The ground cracked open like a zipper. Light poured through it—not sunlight. Code-light. Strings of red and purple matrixed energy spiraled into the sky like a virus replicating in real-time. The air went jagged.

  

[DATA STORM STAGE: 1/3 - ENGAGE]

  

[WARNING: ZONE INTEGRITY FAILING - 68% STABLE]

  The villagers scattered, dragging children into glitching huts that flickered like bad VHS frames. A woman screamed—her voice was cut off halfway, mid-pitch, as if the world forgot how sound worked for a second.

  I stood there. Barefoot. Shirt torn. Heart pounding.

  And then… it stepped out.

  The beast.

  It was easily four meters tall, hunched over like a mantis having a stroke. Bones made of black code, eyes flickering system logs—error 404s, null references, corrupted memory warnings. Its limbs dragged along the ground, scraping sparks of purple fire that warped the grass into numbers.

  Its mouth unhinged.

  

“Anomaly 0001 detected. Reinitialize world-state. Remove foreign data.”

  It lunged.

  I dodged—barely. The thing was fast, like its movement wasn’t tied to the rules of momentum or time. One moment it was in front of me, the next it was beside me, limbs slashing through space.

  Gravity Siren answered.

  A pulse from my chest.

  BOOM

  The ground collapsed into a crater around me. Trees disintegrated. Time slowed as pressure expanded in waves. The beast staggered, its shell denting inward. One of its legs folded backwards, flickering uncontrollably.

  

[EXP GAINED: +4500]

  But it wasn’t down.

  No, it split.

  The upper torso cracked open like a zip file, birthing two new limbs and a second face. It hissed, mouth overflowing with raw script.

  

“Your existence is incompatible. Fusion unauthorized. You will be overwritten.”

  It slammed a glitch tendril into the dirt. The earth rewrote—squares of terrain now hovering like Minecraft chunks mid-render. Lava poured from the sky. A river turned into a string of code and melted sideways.

  My mind throbbed.

  Gravity Siren pulsed again, involuntarily.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  WUUUMMMMM

  I forced control into it—shaping the blast forward, like a sonic lance. The monster reeled as its data structure shuddered.

  

[EXP GAINED: +8500]

  

[RESONANCE DAMAGE: HIGH]

  And I saw something.

  A core. Hidden deep in its chest, blinking like a heartbeat.

  I aimed.

  I roared, hurling myself toward it, pushing all my remaining breath into the Siren’s hum. The vibration became a tone, a frequency so dense it bent light. My bones threatened to snap under the pressure I was generating.

  But the world answered.

  The glitched clouds split. Moonlight pixelated through the storm. As if the system itself paused to witness what I was doing.

  The monster leapt to intercept—its claws glowing with delete energy.

  I met it halfway.

  [GRAVITY SIREN: OVERLOAD MODE - 3.5s Duration]

  KA-THUUUUUUMMMM

  A singularity popped into existence. Micro black hole. Collapsed all sound. The beast’s upper body was crushed into a spaghetti string of null data.

  It screamed in error tones as it vanished.

  I dropped to one knee, panting. The overload ended. My vision swam.

  Then:

  

[DATA STORM CLEARED]

  

[EXP GAINED: +36,500]

  

[System Kill Bonus: +10,000]

  

[TOTAL EXP: 101,600]

  

[CRAFTING INTERFACE UNLOCKED]

  

[SKILL SLOT 2 AVAILABLE]

  My breath hitched.

  The world went still.

  Villagers emerged again. Slowly. Carefully. Staring at me like I was something both divine and terrifying. They didn’t cheer. Didn’t speak. Just knelt again, whispering words I couldn’t understand.

  Above me, the sky blinked.

  And a new voice entered my head. Not like Fragment.exe. This one was smoother. Mechanical, but… refined.

  

“User Zero-One has been verified. Crafting protocol active. Limiters reduced by 2%.”

  

“Observation tier increased.”

  

“Prepare for re-synchronization.”

  Re-synchronization?

  Suddenly, I felt my chest burn. Not painfully—more like activation.

  A new interface bloomed in my vision.

  

[Skill Crafting Terminal - Tier Zero]

  

Unlocked Base Seeds:

  

  
• Echo Fire (Fire)


  
• Null Thread (Dark)


  
• Infinite Mass (Earth)


  
• Destructive Beam (Destruction)


  

  

New Slot Available. Choose Fusion:

  

  
• Echo Fire + Null Thread


  
• Echo Fire + Infinite Mass


  
• Null Thread + Destructive Beam


  
• Echo Fire + Destructive Beam


  
• Or break apart a current fusion to experiment


  

  Ohhhhhh.

  This is what power tasted like.

  But before I could decide, I heard footsteps. Not villagers.

  Metal boots. Cloaked figures.

  Symbols I didn’t recognize. Weapons glowing like they were forged from compressed system logs.

  And one of them spoke:

  

“Target located. Singularity confirmed.”

  

“Proceed with Extraction Protocol Theta.”

  

“Alive, if possible.”

  The System just sent its first hunters.

  But behind them—on the glitching horizon—I saw more corrupted mobs spawning from the collapsing world layer.

  A Goblin, its jaw hanging open like a broken GIF loop. An Ogre made of flickering stone and skeletal armor pieces. A Spider whose legs were loading bars.

  And above them all… something massive. A Wyvern with wings of corrupted code, flying on a looped animation glitch, letting out a roar in corrupted audio files.

  This world… wasn’t going to wait for me to learn.

  I had to fight. I had to craft. And I had to survive.

  END OF CHAPTER 3