The concept of "darkness" didn't exist here. Darkness implies the absence of light. This place was the absence of data.
Han Seo-Jun sat on the edge of the floating Cathedral ruin. Around him, the "sky" was a swirling vortex of grey noise—like a television tuned to a dead channel. Below him, islands of junk floated in the static: half-rendered buildings, mountains with missing textures, and corpses of beasts that the System had deemed "Too Buggy" to exist.
[LOCATION: THE RECYCLE BIN (LAYER 1)] [ENVIRONMENTAL DEBUFF: 'DATA DECAY'] [EFFECT: YOUR MAX HP DECREASES BY 1% EVERY HOUR]
Seo-Jun checked his arm. The violet circuits were pulsing slowly, fighting back the grey rot of the environment.
"1% an hour," Seo-Jun muttered, crushing the embers of his cigarette against the tank turret. "That gives me four days before I turn into space dust. Plenty of time."
SCREEEECH.
A sound tore through the silence—a digital scream that sounded like a modem connecting to hell.
From the grey fog below, a shape rose. It was massive, easily the size of a Boeing 747. It looked like a dragon, but its skin was a chaotic mess of wireframes and missing polygons. One of its wings was just a floating error message: [TEXTURE NOT FOUND].
[ENEMY DETECTED] [NAME: CORRUPTED WYVERN (DELETED)] [LEVEL: 85] [STATUS: RAVENOUS]
The Wyvern locked its empty, white eyes on Seo-Jun. To a deleted monster, Seo-Jun shone like a beacon of fresh, delicious code. It opened its jaw and unleashed a breath attack—not fire, but a stream of jagged, green binary code that dissolved everything it touched.
Seo-Jun didn't move. He didn't dodge.
He simply raised his left hand.
[SKILL: 'NULL-SOVEREIGN'S AUTHORITY'] [COMMAND: MUTE]
A transparent purple barrier materialized in front of him. The stream of binary breath hit the barrier and vanished instantly, absorbed into the void.
The Wyvern paused, confused. Its AI couldn't process why the prey wasn't melting.
"You're ugly," Seo-Jun said, standing up and dusting off his coat. "And you're loud."
He kicked off the tank turret. He didn't jump; he glitched.
One frame, he was on the tank. The next frame, he was standing on the Wyvern's head.
The beast thrashed, trying to shake him off, but Seo-Jun's boots were locked to its hitbox. He raised the Void-Threader. The black blade lengthened, turning into a spear of pure negative energy.
"Let's see what kind of data is hiding in that buggy skull of yours."
He drove the blade down.
It wasn't a clean cut. When the blade pierced the Wyvern's skull, the monster didn't bleed blood; it bled light. A geyser of blue EXP orbs and raw code erupted from the wound.
[CRITICAL HIT] [GLITCH-DRAIN ACTIVATED]
Seo-Jun didn't just kill it. He drank it. The violet markings on his skin flared, sucking the essence of the dragon into his own core. The Wyvern shriveled, its wireframe body collapsing until it was nothing but a string of zeros.
[EXP GAINED: 120,000] [HP RESTORED] [GLITCH-ENERGY: +5%]
Seo-Jun landed back on the floating island. He felt the rush of power—intoxicating and sharp. In the real world, leveling up took weeks of grinding. Here? Every kill was a feast.
[SYSTEM ALERT: YOUR PRESENCE HAS ATTRACTED ATTENTION]
In the distance, across the sea of static, hundreds of red eyes flickered open.
They were everywhere. Distorted giants, faceless knights, glitched abominations—all the things the Architect had thrown away. And they were all hungry.
Seo-Jun smiled. A genuine, terrifying smile.
"Good," he whispered, spinning the Void-Threader in his hand. "I was worried I'd run out of food."
MEANWHILE: NEO-SEOUL (LOWER DISTRICT)
Zero-One stared at her monitors in the Null-Sector bunker. Her hands were shaking.
The screens, usually filled with red warnings of impending doom, were turning... green.
"It worked," Captain Macro breathed, leaning over her shoulder. "The Architect couldn't stop it."
On the streets above, the "Purge" had halted. The Enforcer drones that were dragging people out of their homes had frozen. Their red optical sensors flickered, then turned a soft, confused blue.
[SYSTEM PATCH 1.0 INSTALLED] [AUTHOR: HAN SEO-JUN] [NEW PROTOCOL: 'FREE WILL' ENABLED]
In the slums, a young boy with a "Rank 1" Soul-Core looked up at the Enforcer that was about to execute him. The drone lowered its weapon.
"Error," the drone spoke, its voice losing its mechanical edge. "Directive 'Kill Low-Born' contradicts new protocol. Weapon systems... disengaged."
A cheer started in Sector 9. Then it spread to Sector 8. Within minutes, the entire Lower District was roaring. The execution was over. The rebellion had begun.
But Zero-One wasn't cheering. She was looking at the status signal for Han Seo-Jun.
[TARGET STATUS: LOST] [LAST KNOWN LOCATION: DIGITAL VOID]
"He saved us," Zero-One whispered, tears pricking her eyes. "But he's trapped in the only place the System can't reach."
"Don't mourn him yet," Macro grunted, hefting his railgun. "That kid is a virus. You can quarantine a virus, but you can't kill it if it decides to eat the hard drive."
BACK IN THE VOID
Three hours later.
Seo-Jun sat on a throne made of skulls—giant, robotic skulls he had piled up himself.
The area around him was silent again. The hundreds of monsters that had swarmed him were gone. Only their loot remained.
[LEVEL REACHED: 32] [LEVEL REACHED: 33] [NEW SKILL: 'PHANTOM WALK' (PASS THROUGH SOLID OBJECTS)]
He picked up a glowing item dropped by a "Beta-Test Demon." It was a ring made of rusted gold.
[ITEM: RING OF THE FORGOTTEN KING] [RANK: LEGENDARY (BROKEN)] [EFFECT: ???]
"Help..."
Seo-Jun froze. The voice was faint, coming from beneath the pile of junk he was sitting on.
He stood up and kicked a piece of debris aside. Buried under the rubble of a fallen server tower was a small, glowing orb. It wasn't a monster. It looked like a... Fairy?
But it was corrupted. Its wings were torn, and half its face was pixelated static.
"Please..." the tiny creature squeaked. "Don't eat me. I taste like corrupted formatting."
Seo-Jun knelt down, his eyes narrowing. "A System Guide? What is a Guide doing in the Recycle Bin?"
The Fairy looked up, terrified. "I... I was the Guide for the 'Hero' before you. The one who failed."
Seo-Jun paused. "There was a Hero before me?"
"Subject 001," the Fairy whispered. "He tried to fight the Architect too. He lost. The Architect deleted him... and me. But... he built something before he died. A shelter."
Seo-Jun grabbed the Fairy—gently, this time. "Show me."
The Fairy pointed a trembling hand toward the deepest, darkest part of the Void, where the static was so thick it looked like a wall of black ink.
"It's in the Deep Web," the Fairy said. "The Castle of Dead Files. But be careful... the thing guarding it isn't a monster."
"What is it?"
"It's the deleted copy of the Architect's conscience."
Seo-Jun looked at the darkness. A shelter built by a failed hero? A castle guarded by a god's conscience?
"Sounds like a VIP lounge," Seo-Jun said, placing the Fairy on his shoulder. "Lead the way, bug. We've got a castle to raid."