The moment Victor stepped through the Nexus Gate, the fabric of the world shifted.
There was no loading screen. No dramatic animation. Just... silence. A dense, heavy silence, like the moment before a storm breaks.
Then came the voice.
> "Trajectory deviates. Correction impossible. Protocol fracture acknowledged."
> [WARNING: Narrative Path Invalid. Constructing Adaptive Framework...]
Victor floated in a place without color. Without form. A blank void where even the concept of movement felt artificial. The system was struggling—trying to build something that had no precedent.
And then, lines of code began to cascade from above, falling like rain. Glitch-colored—red, blue, green, with flickers of raw static. They weaved together, forming terrain from fragments of deleted zones: a floating island with obsidian trees, pieces of broken dungeons, entire city streets half-phased into mountainsides.
A world not meant to exist.
> [You have entered: The Hollow Domain]
Access: Unique. Bound only to the Hollow Protocol.
Objective: Establish Stability. Forge Identity. Resist Collapse.
Victor slowly stepped forward, his boots landing on what looked like part of a floating cathedral's rooftop, shattered but somehow solid. Beneath it was nothing—just a chasm of code, looping and rewriting itself endlessly.
Suddenly—
> [System Update: Trait Evolved - Echobind → Hollow Core]
You are now a Glitch-Tethered Origin Point. The Hollow Protocol begins to root itself within you.
Unique Skill Tree Unlocked.
He opened his menu:
---
[Skill Tree: Hollow Core]
This tree reflects your unique fusion with the system anomaly. Choose carefully—skills evolve based on narrative choices.
Flickerstep [Active]: Instantly teleport a short distance. Leaves behind a glitch clone that draws aggro for 2 seconds.
Data Drain [Passive]: Killing a Glitched entity restores 5% HP and charges a Hollow Fragment.
Fragment Forge [Active]: Consume 3 Hollow Fragments to create a temporary NPC construct (class depends on what enemy you absorbed).
Protocol Rewrite [Ultimate - Locked]: ???
---
Victor grinned. "Okay… this is insane."
But he didn't have long to admire it.
The wind shifted. A sound, like something tearing open a zipper through reality, echoed nearby. He turned—and saw something crawling from a breach in space.
It looked like a Glitchspawn, but… different.
It was made of mismatched parts: a wyvern's wing, a humanoid torso, spider legs. Its face was shifting—flickering between the face of a boss he remembered from a dungeon and the neutral expression of a town blacksmith NPC. It shrieked when it saw him.
> [Aberrant Entity: Scrapborn]
Level: Adaptive
Behavior: Reactive to narrative decisions.
"Guess I don't get a break."
Victor activated Flickerstep, blinking behind it. The clone absorbed the first strike, allowing him to drive his blade into the creature's side. It let out a strangled cry—like it was confused why it could feel pain.
He dodged its erratic swings and activated Data Drain. The moment his blade severed the Scrapborn's head, green energy surged into him.
> +5% HP recovered. Hollow Fragment acquired.
The body didn't drop loot. It disintegrated into code and flowed into his arm, forming a pulsating fragment hovering over his bracer.
> [You can now use: Fragment Forge]
But before he could, something unexpected happened.
Another portal cracked open—this one stable, controlled.
And from it stepped a woman in silver and violet armor, her cloak billowing with data stream particles. Her nameplate didn't float like other players'. Instead, it etched itself into the air like a system message.
> [NPC: Archivist Inquisitor Seryn]
Faction: Archivists | Classification: Sentient Subsystem
She locked eyes with Victor.
"So it's true," she said. "Someone activated the Hollow Protocol."
Victor raised his blade warily. "Who's asking?"
"I'm here to warn you," Seryn said. "You've created a breach. The Null Order is already hunting you. And my faction… we're not sure you should be allowed to exist."
"Friendly."
"This world isn't ready for something like you. A rogue thread that isn't bound to either side? You'll collapse the narrative structure."
Victor chuckled. "Good. Maybe it needs to collapse."
She drew a crystalline blade, though she didn't raise it. "Then survive the proving. If you can hold your Hollow Domain for seventy-two hours of in-game time, the system may stabilize it into a real zone. If not—"
"Let me guess. It deletes me?"
She nodded. "And possibly everything within fifty server nodes."
Victor turned, looking over the fractured terrain of his new domain.
"Then I'd better make it worth the risk."
---
Meanwhile, in a tower of glitched stone and crimson light...
Null Exile stood before a pulsing map of the world, watching a new node blink into existence: "HOLLOW_DOMAIN_V01."
Behind him, lieutenants stirred.
"It's begun," one said.
"The Glitch will awaken," said another.
Null Exile smiled beneath his jagged helm. "Then let us see if this new spark becomes a beacon… or a funeral pyre."