The transition to the fifth floor wasn't a step; it was a system load into a new instance. The oppressive, Gothic stonework vanished, replaced by the blinding white of clean marble and the cheerful, chaotic sounds of a bustling city square.
Sunlight, or a perfect magical facsimile of it, warmed their faces. Citizens in elegant robes strolled past, chatting amiably. There was just one, glaringly obvious difference.
Every single citizen was a dog.
Spaniels in merchant stalls, Great Danes as city guards, a pack of Corgis debating passionately outside a cafe. It was a thriving, sophisticated metropolis, entirely run by canines.
Noctar's Beast Affinity skill hummed passively. The dogs they passed didn't growl or bark in alarm. Instead, they paused, their tails giving curious wags, wet noses sniffing the air around him with friendly interest.
Soon, a small, curious pack of mixed breeds was circling the party, not with hostility, but with the excited energy of meeting a fascinating new visitor. Noctar stayed behind the party, Kaelen seeing this nodded in approval.
As they strolled through, Noctar sensed that these dogs were peaceful as long as no one touched any of them. He looked near the fountain where a bunch of Shiba dogs were playing tag.
Finn, the scout, couldn't help himself. "Aww, look at that one!" he cooed, reaching out to pet a fluffy, friendly-looking Samoyed.
"Don't!" Noctar and Kaelen barked in unison. But it was too late.
As Finn's fingers were about to make contact, Noctar's Root Access vision flickered. He saw a line of corrupted code execute in that split second.
[EARTH_SPIKE_PROTOCOL] -> TARGET_COORDINATES(Scout_Location)
His body moved before his mind fully processed it. He shoved Finn lightly , sending the scout stumbling backward. Noctar didn't use his full strength because he didn't know what his divine body could do yet.
THWIP!
A sharp, foot-long spike of rock erupted from the cobblestones exactly where Finn had been standing, quivering with lethal intent. Noctar has already dodged away and the team just stared at the missed death.
The friendly atmosphere shattered.
The Samoyed's happy panting morphed into a guttural snarl, its eyes glowing with a malevolent red light. All around them, the entire canine populace froze mid-stride. Their heads swiveled in perfect, unnatural unison, thousands of glowing red eyes locking onto the adventurers.
`The bug. It's not in the environment. It's in them. It's turned the entire population into a hive-mind trap,` Noctar realized.
"Formation!" Borin roared, his shield slamming down just as a volley of magical fireballs and ice shards launched from the throats of what were once peaceful poodles and retrievers.
Noctar tried to tap into the earth magic he'd just seen. He willed the same spike to form.
[SYSTEM ALERT: SKILL INCOMPATIBILITY. USER LACKS 'EARTH AFFINITY'.]
`Damn it.` He was locked out. A god-tier debugger, limited by the local OS's permissions.
The first wave of dogs, now moving with feral, coordinated speed, was upon them. Noctar had no guns, no compatible spells. He had his Level 30 stats and a mind that could see the attacks coming a split-second before they happened.
He became a whirlwind of desperate, untrained motion. He ducked under a leaping Labrador, driving his elbow into its ribs. He sidestepped a corgi's fiery breath, the heat singing his cloak. He kicked a Doberman in the jaw, the impact jarring his leg. It was messy, inefficient, and utterly beneath him.
`I need a weapon. Any weapon!`
// How about that rusty knife? S.A.R.A. suggested, her tone impossibly casual amidst the chaos. // It's got to be better than punching.
In the flurry of dodging and kicking, Noctar mentally grabbed the Rusty Knife from his inventory. It materialized in his hand, feeling pathetically small and light. He drove it to the side of a husky and even though it injured the bright eyes pup it did nothing else and actually broke.
//Damn, they were really bad. Oh well just punch with all your heart that should work. S.A.R.A's voice chimed in Noctar's mind and that's exactly what he did.
The punch did have any form or style but it did the work. Noctar charged his fist with some of the mana within his mana core and the husky turned into motes of light and exp. Noctar received this notification that he'd levelled up.
And then,as they were busy fighting for their lives against the flood of pooches, a sound cut through the snarls and the explosions of magic and mana spells.
"Yap!"
It was a small, high-pitched, almost comically insignificant bark.
Instantly, the entire city fell silent. The attacking dogs froze mid-pounce, their red eyes dimming. They lowered their heads and backed away, forming a wide, respectful circle around the party.
Paddling down the main thoroughfare, its tiny claws clicking on the marble, came a small, fluffy, snow-white Pomeranian. It had big, button-like black eyes and a plume of a tail held high. It looked harmless. Adorable, even.
But Noctar wasn't seeing with his normal eyes.
His Root Access vision activated itself due to proximity and it was screaming, overloading with glitching, corrupted data.
The cute Pomeranian was a lie, a UI skin over a monstrous core. In his debugger sight, the creature was a colossal, three-headed hellhound, each head a different festering, digital wound, snapping and snarling at the fabric of reality itself. Its form flickered violently, pixels and static tearing at its edges.
[TARGET IDENTIFIED: SPATIAL_DISPLACEMENT_PUPPER]
[STATUS: **CRITICAL_CORRUPTION**]
[SYSTEM ANOMALY: THIS ENTITY IS THE BUG.]
The Pomeranian sat down a few feet in front of the party of 6, tilted its head, and let its tongue loll out in a happy pant.
The red, glitching, three-headed monstrosity in Noctar's vision mimicked the movement, all three sets of eyes locking onto his soul as though sensing his uniqueness.
The real boss wasn't a monster guarded by the city.
The city itself was the boss, and this was its glitching, corrupted heart.