[ALERT: ELITE SYSTEM HUNTERS DETECTED]

  

[CORRUPTED LIFEFORMS APPROACHING: ETA 90s]

  

[SKILL SLOT 2 AVAILABLE — SELECT FUSION TO INITIATE CRAFTING INTERFACE]

  I blinked the notifications away, heart rattling inside my ribs like a loose drive. Villagers were scrambling again, ducking into their phasing homes. But some stayed. The elder among them—faces hidden behind digital veils—just stared at me. No fear. No awe.

  Just expectation.

  They thought I was a god.

  I wasn’t.

  I was a nobody in a broken hoodie, staring down corrupted wyverns and what looked like an elite recovery squad for some ancient interdimensional operating system.

  And I had maybe… two minutes to choose my second skill fusion.

  I slammed my hand against the crafting interface, breath sharp.

  

SELECT SEEDS TO FUSE

  

Options:

  

  
• Null Thread + Destructive Beam


  
• Echo Fire + Infinite Mass


  
• Echo Fire + Destructive Beam


  
• Null Thread + Echo Fire


  
• [CRAFT MANUALLY — Requires 2,000 EXP]


  

  Wait.

  Manual craft?

  I hovered for a heartbeat. My EXP bar hovered at 101,600. Okay. Worth the burn.

  I chose manual.

  

[ENTER CRAFTING MODE - TIER ZERO]

  The world around me warped. I stood now in a black void filled with floating cubes of code. Lines of corrupted script spun like fireflies. In front of me: a crafting altar. Silver veins pulsed with life.

  I dragged Echo Fire into the forge.

  Its essence took the shape of a flaming ring, rotating in bursts of rhythmic heat.

  I added Null Thread.

  Dark silk wrapped around the flame, turning the fire chaotic, unstable. The forge shuddered.

  

“Define Intent.”

  I whispered.

  “Pierce illusions. Burn what should not exist.”

  The forge screamed.

  

[NEW SKILL FORGED: GHOST PYRE]

  

A spiraling lance of unstable flame that phases through matter and time. Deals dual fire-dark damage and exposes system weak points.

  My body lit up.

  

[NEW ABILITY EQUIPPED: GHOST PYRE]

  

[RESONANCE LEVEL: 2.4%]

  Just in time.

  The corrupted mobs broke through the outer rim.

  The goblins were first.

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  They jittered, skipping frames as they lunged. Their blades were made of jagged icons—old mouse cursors, error arrows, crash warnings. They screeched in static.

  

[MOB TYPE: GLITCH GOBLIN] — LEVEL 3]

  I fired Ghost Pyre.

  The flame passed through them—no impact. No explosion.

  But then… they stopped.

  Frozen. As if something in their code had been paused.

  

[SYSTEM STRUCTURE EXPOSED - CRITICAL VULNERABILITY]

  I rushed in, fists glowing with Siren energy, and struck one in the chest.

  POP.

  It burst into light. Not fire. Not code. Pure white memory fragments.

  EXP poured in.

  

[+2,500 EXP] x3

  

[GOBLINS DESTROYED: 3]

  The ogre followed.

  He was built wrong—one leg was twice the size of the other, his face halfway loaded. Eyes scrolled like camera sensors. Each time he stepped, the world lagged.

  

[MOB TYPE: CODE OGRE — LEVEL 6]

  He slammed a glitch-club the size of a car down toward me.

  I ducked. Countered with Ghost Pyre. Didn’t pause this time.

  It phased into his chest.

  I heard the sound of a failing hard drive.

  His chest split down the middle, leaking streams of corrupted fog.

  I ran a Siren overload through the crack. His entire frame pixelated and burst.

  

[+9,000 EXP]

  

[LEVEL UP: +1]

  

[NEW OPTION: Passive Skill - “Error Sense” Unlocked]

  Oooooh. Yes.

  I grabbed that passive. Immediately, red outlines started glowing around unseen things—like invisible traps, corrupted NPCs… and cloaked System Hunters.

  They were already inside the perimeter.

  One dropped his cloak and fired.

  A white-hot cube of compressed code zipped past me and melted a tree into a math formula.

  I turned and launched Ghost Pyre—but the Hunter dodged mid-frame. He teleported, leaving behind a log of what looked like… RAM usage stats?

  I countered with Gravity Siren, forcing the ground to lock him down. BOOM.

  It worked.

  

[SYSTEM HUNTER: ARMOR FRACTURE DETECTED]

  Then—

  CLAW STRIKE.

  The wyvern landed.

  No ceremony. No screech.

  It just was. Like a corrupted PNG sliding into reality.

  Half its jaw was replaced by a wireframe. Its eyes bled memory leaks. Its wings flapped in reverse.

  And it roared.

  My body locked up.

  

[GLITCH WYVERN - LEVEL 13 - CODE BREACH ENTITY]

  

[WARNING: COMBAT LEVEL EXCEEDS USER THRESHOLD]

  

[FLEE OR ACTIVATE EMERGENCY SKILLCRAFT — 20,000 EXP REQUIRED]

  No choice.

  I burned it.

  

[EMERGENCY SKILLCRAFT MODE - ACTIVATED]

  

CHOOSE SEEDS

  This time I fused:

  Infinite Mass + Destructive Beam

  The forge screamed even louder.

  

[SKILL CREATED: SINGULARITY CLAW]

  

A claw strike that drags gravitational mass into a singular point, then detonates. High destruction + spatial rewrite.

  I rushed the wyvern.

  It reared up, glitching again.

  Too late.

  I jumped—fist wrapped in cosmic weight—and struck its chest.

  BOOOOOOOM.

  Everything folded.

  The sky blinked.

  The ground inverted.

  The wyvern tore itself apart in reverse, collapsing into strings of broken game textures and debug logs.

  

[EXP GAINED: 44,000]

  

[LIMITERS REDUCED: 3% → 6%]

  

[OBSERVATION TIER: ESCALATED]

  The hunters vanished, teleporting mid-combat.

  Retreating.

  I stood, panting.

  Alone.

  But victorious.

  Then I heard the voice again.

  

“New anomaly registered: Singularity-class attack.”

  “Threat designation: Worldbreaker.”

  

“Tracking will resume shortly.”

  I clenched my fists.

  So be it.

  If I was gonna be hunted in this broken world… I’d become strong enough to break it back.

  END OF CHAPTER 4