Darkness.
At first, Kael Arden thought he had simply fallen asleep at his desk again — another night of endless grinding in Eternal Reign Online. His body remembered the cold, the ache in his fingers, the mocking glow of a gacha banner with nothing but duplicates.
But this darkness was heavier. Too heavy. Too real.
System initializing…
The words did not appear on a monitor. They floated before his eyes, burning into his mind like they had been carved there with a hot blade.
Kael's lips parted. "…What the hell?"
Light burst across his vision, and with it came sound — screams, steel clashing, the roar of a beast that shook the marrow in his bones. He staggered forward, his boots splashing in mud that reeked of blood and ash.
The sky above was wrong. Not pixels. Not graphics. A swirling vortex of code and storm, where fragments of shattered windows — like game UI menus — drifted like broken glass.
And around him… a battlefield.
Heroes. Hundreds of them. Warriors clad in radiant armor, sorcerers chanting in tongues of fire, assassins flashing in and out of shadows. They fought, they bled, they died.
Kael's heart twisted as he recognized them. Not just random NPCs. These were ERO's heroes — the ones he had pulled a thousand times on banners, prayed for, cursed at, wasted his youth grinding for.
But they weren't lifeless sprites here. They screamed in terror when their blades broke. They wept when comrades fell. They bled like mortals.
"…This is…" Kael's throat went dry. "The Tower."
The very dungeon he had climbed countless times behind a screen — now alive, swallowing him whole.
And then, pain.
Something carved itself into his arm — burning, searing — a mark in the shape of a fractured star. Kael collapsed to one knee, gasping as system text spilled into the air before him;
[Designation: Hero]
Rarity: 1-star (Defective)
Title: Discarded
Abilities: None registered
Note: Unit Flagged for Deletion
The words slammed into him harder than any blow.
A defective… hero?
Not a Master. Not a Summoner. Not the strategist who had clawed his way into ERO's top ranks despite cursed luck. No, the system had cast him as the very thing players abandoned without thought — the trash pulls, the one-stars, the failures.
Kael clenched his fists, a bitter laugh escaping his lips. "Figures. Even inside the damn game, I roll garbage."
A shadow fell over him. He turned — just in time to see a knight collapse, her chest torn open by the claws of a towering beast. A Guardian-class monster. Its eyes blazed with molten hatred, and as it turned toward him, Kael realized the battlefield was collapsing.
The heroes — all of them — were being erased. Lines of code tore across their bodies, unmaking them. They screamed not just in pain, but in fear of vanishing.
And then it hit him. He recognized some of those faces.
Heroes that no longer existed in the game. Characters cut during beta. NPCs that had been "patched out." Ones he hadn't seen in years.
They weren't supposed to be here. They weren't supposed to exist.
And neither was he.
The monster lunged. Kael froze. He had no skills. No stats. Just broken numbers.
I'm going to die.
But instead of claws ripping into him, the world snapped. Time froze — blood droplets suspended in the air like rubies. A new window opened before him.
[Warning: System Anamoly Detected]
A discarded unit cannot persist through the tower
Commencing Deletion -
_Override triggered
Unique authority granted
The words pulsed, and Kael felt something tear open in his chest. Not power — not strength — but a hollow ache, like doors creaking open into forgotten ruins.
Authority Unlocke: Summoner of Forgotten
Condition: Revive one erased hero
Kael's breath hitched. Revive?
The battlefield around him shimmered, and from the void of deletion, a single fragment of light hovered before him — a shard of code, cracked and flickering. He reached out instinctively.
The shard pulsed. And then, with a scream that sounded like someone clawing their way back from oblivion, a girl appeared.
She fell to her knees before him, coughing, her armor cracked, her sword half-rendered like an unfinished sketch. Her eyes — gray, fractured — darted to him with desperate confusion.
"…Master?" Her voice trembled. "No… who… am I…?"
Kael stared. He knew her.
Lira. A knight that had been cut during the game's closed beta. Her files had been erased years ago. Players had only ever seen her in leaked art. She was never meant to exist.
And yet here she was, shaking, terrified, reaching for something real.
Kael swallowed hard. His chest tightened. He had no reason, no logic, no certainty — only instinct. He knelt, took her trembling hand, and whispered:
"You're Lira. My hero."
Her eyes widened. The world pulsed.
[Summoning Complete]
Hero Obtained: Lira, the Half-Scripted Knj
Warning: Stability 23% - Risk Of Collapse
The system's words rang hollow compared to the look on her face. A broken smile, as if the act of being recognized was enough to hold her together.
And then time resumed.
The Guardian's claws tore through the air toward them. Kael's instincts screamed. He had no skills. No stats. But Lira — she stood. Even broken, even incomplete — she stood between him and death, raising her half-finished sword.
The impact shook the world. Her body cracked, glitching, bleeding lines of code and crimson both. But she did not fall.
"Stay behind me, Master!"
Kael's heart pounded. Master. She had called him that.
A defective hero. A discarded unit. A broken knight clinging to existence.
And yet, in this collapsing world where deletion awaited them both — Kael felt the faint stir of defiance.
If fate had abandoned them… then he would carve a new one.
As the Guardian roared and the battlefield burned, Kael's lips curled into a grim smile.
"Fine then," he muttered, rising beside her. "If this world only remembers perfection… then we'll fight with the broken pieces."