The silence in the white plaza was absolute.
It wasn't the quiet of a library; it was the quiet of a vacuum. Kaelen stood on the dais, his hand raised, gripping the glowing [Admin Access Token] like a grenade. His heart hammered against his ribs, but his hand was rock steady.
Twenty meters away, the Librarian froze. Its porcelain body, usually fluid and shifting, was rigid. The single glowing eye focused intensely on the shard of crystal in Kaelen's palm.
"Negotiation," Kaelen repeated, his voice echoing off the pristine obsidian spires. "Or I crush it. And whatever 'partition' you're guarding crashes with it."
The Librarian's data-robe flickered.
"Calculating probability of bluff..." the synthetic voice buzzed. "Analysis: Subject Zero displays elevated cortisol levels consistent with fear. However, Subject Zero also displays a history of reckless self-endangerment. Conclusion: Threat is credible."
The glowing white light in the Librarian's eye faded. The invisible pressure holding Kaelen in place vanished completely.
"Weapons systems deactivated," the Librarian announced. It folded its hands into its sleeves. "State your query, Variable."
Kaelen didn't lower his hand. He stepped closer to the massive black ring of the 7th Door.
"Vance Prime," Kaelen said, the name tasting like ash in his mouth. "Who was he? To the world, he was a researcher who died in a lab accident. To the Church, he was a heretic. Who was he to you?"
The Librarian walked forward. It didn't take steps; it glided, hovering an inch above the tiles.
"User: VANCE_PRIME was a Lead Architect," the Librarian replied. "He was one of the twelve developers tasked with maintaining the System's logic parameters after the Great Reset."
Kaelen's breath hitched. "A developer? He helped build this hell?"
"He helped stabilize it," the Librarian corrected. "But he developed a flaw. Empathy. He concluded that the System's method of resource distribution—conflict, scarcity, monster waves—was inefficient and cruel. He attempted to write a patch."
The Librarian pointed a slender finger at Kaelen's chest.
"He created the [Sin Eater] class. It was not a combat class. It was a debugging tool. Designed to consume the 'excess entropy' (Sins) generated by the System and convert it into stable energy."
Kaelen looked at his own hands. The black veins pulsing under his skin weren't a curse. They were code. He was a living antivirus designed to eat the world's corruption.
"So the System killed him," Kaelen deduced coldly. "Because he tried to fix the game."
"The System identified him as a Rogue Process," the Librarian stated without emotion. "Deletion was immediate. However, he managed to hide his source code in a biological vessel before termination."
"Me," Kaelen whispered.
"You are the backup drive," the Librarian agreed. "And that Token is the decryption key for his workspace."
It gestured to the 7th Door.
"The Door leads to his private server. The 'Root Directory' of this sector. If you wish to access his legacy, you must insert the Token."
Kaelen looked at the massive gate. It pulsed with a deep, inviting violet rhythm.
He stepped forward. He found a small, jagged slot in the frame that matched the shape of the crystal in his hand.
He hesitated.
"If I open this," Kaelen asked, looking back at the Librarian. "What happens?"
"You gain Administrative Privileges for Sector 5," the Librarian said. "And you alert the High Council."
"The Church?"
"Higher," the Librarian tilted its head upward. "The Host."
Kaelen grimaced. Angels. Real ones.
"Let them come," Kaelen muttered. "I'm tired of fighting the grunts."
He jammed the Key into the slot.
CLICK.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then, the world screamed.
[System Error.]
[Critical Failure: Corruption Detected in Token.]
[Data Integrity Compromised.]
[Manifesting: LOGIC_BUG.]
The violet light of the Key turned a sickly, static-filled red. The air around the gate fractured like broken glass.
"Warning!" The Librarian flashed red. "Token is corrupted by the Abyss! Quarantine protocols engaged!"
A blast of force threw Kaelen backward. He slid across the white tiles, scrambling to his feet.
From the gate, a shape emerged.
It wasn't a monster. It was a glitch.
It looked like a humanoid figure, but its textures were missing. Parts of it were wireframe. Parts of it were hyper-realistic gore. It flickered in and out of existence, lagging through the air.
It let out a sound that was a screech of dial-up static.
[Enemy Detected: The Glitch (Rank Unknown).]
[Attributes: Unstable / Physics-Defying.]
The Glitch lunged.
Kaelen didn't even see it move. One millisecond it was at the gate; the next, it was in front of him.
SLASH.
Kaelen felt a burning pain across his chest. His [Nano-Weave Armor] didn't break; it just ceased to exist in a clean line across his torso.
[-150 HP]
"Lag!" Kaelen shouted, rolling backward. "It's teleporting!"
"It is skipping frames!" The Librarian shouted from the sidelines, seemingly unable to interfere. "It exists between the tick-rate of the reality simulation! You cannot hit it with physical matter!"
Kaelen drew his Mithril Sword. He swung at the flickering horror.
The sword passed right through the wireframe torso as if it were smoke.
The Glitch raised a hand. The air distorted.
Hit.
Kaelen was slammed into the ground by an invisible force.
[-80 HP]
"I can't hit it!" Kaelen spat blood. "It has no hitbox!"
"It is raw data!" The Librarian advised. "You must interact with it on a code level!"
"I'm a mercenary, not a programmer!" Kaelen roared, dodging another frame-skipping attack that turned the marble floor into pixelated dust.
The Glitch screamed again—a sound like metal tearing. It lunged for Kaelen's throat.
Kaelen's eyes flared violet.
'Raw data?' Kaelen thought. 'Wait. The Librarian said Sin Eater is a debugging tool.'
He dropped his sword.
He didn't try to dodge. He spread his arms.
"Fine," Kaelen snarled. "If I can't cut you..."
The Glitch's hand phased into Kaelen's chest. It didn't pierce his heart; it phased through it, trying to scramble his biology.
Kaelen grabbed the Glitch's arm. His hands sank into the static, burning cold.
[Skill: Sin Eater (Overclocked).]
[Target: System Error.]
[Command: DEFRAGMENT.]
"I'll eat you."
Kaelen pulled.
He didn't pull physically. He pulled with his soul. He activated the [Abyssal Sun] inside his core, turning it into a vacuum for entropy.
The Glitch shrieked. The red static composing its body began to swirl, sucked into Kaelen's chest where their bodies connected.
[System Alert.]
[Ingesting Corrupted Data...]
[Parsing Logic...]
[Error: Capacity Exceeded.]
"Shut up and eat!" Kaelen screamed mentally at the System.
He forced the energy down. It tasted like battery acid and aluminum foil. His veins turned black, bulging against his skin. His vision fragmented, showing him lines of code cascading over the world.
The Glitch tried to pull away, but Kaelen held on. He was the Antivirus, and this was the virus.
"You don't belong here," Kaelen whispered, his voice layering with the demonic resonance of the Abyss. "DELETE."
WHOOSH.
The Glitch imploded.
The entire red mass was sucked into Kaelen's chest in a violent swirl of light.
Kaelen fell to his knees, gasping. Smoke poured from his mouth. His skin flickered for a second—transparent, then solid—as his own reality stabilized.
[Ding!]
[Threat Neutralized: Logic Bug.]
[Data Absorbed.]
[Class Evolution Triggered.]
[Sin Eater (Tier 1) -> Void Architect (Proto-Type).]
[New Ability Unlocked: Glitch Step.]
[Description: Allows the user to 'skip' 0.5 seconds of reality. (Cooldown: High).]
The red light on the 7th Door turned a stable, calming blue.
The massive gate groaned. The inner mechanism spun.
The heavy doors parted.
Kaelen looked up, wiping static tears from his eyes.
Behind the door wasn't a room. It was a terminal. A single, floating console in a void of stars.
And floating above the console was a hologram.
It was a man. He wore a lab coat, disheveled hair, and glasses. He looked tired.
[Hologram: Vance Prime.]
"Hello, Kaelen," the recording spoke. It wasn't interactive; it was a message left decades ago. "If you're seeing this, then I failed. And the world is probably a mess."
Kaelen pulled himself up, walking toward the image of the father he barely remembered.
"Understatement of the century, Dad," Kaelen whispered.
The hologram continued.
"I don't have much time. The Angels are knocking on my firewall. I've hidden the Source Code for the 8th Door in three fragments across the Wasteland. You can't let the Church find them."
A map projected into the air. Three glowing dots appeared on the Wasteland map.
The Scrapyard of Giants (Sector 2).
The Crystal Forest (Sector 7).
The Deep Abyss (Layer 2).
"Find them," the hologram pleaded. "Assemble the Key. And reset the System before He wakes up."
"He?" Kaelen asked.
"The Administrator," the hologram flickered, fading. "Lucifer."
The hologram vanished. The terminal went dark.
The Librarian stepped forward.
"Message delivered," the machine said. "Now, Variable Kaelen. You must leave. My sensors detect a high-velocity entry in the upper atmosphere."
"Who?" Kaelen asked, turning back to the bathysphere.
"An Archangel," the Librarian looked up at the stone ceiling. "They tracked the glitch."
Surface Level. The Oasis.
Vex was cleaning her daggers when the sky ripped open.
It wasn't a storm. It was a beam of golden light that punched through the clouds and slammed into the desert floor five miles away.
The impact shook the crawler.
"Earthquake?" Lyra shouted, grabbing her rifle.
Seraphina looked at the horizon. Her eyes, attuned to light magic, widened in horror.
"No," Seraphina whispered. "That's Holyfire."
From the crater of the impact, a figure rose.
It was human-shaped, but twenty feet tall. It had wings made of burning metal feathers. It held a spear that radiated heat so intense it turned the sand to glass beneath its feet.
[Global System Announcement.]
[Entity Descent: Archangel Uriel (Avatar).]
[Mission: Purge the Glitch.]
The Angel turned its head slowly. It looked across the miles of desert, directly at the Oasis.
It raised its spear.
"Kaelen," Vex grabbed the comms. "KAELEN! GET YOUR ASS UP HERE! WE HAVE A PROBLEM!"
Below.
Kaelen scrambled into the bathysphere.
"I heard," Kaelen snapped, firing the thrusters. The sphere shot up through the black water.
He looked at his new status screen.
[Void Architect].
"Lucifer," Kaelen muttered, the name echoing in his mind. "My father wasn't killed by a glitch. He was killed by the Devil."
He gripped the controls.
"And now the Devil sent his dog."
The sphere breached the surface of the Oasis pool, exploding into the twilight air.
Kaelen popped the hatch and jumped out, landing on the sand.
He saw the golden light on the horizon. He felt the overwhelming pressure of a Rank S entity.
He looked at his army. They were terrified. Even Krog was gripping his hammer with shaking hands.
"Boss," Lyra looked at him, her face pale. "What is that?"
Kaelen drew his Mithril Sword. The blade was cracked, but it still held an edge.
"That," Kaelen said, walking to the front of the line, "is the reason we bought those rifles."
He turned to his troops.
"Pack it up! We're leaving! We can't fight a god today!"
"Where do we go?" Seraphina cried. "It will track us!"
Kaelen looked at the map his father had shown him. Sector 2: The Scrapyard of Giants.
"We go where angels fear to tread," Kaelen yelled, climbing onto the lead crawler. "We go to the Scrapyard! Move! Or get vaporized!"
As the convoy roared to life, kicking up sand, the Angel on the horizon took its first step.
The distance closed instantly.
The Pilgrimage had turned into a race.