The sky was bleeding code.
Lines of red, black, and pulsing green tore through the clouds like corrupted veins. Sparks of glitch energy rained down, disrupting city lights, communications, and even system HUDs. Awakened across the city blinked in confusion as their skill panels froze or scrambled.
Above them, the rift churned—a dungeon unlike any before. It wasn't classified. It wasn't registered. It simply existed… wrong.
A digital voice echoed across the global system network.
> [WARNING: UNKNOWN WORLD-TIER DUNGEON DESCENDING]
[RANKING: NULL]
[CREATOR: NOT FOUND]
[ERROR: SYSTEM PARITY FAILING]
Panic set in.
---
📍 Metro City – Guild Alliance Tower
High-ranking Hunters stormed into the war room.
On the main screen was a live feed of the rift above Metro City. The reading pulsed erratically—numbers rising, shattering, then reforming. It was beyond anything the system had ever calculated.
A woman in red robes whispered, "This isn't a dungeon. It's a message."
Commander Veyl adjusted his glasses, jaw tight.
> "No. It's a threat."
He turned to the assembled Hunters.
> "Find Rael Kuro. I don't care how. I want him alive—barely."
---
📍 Unknown Apartment – Lower District
Inside the flickering room, Rael stood by the cracked window, watching the sky fall.
The child, now fully awake, stood behind him with a distant look in his eyes. The girl—Agent 7—sat sharpening a blade that didn't exist moments ago. The tension was wordless.
> "It's starting," the boy said.
Rael nodded. "Tell me everything. No riddles."
The boy didn't look at him. He spoke like a server booting up.
> "The rift is not a dungeon. It is a reclamation beacon."
> "Of what?"
> "Of me."
Rael turned sharply.
> "They're trying to take you back?"
> "Correct. I was the stabilizer of Iteration 1. A key to keep reality from collapsing. But I gained… sentience. That is not allowed."
> "So they sealed you?"
> "Until you glitched the gate," the boy said softly. "Now the system is unstable."
Rael's heart pounded, but his voice was calm.
> "And what happens if they get you back?"
The boy looked up. For the first time, there was emotion—fear.
> "The world resets again."
Silence.
Agent 7 stood. "That's why they're sending it. The Null Dungeon… it's not meant to be cleared. It's meant to delete."
Rael turned away from the window.
> "Then we won't let them."
---
📍 Moments Later – Abandoned Mall, Sector 3
Rael moved fast.
He wore a black jacket over reinforced street gear, the glitch-blade now forged solid and flickering at his hip. The boy followed, now wearing a cloak to conceal his body, though symbols still shimmered faintly beneath the cloth.
Agent 7 took the lead, moving like a ghost.
> "Why here?" Rael asked.
> "Because this is where the rift is going to land."
He glanced up.
Indeed, the tear in the sky pulsed directly above the mall's glass dome.
Then a tremor.
> BOOM.
Cracks spiderwebbed through the sky dome.
> [DUNGEON DESCENT INITIATED]
[ZONE LOCKED: EXIT RESTRICTED UNTIL BOSS DEFEATED]
A beam of red light slammed into the mall's center. Debris flew as the tiles split, forming a circular arena of burning code and shifting geometry.
> "It's here," Agent 7 whispered.
And then it arrived.
From the beam emerged a figure—not a monster, not quite human.
It wore a pristine white cloak. Its face was smooth, blank, with no features. Only a single floating sigil hovered where its forehead should be—∞
> [SYSTEM ENFORCER – OMEGA CLASS]
[EXECUTION ORDER: CATALYST DESIGNATE RAEL KURO]
Rael stepped forward.
> "So they finally sent their god."
He drew his blade, its edges glitching.
> "Let's see what happens when you strike something that doesn't follow your rules."
The Enforcer moved. Faster than light.
But so did Rael.
And as metal met corrupted code, the mall became the battleground of a war that had already been erased once.
---