At first, Aris thought he was dead.
Then he breathed...slowly.
Each inhale came with a faint static like hum. The void around him shifted—gray waves of code rolling and folding as if reacting to the rhythm of his lungs. He exhaled, and fragments of light scattered from his mouth, drifting into the dark.
"…Well this is… new."
Bits of shattered worlds drifted in the endless static: broken weapons, shattered sky fragments, shattered pieces of mountain rubbles, hovered weightlessly, orbiting him.
Still lost at the moment, with a lot of questions on his mind, he reached out to a fragment—no bigger than a pebble as he floated closer. But immediately he gkt in contact, a rush of sensation tore through his arm.
"Arghh.."
[Skill Created: Code Touch (Lv 1)]
[Effect: Manipulate unstable world data.]
He jerked his hand back, startled. The fragment pulsed, then dissolved into threads of glowing code that wrapped around his fingers. The data didn't burn but had more of a soothing feel to it.
"Wait," Arismuttered. "I just created a skill ? can create skills now?"
[Affirmative. You are not a player. You are a system exception.]
The voice again. Cold, mechanical. Yet this time, it didn't sound distant. It felt… attentive.
Aris narrowed his eyes. He didn't know how but instantly realized the voice as a System's.
"System… open world map."
[Denied. No world loaded.]
He frowned. "Then load one." He commanded.
[Error: Insufficient permissions.]
Insufficient? Ariis almost laughed. " Let's fix that."
His voice dropped. "Modify: Permissions = Full."
He said and there was instant Silence. Then—
[Override accepted.]
[Welcome, Administrator.]
The void convulsed.
A shockwave of light immediately rippled outward, tearing the static apart as Aris shielded his eyes, blinking against the sudden blaze. When the glare faded, he saw them—hundreds of glowing spheres floating in an infinite lattice of darkness. Each one shimmered with its own pulse, colors bleeding through their surfaces like molten glass.
And within each sphere, he saw life... He could somehow feel it.
Worlds.
Cities floating above oceans of clouds. Armies clashing beneath burning skies. Beasts the size of continents.
He could feel them—each heartbeat, each soul, each fragment of reality. It felt too much but at the same time enough to pay here to all at once.
A thousand worlds, breathing.
At the farthest edge, flickering weakly, he saw it: Pawn World 819.
His world.
It was dim and hollow. And ut had only few embers of light left.
He reached toward it slowly.
(World Status: 99.99% Deleted.]
The message built a sureg if rage and despair in him immediately. He clenched his jaw until his teeth ached.
"Then we rebuild it." He replied.
[Impossible. World is scheduled for permanent erasure.]
He stared at the message. It felt like being told to give up all over again. That same voice that had watched him fail, watched everything die, now told him no again!?.
His breath slowed. Then he whispered,
"Not this time."
He placed his hand on the dim sphere. The surface resisted, cold and sharp like glass. He pushed harder, and the world cracked open with a sound like ice breaking.
Light spilled through the fractures—raw, chaotic code spilling into the void. His arm sank deeper, up to the elbow. He felt it thrum against his bones, felt pain, but he didn't stop.
When he pulled back, something came with him—a shard of pulsing light, small but alive. It beat faintly in his palm, like a heart struggling to keep rhythm.
[World Seed Extracted.]
[Warning: This action is forbidden by the Guild of Realities.]
"Guild of Realities?" Aris muttered. "What the hell is that—"
A new notification blinked.
[Overseer Detected.]
The entire void went still.
Then the temperature dropped.
A pressure filled the air—heavy, suffocating. The fragments of shattered worlds scattered as if in fear.
And from the far distance, a golden light approached—slow, deliberate. It wasn't flying. The space moved for it.
As it drew closer, Aris saw its shape: tall, humanoid, but more concept than flesh. Its body was formed from lines of living code that shimmered like molten gold. Its eyes burned white, but there was thought behind them. Old thought. Ancient hierarchy.
When it spoke, its voice was the sound of thunder reduced to a whisper.
"An anomaly," it said. "How… fascinating."
Aris instinctively took a step back. The pressure around him was unreal—every breath felt like inhaling gravity.
He forced a shaky grin. "You're late to the deletion party."
"You exist outside deletion."
"A contradiction."
It tilted its head slightly, studying him like a specimen.
Then its tone sharpened. "You stole a World Seed. Explain."
Aris met its gaze. "Your system failed."
The Overseer didn't blink. Then—
"Amusing."
Light flared behind it, gathering into a spear of energy. "Let us test the extent of your failure."
Aris barely had time to react before the void lit up.
[Entity: Guild Overseer Lv. 9999.]
[Warning: Combat not recommended.]
The beam struck.
Pain detonated through him, blinding and absolute. His body disintegrated into light, his consciousness fracturing into thousands of fragments. Every pixel of his existence screamed.
[HP –∞]
[Data integrity collapsing.]
He fell through color, through code, through nothing.
But somewhere in that storm of annihilation, something inside him shifted.
He didn't understand it. It wasn't instinct—it was defiance, raw and primal. Something deep in the glitch that he was had awakened.
His voice tore through the void, half scream, half command.
[Hidden Skill Activated: Error Assimilation.]
[Effect: Convert hostile data into personal authority.]
The beam's power twisted. The pain reversed. The golden light that should have erased him instead poured into his chest, burning like molten fire. The Overseer's attack disassembled itself, fragment by fragment, as its energy flooded into him.
Aris gasped as golden light filled his veins, turning agony into clarity. His thoughts sharpened, too sharp—like every atom of him could see.
The Overseer staggered back, its perfect composure fracturing. "Impossible—!"
[Skill Created: Reality Rewrite (Lv 1).]
Aris floated in the storm of unraveling data. The world around him bent with his breath. He raised a trembling hand, watching the code twist and coil at his command.
His lips curled into a faint, weary smile.
"Let's test your deletion script."
He clenched his fist.
Light detonated.
The Overseer's form shattered—first the eyes, then the core, then the light. Gone in an instant.
Silence returned.
Then—
[Warning: You have slain a Guild Overseer.]
[Your existence is now classified as an Omega-Threat.]
[All systems will hunt you.]
Aris's body trembled as the adrenaline drained. His skin flickered with unstable patterns of light. He took one deep breath, then another, each harder than the last. The void itself seemed to pull away from him now, recoiling.
He looked down at his trembling hands, still glowing faintly gold. "Omega-Threat," he whispered. "Sure. Why not."
A smile crept across his face—not joy, not victory. Something colder.
"Let them come."