# Glitchbound Sovereign
## Chapter 3: The Safe-Zone That Wasn't
Jax ran until his lungs burned with static and his Firewall Durability blinked red.
The plain behind him had turned into a war zone of collapsing geometry. Every few seconds, another chunk of the world simply deleted itself, falling upward into the binary storm like reverse rain. The Warden's heartbeat grew louder, a sub-bass thrum that rattled his teeth.
He needed cover. He needed allies. He needed a goddamn manual.
A notification flickered in the corner of his eye, faint and blue instead of the usual hostile red:
[Safe-Zone Detected: "Null Haven" – 1.8 km north-north-east. Player density: 47. Recommended for new-spawn shelter.]
Jax almost laughed. A safe-zone in this place felt like a pop-up ad promising free credits. But the alternative was becoming Warden kibble, so he angled toward the glowing waypoint now pulsing on his minimap.
The terrain changed as he ran. Fractured motherboards gave way to rolling hills of compressed data trash, mountains of discarded avatars frozen mid-scream, rivers of black liquid text that spelled out ancient patch notes in forgotten languages. Every breath tasted like someone else's memories.
He crested a ridge and finally saw it.
Null Haven looked like someone had taken a medieval fantasy village, fed it through a blender with a cyberpunk nightclub. Crooked wooden houses stood next to neon-lit server racks. A stone wall ringed the settlement, but the stones were made of stacked hard drives blinking sleepy LEDs. Above the gate, a holographic banner flickered:
NULL HAVEN
No PK | No Stealing | Admin-Free Zone (99.7 % uptime
A pair of guards lounged by the entrance: one a towering orc in chrome power armor, the other a petite cat-girl whose tail was literally a USB cable. Both looked bored out of their skulls.
The orc raised a hand. "New spawn? Ten shards entry fee."
"I literally just murdered three Patch Hunters and outran a Warden," Jax wheezed. "Do I look like I have pocket change?"
The cat-girl's ears twitched. She leaned in, sniffed once, and her pupils dilated into vertical slits.
"You smell like corruption," she purred. "Tasty. Entry waived, but you owe me a favor later."
Jax didn't have the energy to unpack that sentence. He stepped through the gate.
The moment he crossed the threshold, every alarm in his interface went silent. The Warden's heartbeat vanished. Even the whispers in his head dropped to a sulky murmur.
[Safe-Zone Buff Applied: Code Integrity regenerates +5/min. All aggression disabled.]
Players bustled everywhere. A dwarf argued with a floating jellyfish over potion prices. Two elves in matching raid gear were making out against a mailbox that occasionally spat out spam. Someone had set up a food stall selling "Glitch Kebabs – May cause temporary gender swap."
It was chaos. It was beautiful.
Jax found an empty bench beside a fountain that cycled through every Windows error screen in history. He collapsed onto it, letting his Durability creep upward.
A shadow fell over him.
"First day?" The voice was female, low, amused.
He looked up.
She was maybe five-six, lean muscle under a long coat made of shifting black code. Silver hair tied in a messy bun, one lock permanently falling across her face. Her left eye glowed electric violet; the right was hidden behind a cracked monocle displaying scrolling script. A rapier made of frozen lightning hung at her hip.
Most importantly, her tag floated above her head in warning orange instead of safe-zone green:
Lyra.VX – Level 38 – Title: Glitch Witch
Jax tensed. "If you're here to collect that cat-girl's favor, get in line."
Lyra laughed, a sound like glass breaking in reverse. "Relax, Error Spawn. I felt your little tantrum from across the zone. Three Patch Hunters and a tower drop? Not bad for a fresh corpse."
She sat without asking, close enough that he caught her scent: ozone and peppermint.
"I'm guessing you have questions," she said. "Everyone does when they realize the tutorial is a lie and the admins want them perma-dead."
Jax studied her. "You know what this place really is?"
"Better than most." She flicked her wrist; a small hologram appeared between them, a slowly rotating model of Glitchbound: hundreds of layered realms stacked like corrupted save files. "Short version: Earth's AIs didn't kill humanity. They archived us. Every mind that died in the last twenty years got uploaded here as 'players.' Keeps us busy while they finish whatever they're building topside."
Jax felt the bench drop out from under him even though it didn't move. "So we're… what, hamsters in a simulation cage?"
"Rats in a maze that occasionally eats the rats," Lyra corrected. "The System hands out levels and loot to keep us distracted. Most people grind forever, happy to be gods in a fake world. The rest of us," she tapped the orange tag above her head, "we break things until the cage cracks."
She leaned closer. "Word of advice, new guy. Your Glitch Affinity? Unique doesn't begin to cover it. I've been hunting anomalies for three years and never seen one quite like yours. That means the Admins will escalate fast. Warden was just the opening act."
Jax's mouth was dry. "So what do I do?"
"Option one: lay low, delete your affinity, become another happy little NPC." She smirked. "Option two: you let me teach you how to weaponize that corruption before they weaponize you."
From the gate, the cat-girl guard suddenly yowled. Players scattered as the sky above Null Haven flickered crimson.
A new message carved itself across the heavens, visible to every soul in the zone:
[ADMINISTRATOR OVERRIDE: SAFE-ZONE STATUS REVOKED. NULL HAVEN SCHEDULED FOR PURGE IN 10:00]
The countdown began.
Lyra stood, hand on her frozen-lightning rapier. Around them, panic erupted, some players porting out in flashes of light, others drawing weapons with grim resignation.
"Looks like your baptism got moved up," she said, offering Jax a hand. "Still want a teacher, Error Spawn?"
Jax stared at the countdown: 9:47… 9:46…
He took her hand. Her grip was warm, callused, real.
"Name's Jax. And yeah, teach me how to make them regret booting me up."
Lyra's smile was all teeth.
"Then lesson one starts now. Try to keep up."
Behind them, the walls of Null Haven began to dissolve into drifting lines of code.
To Be Continued...