The Nexus Core shimmered in the distance, a tower of light stabbing the fractured sky.
Every step I took toward it felt heavier, like gravity itself was rebelling against me.
The streets twisted unnaturally.
One moment solid concrete, the next, a sea of fragmented data shards spinning through the air like broken glass.
The horizon pulsed, rippling like a dying signal.
> [WARNING: CONNECTION TO CORE DESTABILIZING.]
[ALERT: ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION LEVEL 72%.]
I gritted my teeth. "Of course it wouldn't be easy."
I raised the Patch tool, sending out stabilization waves to steady the street beneath me.
Briefly, the ground held firm...
But the moment I moved, it cracked again, pixelating into chaos.
And then I heard it.
A low, buzzing screech that made the hairs on my arms stand up.
Turning, I caught sight of them.
Glitch-beasts.
They were worse up close — twisted monstrosities made from half-erased code, broken architecture, and corrupted security programs.
Limbs too long, faces constantly shifting between error screens and warning popups.
They didn't walk; they twitched toward me, each movement jerky and unnatural.
> [New Threat Detected: DATA ABERRATIONS.]
No time to think.
I ran.
---
My boots pounded against unstable streets, kicking up fragments of corrupted data.
The creatures shrieked behind me, their forms flickering in and out of existence.
Ahead, a broken traffic hub loomed — once a bustling center, now a collapsed nightmare of twisted steel and glitching signs.
I vaulted over a half-sunken barrier —
only for the ground to dissolve under me.
I landed hard, tumbling into what remained of a subway tunnel, the air filled with the scent of burning circuits.
Pain shot through my ribs.
I staggered up, Patch tool raised instinctively.
No minimap.
No coordinates.
Just the endless static.
"Trace the source..." I muttered to myself.
Elara's voice buzzed faintly through the corrupted air:
"...find... anomaly... before it consumes..."
Her words fragmented into meaningless echoes.
Still, I understood.
Somewhere in this collapsing sector, the real enemy waited.
If I didn't find it fast, the entire city — maybe the entire system — would fall into unrecoverable corruption.
> [Side Mission Initiated: TRACE THE INTERFERENCE.]
---
I sprinted deeper into the ruined station.
The tunnel twisted ahead, walls flickering between being whole and ripped open to a chasm of nothingness.
The glitch-beasts weren't far behind — I could hear their distorted cries, feel the world warping under their presence.
I patched walls hastily, creating temporary footholds.
Each Patch drained my energy reserves — little blue meters in my HUD ticking down faster than I liked.
Not sustainable.
I skidded around a corner, breathing hard — and finally spotted something.
A faint, flickering light.
A server pylon — ancient, battered, barely holding on.
It pulsed weakly in the darkness like a heartbeat.
> [ANOMALY SIGNAL DETECTED: 87m — Forward.]
I didn't hesitate.
---
Suddenly —
> ERROR 404: ENTITY SPAWN.
A blast of static hit me as a new form materialized from the shadows ahead.
Unlike the glitch-beasts, this one was... humanoid.
Draped in a flowing coat of living code, its face hidden behind a broken digital mask, cracks running through where eyes should have been.
My instincts screamed.
This wasn't some corrupted beast.
This was something worse.
The figure tilted its head slightly, studying me like a curious animal.
When it spoke, its voice was layered — male, female, synthetic — all twisted into one:
"You shouldn't have made it this far, Patchbearer."
I raised the Patch tool defensively.
The figure laughed — a glitching, broken sound — and the very air around him bent, warping into unreadable symbols.
A System-Breaker.
A remnant of the old players — hackers who had abandoned repairing the world, choosing instead to tear it down for their own twisted power.
"Who are you?" I demanded, forcing my voice steady.
The figure took a step forward, glitch particles swirling around him like a black storm.
"I am the signal you chase," he said, almost casually.
"And you... are obsolete."
He flicked his hand —
and the server pylon behind him shuddered violently, veins of corruption racing up its sides.
The safe zone I was counting on — it was collapsing fast.
I clenched the Patch tool tighter.
One wrong move and the entire area would become a deathtrap.
The figure raised his arm again, conjuring a lance of pure corrupted code.
A battle was coming.
And I wasn't sure if I could win.