The world shattered around me.
The System-Breaker, now transformed into his Phase 2 form, descended like a corrupted god.
Wings of glitch-fire stretched wide, casting horrific red shadows over the ruins.
His cleaver, humming with unstable data, dragged scars across the ground with every step.
> [BOSS ALERT: SYSTEM-BREAKER — PHASE 2 ACTIVATED.]
[THREAT LEVEL: MAXIMUM.]
[RECOMMENDED STRATEGY: STABILIZE - INTERRUPT - PURGE.]
The system notifications blinked uselessly in the corner of my vision.
I already knew — there was no running.
No hiding.
Win or die.
---
The Breaker surged forward.
The first cleaver swing came like a meteor strike — too fast, too heavy to block directly.
I dropped into a desperate slide, feeling the air tear above me as the weapon cleaved through the spot where my head had just been.
Debris exploded around us.
Chunks of shattered code rained down.
The stabilizing pulses from the server pylon fought to hold the environment together — but the Breaker's presence was overwhelming it.
Every second, more of reality slipped into corruption.
I had to end this. Fast.
---
I activated Override Chain: Level 1.
Three glowing Patch seals floated around me, ready to trigger emergency field rewrites.
The Breaker turned his hollow face toward me, red static leaking from the cracks in his body.
Without warning, he unleashed a barrage of black code spears — each one aimed to pin me down.
I dove left, triggering the first Override.
The air around me shimmered, warping the trajectory of the spears just enough for me to roll clear.
> [OVERRIDE CHAIN: 2 REMAINING.]
No time to think.
Move, move, move!
---
I closed the distance, weaving between the incoming projectiles, charging my Patch Tool to maximum output.
The Breaker roared, raising his cleaver high again —
but I anticipated it.
Mid-sprint, I launched a Disruption Burst.
The sphere of clean code slammed into his torso, staggering him backward.
Tiny fractures spread across his corrupted armor.
There. A weakness.
I pressed the advantage, switching to Rapid Patch Mode and slashing across the fractures with blinding speed.
Each impact chipped away at the corruption —
revealing more of the synthetic core underneath.
---
But the Breaker wasn't idle.
With a screeching roar, he triggered a local crash:
> [FIELD HAZARD: DATA STORM APPROACHING.]
A massive shockwave erupted from him, tearing the ground into deadly shards.
I barely had time to activate the second Override Chain.
The world bent around me, forcing the storm away — but the backlash threw me sprawling across the plaza.
Pain exploded through my ribs.
I skidded to a stop, coughing, feeling blood trickle down my lip.
The Breaker advanced, step by step, glitch-fire raining down from his wings.
---
I can't win by endurance.
Every second I dragged this out, the pylon weakened.
The environment became more unstable.
Soon it would collapse entirely — taking me with it.
There was only one option left.
Go for the core.
Risk everything.
---
I forced myself upright, wobbling.
Activated the last Override Chain — all remaining energy poured into the Patch Tool.
The tip of the tool gleamed, coated in layers of pure restoration code.
One strike.
One breach.
No second chances.
---
The Breaker screamed and charged, cleaver raised high.
I sprinted toward him.
Our attacks collided midair — the Patch Tool against the cleaver of corrupted data.
Shockwaves tore the plaza apart.
Static storms flared.
But I didn't stop.
Driving forward, inch by inch, I pushed the tool against the Breaker's core.
He fought back, glitching, roaring in rage — his wings collapsing into wild shards of black-red energy.
The final command loaded in my HUD:
> [EXECUTE FINAL PATCH — SYSTEM REWRITE COMMAND?]
[YES] / [NO]
YES.
---
The Patch Tool flashed blinding white.
A pulse of perfect code exploded outward, slamming into the Breaker's exposed core.
The cleaver shattered into nothing.
The Breaker howled — a horrible, broken sound —
and for a moment, I thought I could see something inside him.
A flicker of a person.
A trapped soul?
But then the core cracked fully —
and the Breaker's form collapsed into swirling fragments of data, vanishing into the air.
Silence fell.
Only the faint pulsing of the server pylon remained.
> [BOSS DEFEATED: SYSTEM-BREAKER.]
[STABILIZATION: 70%.]
---
I dropped to my knees, gasping, the Patch Tool slipping from my trembling hands.
It was over.
For now.
---
But deep in the static haze, a new notification appeared:
> [NEW ERROR DETECTED: SECTOR 02 - BLACK GATE ANOMALY.]
[INVESTIGATE IMMEDIATELY.]
I laughed weakly, half-crazed.
Of course.
Of course it wasn't over.
Fix one error, and three more crawl out of the shadows.
That was the way of this broken world.
And I wasn't done patching it yet.
Not even close.