The world changed the moment we stepped down the mountain.
System messages that used to appear with a flicker now lagged, glitched, or appeared half-formed. Creatures in the wild stuttered between states of aggression and confusion. Spells sometimes failed mid-cast, then exploded with three times their intended force.
The core fragment pulsed in my pack like a second heartbeat. I could feel it even when I didn't look. Whispering. Calculating.
> **\[System Entropy Level: 47% and rising...]**
Lira, hunched over her notes in the wagon, looked up with pale eyes.
"Elias... the system is no longer correcting itself. It's adjusting to you."
Kael snapped the reins. "And that means what, exactly?"
"It means he's the baseline now," she muttered. "Whatever was stable before? It's rewriting *toward* Elias."
---
Back in Arinvale, the signs were worse.
Entire guildhalls locked out of their skill menus. Market runes malfunctioning. Messaging crystals shrieking static. The king's elite caster core—The Aurum Sentinels—had two members vanish mid-teleport.
But worst of all, three obelisks appeared overnight.
Jet black. Smooth. Humming with the same frequency as the shard I carried.
"System Conduits," Lira said, after scanning the closest one.
"You mean like transmitters?" Ayla asked.
"No," I said. "Like anchors."
Kael unsheathed his blade slowly. "Anchors for what?"
> **\[WARNING: Core War Detected. Factions: NULL vs SYSTEM]**
I turned toward the central obelisk. The world around it shimmered.
A presence unfolded across the city. Massive. Indifferent. Watching through eyes not its own.
The System had deployed its defense.
And it had chosen its avatar.
---
He arrived at dusk.
A man with silver eyes and armor woven from spellcode. His presence bent the rules around him. When he stepped into the guild square, every menu in a 300-meter radius crashed.
> **\[System Agent Online: Codename VIREN]**
> **Class: Debug Paladin**
> **Mission: Eliminate Null Interference]**
He didn't speak.
He simply *walked*.
Through barriers. Through summoned beasts. Through walls of fire.
And then he came for me.
The first blow shattered a fountain behind me.
The second blew Kael halfway across the plaza.
I caught the third with a Mirror Cut—and still staggered.
> **\[Null Protocol Activated]**
> **Analyzing Opponent Class Structure...**
> **Access Level Denied. Attempting Override...**
He pressed forward, relentless. My power rippled in refusal, space bending around my form.
Ayla leapt in, blades spinning, but her attacks phased through him. Lira summoned glyph barriers, only for them to glitch and collapse.
Viren lifted his hand.
> **\[Debug Command: Purge]**
The world froze.
Time *froze*.
Only I moved. Somehow.
The core in my chest throbbed. My vision split into layers.
And then...
> **\[Null Override Successful]**
> **\[New Protocol Installed: Echo Loop]**
> **Description: Rewind personal causality loop up to 5 seconds once per battle.]**
I activated it.
Reality *snapped*.
The moment of Purge reversed. I blinked back to the moment before his attack.
And this time, I struck first.
I drove the edge of my blade—still plain steel—into his side.
His armor cracked.
He staggered.
Not defeated. But wounded.
The system *winced*.
He glared at me, and for the first time, his voice echoed.
"You are not a user. You are not code. You are contradiction."
"I'm not the bug," I said. "I'm the patch you can't delete."
He raised his blade—and vanished.
> **\[System Agent Recalled for Recompilation]**
The obelisks shuddered.
One of them *cracked*.
---
Lira ran to check Kael, who groaned but sat up.
Ayla stood by my side, her blade smoking.
"That was their first move," she whispered.
I nodded.
"Then it's our turn."
Far above, the sky trembled.
The war had begun.