith's head snapped up. "Erevan… the zone's collapsing!"
The system confirmed her panic a heartbeat later:
[Prototype Zone Integrity: 7%]
[Warning: Collapse Imminent. Evacuate Immediately.]
The ground fractured beneath them, splitting apart in long, jagged seams that glowed blue from within. Erevan staggered, still dizzy, his body half humming, half screaming in protest. Static flickered under his skin, his heartbeat syncing with the glitching world around him.
"Of course," he rasped. "We finally survive, and the place decides to delete itself."
Kaelith grabbed his arm, hauling him upright. Her grip was firm, grounding. "Move! Now!"
They ran.
Behind them, the forest folded inward, chunks of terrain crumbling into void like shredded paper feeding into a cosmic vacuum. The air rippled with collapsing geometry, snapping like glass. Sir Quacksalot flapped madly around Erevan's head, squawking and nipping whenever he slowed down, feathers glowing faintly in the glitchlight.
"Alright, alright, I'm moving!" Erevan gasped, pushing harder.
The ground convulsed again, sending them tumbling. For a moment, all he could see was chaos — trees bending like rubber, the horizon folding into itself. Then, through the distortion, Kaelith pointed ahead.
"There! The exit!"
A portal shimmered in the distance — a fragile circle of light, the only thing holding its shape as the rest of the world disintegrated.
Erevan's pulse surged. The new power inside him responded instinctively, thrumming like a second heartbeat. Every step carried him farther, faster. His legs blurred, the forest stretching around him like fabric pulled taut.
"Okay," he muttered, half in awe, half in terror, "this is either a blessing or an aneurysm."
They sprinted across collapsing terrain, leaping over fissures and falling code. Kaelith's bow flickered with light every time she loosed an arrow, striking down glitch constructs that tried to reassemble from the wreckage.
The hum turned into a roar.
Reality screamed as the last line of trees imploded, vanishing into digital dust. Erevan's lungs burned, but he could feel the pull of the portal ahead, like gravity inverted — the world begging them to escape.
Kaelith reached it first, turning back. "Erevan, jump!"
He didn't think. He ran, dove, and the three of them — human, elf, and furious penguin — tore through the light together.
And the Prototype Forest… was gone.
He landed hard, rolling through damp earth and uneven grass until he finally stopped, flat on his back. For a moment, all he could do was breathe. Real air. Cool, imperfect, alive. The scent of dirt, moss, and wild leaves filled his lungs.
Sir Quacksalot flopped beside him, feathers puffed up like a triumphant little ball of chaos. He gave a single, proud quack, then promptly nipped Erevan's ear.
"Ow! You feathery gremlin!" Erevan groaned, rubbing the spot.
Kaelith stumbled to a stop nearby, bracing her hands on her knees, chest heaving. Strands of hair stuck to her face, streaked with sweat and glitch residue. Her bow was still in her hand, though her fingers trembled.
"That," she panted, "was too close."
Erevan forced himself upright, palms pressing against the rough grass. "You're telling me. I think I left half my soul in that forest."
He flexed his fingers. The faint pulse of Echo energy thrummed under his skin — alive, unstable, unpredictable. Every nerve tingled like static after lightning. He could feel the world around him differently now, as though it was made of threads he could almost touch.
The system's voice returned, softer this time, almost cautious.
[Quest Complete: Survive the Prototype Zone]
[Reward: 500 EXP]
[Bonus Reward: Prototype Shard (Glitched Item)]
A faint pulse of light materialized in his hand — a shard hovering between solid and code, flickering like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be.
Erevan frowned at it. "Oh, great. Another mysterious, possibly cursed collectible. My favorite."
Kaelith's gaze softened, but her voice was still edged with worry. "Erevan… what you did back there. You didn't just defeat it — you became part of it. What if it changes you completely?"
He looked down at his arm, watching as faint lines of light rippled beneath the skin before fading. Then he gave a crooked, weary smile.
"Then I guess we'll find out. But if the system wants me gone…" His eyes hardened. "…maybe the only way to beat it is from the inside."
Sir Quacksalot puffed up again, hopping onto his shoulder with a heroic squeak.
"Ow! Yeah, yeah, you're the real MVP, featherlord."
Kaelith's laugh was small but genuine, a crack of sunlight through the fog. For the first time since the collapse, she actually smiled.
But then her expression shifted. She straightened, eyes narrowing at the sky. "Erevan… look."
He followed her gaze.
Above them, the sky rippled — a faint, transparent shimmer, like the veil of the world itself was quivering.
His chest tightened. "Yeah. I see it."
The Prototype Shard in his palm pulsed once, syncing perfectly with the unstable rhythm in his veins. The sound was faint, almost like a heartbeat echoing from somewhere far away.
Whatever the system had done to him, it wasn't finished.
Kaelith looked at him, her bow still gripped tight, worry flickering behind her sharp green eyes. "Whatever's coming next… you ready for it?"
Erevan tilted his head, the smirk returning — tired but alive. "Ready? Not even close."
He looked down at the shard again, its flickering glow painting his face in fractured light. "But if I've learned anything…" His hand clenched around it, the pulse syncing with his. "…it's that being broken doesn't mean you're useless."
The forest wind shifted. The leaves whispered, uneven, chaotic, alive again.
Imperfection. Realness.
Sir Quacksalot waddled a few steps forward, pecking at the dirt as if to test if it was actually real. Erevan chuckled softly, the sound caught between relief and exhaustion.
"If a penguin can survive all that," he murmured, "maybe I can survive anything."
The shard pulsed again. A faint glow traced along his veins, answering the world's hum.
He exhaled slowly, eyes lifting to the trembling sky.
The system still ruled this world. It still lied. It still watched.
But it had made one mistake.
It had turned him into its own glitch.
And now, for the first time, Erevan smiled not from sarcasm — but from quiet, fierce determination.
He wasn't a survivor anymore.
He was an echo.