Riko was perfectly still for a long moment, almost frozen, because his brain hadn't quite caught up with what was happening. The half-formed thing in front of him continued to stagger upright, its limbs stuttering like faulty film frames that kept skipping. The air around it hummed with static, tiny specks of red and blue pixellated light drifting away from its unfinished body. Kaze stood a step ahead, taut and unwavering, jaw clenched, eyes fixed on the creature. The shards of the orb floated upward in a slow, graceful arc-shattered glass caught in time-before dissolving into thin strands of code that wrapped around the monster's torso like hungry vines closing in.
"Don't just stand there," Kaze muttered, his head not turning. "It's reacting to you."
"Yeah, I noticed," Riko replied, his voice coming out cracked and unsure. His Level Screen flickered again on his forearm, its glow wavering—bright, dim, bright again—as if it was struggling to catch its breath. The floor beneath them, warped by the Error Rift, pulsed unevenly, like the very platform itself had a heartbeat and was thudding in a strange rhythm.
A low, glitchy hum rose from the creature, the sound somehow like an attempted growl, as if the audio track had been corrupted and then re-downloaded halfway. Its head flickered between three silhouettes, one too tall, one too short, and one that was almost Riko's own outline before it melted away again. Riko stepped back, only to have his boot slip on a loose data shard, sending him lurching to the side. The screen on his arm sparked with bright white-hot arcs.
Digits bled from the edges of the display, spilling into the air like black ink that refused to dry.
Kaze looked over. "What's it doing?"
"I wish I knew," Riko snapped, pounding his hand against the screen in a futile gesture. "It's glitching again—maybe because that thing touched—"
He cut himself off, because the creature suddenly whipped its head around, locking its half-formed face on him with unnerving precision. The whispered note returned-not quite a voice, not quite a sound. More like corrupted audio trying to decode speech.
"U…ser…"
Riko swallowed. "Please tell me it isn't actually trying to identify me."
"It already did," Kaze replied, shifting into a fighting stance with a wary calm. "And it's hungry for more."
Something pulled at Riko's wrist. No, not just at his wrist, but from it. The Level Screen blazed red before starting to leak glowing particles into the air, wafting toward the creature like moths to a flame.
"HEY-HEY, STOP!" Riko cried, waving his arm in frantic useless arcs, trying to shake off the streaming fragments.
But the particles did not fall away. They remained, and they were being drained away.
Kaze clicked his tongue. "It's absorbing your data. Or copying it. Or both."
"Then HELP ME STOP IT!"
Kaze blurred forward in a streak of practiced speed. His kick flashed through the air and struck the creature's torso. Instead of flying backward, the half-formed shape merely staggered as if the impact were inconsequential, absorbing the blow as if it weighed a hundred tons. Kaze landed near the point of impact, skidding slightly, his brow knitted in concern.
"That should have sent it flying," he said under his breath.
Riko didn't like that tone at all.
The creature's torso had rippled, then stabilized, as if it had learned, adapted to the force of the hit where Kaze's strike had landed.
The Level Screen let out a warped alarm:
ERROR-DATA LOSS DETECTED.
ERROR-SKILL LEAK.
ERROR-STATS DRAINING.
"OHHHHH GREAT," Riko yelled, his arm waving frantically in an almost maniacal fashion. "I'M LOSING STATS?! WHY IS THIS A FEATURE?!"
"It's not a feature," the System's broken voice hissed from the screen. "IT'S A —
Static swallowed the rest of the sentence.
The creature leaned forward, its body glitching into a sharper, almost humanoid outline before melting back again. It opened its jaw-too wide, too jagged-and inhaled with a vacuum-like motion as if it would suck the data right out of Riko. Strands of light started to peel off his forearm, tugged toward its mouth.
Riko grasped his forearm, screaming, "NO NO NO—THAT'S MINE!"
He swung his other hand to punch the creature in the face.
His fist passed through.
Not as a ghost, but more like he'd punched through water made of corrupted code. The impact distorted the creature's head in a ripple that bent its shape without dispersing it. The half-formed head split into four visual layers, then snapped back together as though an error were trying to resolve itself.
"That's not good," Riko gasped.
"No kidding," Kaze muttered, springing forward again.
This time Kaze did not strike the creature directly. He struck at the floating stat particles, slicing through the streams with quick and exact motions of his hand that sent tiny shockwaves through the air. The drifting fragments scattered, slowing the absorption by the creature. Riko could feel the draining of his own Stats lessen, if only by a fraction.
"It's copying your level," Kaze said between gestures. "Like I told you-this Rift makes enemies from whatever falls in."
"So if I lose enough stats—
"Then you'll be weaker than it. Then it'll finish forming.
"Cool cool cool," Riko said with shaky humor, "the exact opposite of everything I want."
But the creature wasn't slowing. Even with Kaze interrupting the leak, more particles kept peeling away from Riko's arm—like the data wanted to join the monster, like it was being pulled by a hidden gravity. The half-formed limbs thickened. Its chest broadened, flickering through a dozen sizes before settling into something almost stable.
Again, the creature's head twitched toward Riko.
"Us.er. fo.und."
"I KNOW YOU FOUND ME!" Riko yelled, tossing a chunk of broken data floor at it.
The chunk passed through the monster and clattered behind it.
Kaze didn't waste one second on complaining. He charged ahead again, spinning around and bringing his heel down in a clean, guillotine-like strike. The blow landed square upon the creature's collar, and this time the creature reacted.
It rippled violently, distorting into jagged geometric shapes. Portions of its chest became pixelated blocks before reforming. Its entire body shook and flickered, like some sort of glitching file that fought to stay loaded.
Riko pumped a fist. "YES! HIT IT AGAIN!"
Kaze didn't answer the cheer. He moved with savage speed, implacable in his attack. With every blow, the creature went further into visual distortion. And yet, even as he was beating on it, Riko watched in horror as more stat particles streamed off his own arm toward the monster.
Kaze noticed it, too. "This is pointless," he hissed. "No matter how much damage it takes, it keeps siphoning more of your data."
"So what do we do?!"
"Keep it from finishing," Kaze said coldly, "before it becomes something we can't fight."
Riko's throat constricted. Right. This thing was building itself out of him.
"I can try to cut the stream off!" Riko shouted. He grasped his own wrist and squeezed hard, trying to physically block the glow. For a second, it seemed to work. The leakage slowed.
Then the Level Screen flared to life once more, showing a new rupture across its surface, like a lightning scar.
The draining intensified.
"OH COME ON!" Riko exclaimed. "ARE YOU SERIOUS?!"
The voice of the System stuttered, weak and terrified. "Don't let it finish… don't let it finish…"
"NOT HELPING!" Riko yelled back.
The creature quivered. Its right arm extended, elongating into a shape that somewhat mirrored Riko's own arm, though with jagged, broken angles. Its torso firmed—sharpened—and then solidified just a bit more.
Its legs firmed, stabilizing its stance. Its posture straightened out, bringing it closer in height to Riko.
Riko stumbled backward. "It's- it's actually copying me."
He could see it now, in terrifying detail: the stance, the frame, the proportions-all getting closer with each passing moment.
Fragments of the beast flickered in and out between code and solid form, as if the system template was filling in missing pieces using the leaked stats as its blueprint.
The creature shook, then slowly grew taller. Pixels cascaded from its half-built shoulders like dust in the sun. Its spine clicked into place, glowing a faint blue. The drain on Riko picked up once more.
"IT' S SPEEDING UP!" Riko yelled, his alarm growing. "Kaze—IT' S ACTUALLY SPEEDING UP!"
Kaze braced himself. "Riko. Run."
"I can't just leave it—"
"Run," Kaze repeated, and his voice was harder, darker. "If you stay near, it'll finish its copy. And none of us will stop it then." Riko hesitated, lungs burning, heart pounding against his ribs. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to stay, to protect what was being rebuilt from pieces of himself. But he could barely stand. His stats were dropping dangerously fast, his arm feeling like it was burning from the inside. And the creature shifted again, taller, clearer, more formed than before. The creature became taller and more complete.