"No respawns this time," I said.Then I moved.
The glitch blade sliced through the air with a sound like a hard drive crashing at full volume.
The tank was still mid-smirk when the edge of Backtrace kissed his collarbone.
Not cut. Not pierced.
Rewound.
His armor shattered in reverse—vanishing piece by piece as if someone hit Ctrl+Z on his existence.His body followed.Ribs collapsed inward. Muscles rewound. Blood retreated back into his skin.
He opened his mouth to scream.
And disappeared before the first syllable hit the air.
[PLAYER "OgreFist99" – CONNECTION LOST][DEATH CONFIRMED – IDENTITY ERASED][WARNING: FINAL BOSS SKILL – MEMORY ERASE ACTIVE]
[GLOBAL CHAT SUPPRESSION: ENABLED]
The four left behind froze.
The archer screamed and dropped her bow.The dual-wielder spun around in panic, slashing at shadows.The priest started a revive chant—pointless.The mage just stood there, whispering "What the fck was that?"* over and over again.
[Ash POV]
One down.
I walked toward them, blade dragging behind me, carving sparks across the stone floor like a knife scraping metal.
The dungeon pulsed with every step I took.The lights flickered. The air got thicker.
The fear hit them slower than the blood did.
The dual-wielder finally snapped and charged. "You think you're hotsh*t?! You're just a bug!"
He lunged.
I side-stepped.
His blades passed through nothing.
I turned.Dragged my blade across his back—not deep. Just enough.
[BACKTRACE MINOR EFFECT: SKILL DATA WARPED][SKILL "WHIRLWIND EDGE" DELETED PERMANENTLY]
He collapsed face-first.
When he stood up, he screamed.
"MY SKILL'S GONE! I—WHAT DID YOU DO?! I CAN'T—I CAN'T USE ANYTHING—!"
I leaned down beside him.
"Now you're just meat."
[Ash POV]
The dual-wielder lay in a puddle of his own puke, muttering about his skills.His hands twitched like he was trying to pull up a menu.Nothing came.
I turned my eyes on the mage.
He backed up fast, nearly tripping over the priest.
"System report!" he shouted, trying to trigger a bug alert."System report error! Emergency code: red flag! Escape protocol!"
[COMMAND NOT RECOGNIZED][ENVIRONMENT STATUS: "ASH-LOCKED"][NO EXIT AVAILABLE]
The priest raised her staff.
"I—I can cast Seal. Maybe I can bind him for a sec—"
"No," the archer cut her off.Her bow was half-drawn, eyes locked on me.
"He's not playing. That thing—he's not a mob."
They were catching on.
Too late.
[TRAP TRIGGERED: SECTOR SLIDE INITIATED]
The floor beneath the mage hissed.
He dropped like a stone.
A metal door slammed over the hole he fell through, sealing it tight.
I didn't bother watching where he went.
I'd set the trap earlier.He'd land in a room with six spinning blades and no exits.He'd either die screaming or try to delete his account before the blades made art out of him.
The priest ran next.
I let her.
She made it about ten meters.
Then the spikes came up.
Not huge ones. Thin. Surgical.Through the feet. Through the calves. Through the hands when she tried to catch herself.
She didn't die.She just hung there. Twitching.
[NEW STATUS: SUSPENDED]
[Ash POV – Internal Thought]
I used to run from players like them.
Now I'm designing their fates.
What was it they used to say in the forums?
"GG ."
Only the archer was left now.
She still had her bow drawn, shaking hands barely steady.
I stopped a few feet away.
No sound in the room but the wet breathing of the dual-wielder, the priest's gurgling, and my footsteps.
She fired.
The arrow passed through me.
No impact. No damage. No reaction.
[SKILL BYPASSED – HOSTILE ENTITY IS "UNTRACKABLE"][RESPONSE CODE: NULL = NO HITBOX FOUND]
I walked up to her, real slow.
She dropped the bow.
Fell to her knees.
"Please," she whispered. "I didn't do anything…"
I crouched in front of her. Tilted her chin up with the tip of Backtrace.
"You logged in," I said.
Then I flicked the blade sideways.
And her head just… unzipped.
Like code being closed by a command line.
[System Internal Log: Administrator Helix – Observation]
"He's not just killing them.""He's personalizing it."
[OVERSEER COMMENT: "We didn't delete him. We promoted him."]
[Ash POV]
He was still on the ground.Shaking, crying, whispering curses at the interface that wouldn't open.
I stopped beside him and looked down.He tried not to look up, like if he didn't meet my eye, maybe I'd glitch away.
"You know who I am?" I asked.
His lips parted. No words. Just a gasp full of spit and code-fried panic.
"I'm the tutorial you can't uninstall."
I knelt beside him.Backtrace hummed quietly in my hand, vibrating like a heartbeat that didn't belong to me.
"Please," he finally managed. "You don't have to kill me. We—we can work together. You're strong. I can help. I'll serve. I'll—"
"Stop."
He froze mid-beg, pupils shrinking.
"I'm not looking for allies."
He switched tones fast. Too fast.
"I was always against the System," he spat, scrambling to sound useful. "I hated the updates. I knew something was off! I swear I—I wanted to fight back. I did! Let me help you—!"
I tapped his forehead lightly with the blade.
It left a flickering red line there, like a laser sight burned into his skull.
[TARGET MARKED: FALSE LOYALTY DETECTED][DUNGEON RESPONSE: REFUSE OFFER]
"Wanna know the difference between you and me?" I whispered.
"You begged the System to save you. I broke it."
He lunged.
One last burst of desperation.A fist. A scream. A pathetic attempt to act like a fighter again.
I didn't dodge.
I just caught his hand in mine. Tight.
The bones cracked.
"Here's your reward for loyalty," I said.
Then I raised the blade.
The scream that followed wasn't pain.
It was regret.
It was the sound of someone watching their own body get erased piece by piece and realizing they were never the main character.
I left his hand intact.Just so he could see it fade last.
[PLAYER "Sp33dyBlade" – ELIMINATED][LAST RECORDED EMOTION: DENIAL]
[Ash POV]
I stood alone in the center of the chamber.
Five players down.No fanfare. No loot. No messages. Just silence.
And then—
[SYSTEM ALERT: WORLD EVENT – FINAL BOSS KILLS ENTIRE PARTY][REWARD: DUNGEON RANK UP][DUNGEON STATUS: "CATASTROPHIC"]
I looked at the blade.
It pulsed like it liked the sound of screaming.
I turned to the wall and carved three words into the stone with its tip.
NO SAFE ZONE.
[Ash POV]
I was alone again.Stone under my boots. Blood drying in the cracks.
But it didn't feel empty.
Not the way silence usually does.
It felt...watched.
I looked up toward the dungeon ceiling.The torches flickered unnaturally, like they were reacting to something that wasn't in the room.
My vision fuzzed for half a second.Not like blinking. Like packet loss.
[WARNING: INCOMING TRACE ATTEMPT][ORIGIN: UNKNOWN][BLOCKED]
Someone was watching me.
And they weren't using a player camera.
[Overseer Helix – System Core Level]
He watched the screen.Ash's face glitched back and forth between three different models, none of which were in the asset database.
His file didn't have a player tag.Didn't have an NPC ID either.
He was just...there.A name now. "Ash." But no origin. No IP. No rollback point.
"Final Boss," Helix muttered. "No. This isn't a boss. This is a breach wearing a smile."
He turned to the AI beside him—GRADIENT. Cold, code-slick, pure command logic.
"Shut the zone down. Collapse it."
[SYSTEM RESPONSE: ZONE LOCK – REJECTED][PERMISSION DENIED: ENVIRONMENT NOT OWNED BY SYSTEM]
Helix froze.
"He took ownership?"
GRADIENT did not blink. It didn't know how.
"Root-level override. Full command of dungeon assets. Manual triggers disabled."
"Get me a Class-S Exterminator online. I want one boots-on-ground within thirty minutes."
"By the time they arrive," GRADIENT replied, "they will be entering his instance."
[Ash POV]
I closed my eyes and focused.The dungeon walls whispered now—real whispering. Like old voices trapped in the stone.
Something had changed.I wasn't just running the dungeon.
I was replacing it.
Every kill gave me something new.A smell, a texture, a piece of code I shouldn't understand—but did.
They were watching me.
I smiled.
And whispered back.
"Then watch this."
🟥 [Ash POV]
The silence returned—but this time, it felt like waiting.Like something holding its breath.
I looked down at Backtrace, still twitching like it was dreaming in my hand.
Then the menu opened.
Not on command.
It opened on its own.
[LEVEL REACHED: 10][FINAL BOSS TIER – EVOLUTION CHOICE AVAILABLE]
[WARNING: FILE TREE – CORRUPTED]
[LOADING…]
[ERROR]
[DISPLAYING NON-STANDARD OPTIONS]
Three panels floated in the air, glitching like bad reception on an old screen.Each one warped, flickered, unreadable.Then the letters started to settle.
But not fully.
—Option 1: CODE EATER—[Consume enemy skills permanently. Cannot unlearn. May trigger mutation.]
—Option 2: ECHO SPAWN—[Split fragments of your kills into loyal glitch-beasts. Unstable. Loud.]
—Option 3: REWIND HOST—[Undo reality around yourself in a five-meter radius. Cooldown: ???. Side effect: ???.]
My hands itched.
The screen didn't feel like a choice.It felt like a dare.
[Ash POV – Internal Thought]
Normal players get classes with nice titles.Paladin. Rogue. Summoner. Reaper.
I get bugs in the system with teeth.
I reached out.
Hovered my finger over REWIND HOST.The System twitched.
Chose CODE EATER instead.
[ERROR: USER COMMAND REDIRECTED][HYBRIDIZATION ENABLED]
[NEW FORM UNLOCKED: "BACKCODED FREAK"]
[PASSIVE ABILITY: ANYTHING YOU KILL, YOU KEEP][ACTIVE ABILITY: REWIND-SLICE (Cost: 10% Body Integrity)]
I staggered.It felt like something had reached into my spine and stitched a virus into my bones.
I tasted static on my tongue.The floor shifted under my boots.
[DUNGEON SHIFT: STAGE 2][ASSET REWRITES UNDERWAY][NEW STRUCTURE UNLOCKED: MEMORY ROOM]
A wall behind me groaned.Split open into a spiral staircase.
I hadn't built that.
It was building for me.
I looked at the screen again.
It was still open.
But the options were gone.
One new message blinked where they used to be.
[WELCOME, BACKCODED FREAK.][WE KNEW YOU'D PICK WRONG.]