The world was code.
Raw, unfiltered, pulsating lines of reality—written in pain, glitches, and fragments of long-lost players. The Dev Arena stood in silence, a sphere of glass-like data suspended in an infinite black void. At the center, GM_Zero hovered, eyes dimly glowing like a system crash warning.
Sable stood still, blood dripping down his hand—not real blood, but real pain. He could barely tell the difference anymore.
Rei was on her knees, barely conscious, her data flickering—her breath syncing with corrupted heartbeat sounds echoing across the space.
> "This is your last checkpoint," GM_Zero's voice echoed, deeper than before.
"Surrender the root access embedded in your neural shell… and I'll restore her."
Sable stepped forward, teeth clenched.
> "You talk like you're the system. But you're the virus."
GM_Zero chuckled, then raised a hand.
With a motion, he rewound the space.
Suddenly, Rei screamed—again, and again—trapped in a data loop. Her body flickered back and forth between standing, breaking, falling, and screaming. Her voice echoed like shards of broken glass.
> "STOP!" Sable roared, lunging forward.
The moment he moved, the arena reacted. The void twisted and formed jagged terrain—an impossible blend of city ruins and system logs. Memory data rained from the sky like meteors.
He wasn't just fighting a boss now.
He was fighting a living history.
---
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
[BATTLE: ROOT PROTOCOL - INITIATED]
[OBJECTIVE: OVERRIDE GM_ZERO]
[RISK: CORE DAMAGE TO USER NEURAL LINK]
[FAILURE: DEATH | CORRUPTION | NON-RETURNABLE STATE]
---
The battle began.
Sable's body glowed with interface marks—neon runes along his arms. The Eidolon Core recognized his hidden authority: Architect-class access. But he hadn't trained for this. No guidebook existed for fighting your own creation.
GM_Zero moved like a glitching phantom, bending in impossible angles, his blade a solidified error code—striking with corrupted frames.
Every block from Sable sent shockwaves into his mind.
Every hit he took, memories leaked.
He saw Rei—smiling during testing.
He saw himself—surrounded by machines, wires in his neck.
He saw players—dead, missing, deleted.
But what hurt the most—
Was Rei's voice, crying:
> "You weren't supposed to come back. You were supposed to forget, Sable."
---
Sable roared. "I didn't come here to remember. I came here to win!"
And then—
The battlefield pulsed.
Something deep within him unlocked.
A black ring formed behind his back—a circle of spinning code fragments. His blade, once simple steel, morphed into a translucent edge of cascading commands.
> "Initiating Override Sequence—Code: EX_Architect."
He slashed once—and GM_Zero staggered.
The glitch finally flinched.
Rei's loop paused. She gasped, vision returning, her hands glowing weakly.
> "You're… waking up," she whispered.
GM_Zero's mask cracked at the edge.
> "You've chosen war over peace. Then die as a virus in your own creation."
---
But Sable didn't hesitate. He took the broken ground beneath him, coded it into a spike, and launched it into GM_Zero's chest.
> "I'll tear every line of corrupted code out of this game.
I'll bring back every soul you swallowed.
And I'm starting with her."
---
The dev arena began collapsing—like the game itself recognized the betrayal.
> [WARNING: SYSTEM STABILITY – 17%]
[VR NEURAL LINK STRESS: DANGEROUS LEVELS]
[EVACUATION REQUIRED]
But neither of them moved.
Because now, it wasn't just about survival.
It was about ending the first war.
---
To Be Continued…