I gasped awake, bolting upright so fast my vision blurred. The first thing I noticed was the cold sweat clinging to my skin.
The second was my heartbeat—racing, hammering against my ribs like I’d just sprinted for my life.
The room warped around me in the dim glow of the hearth’s dying embers. My breath came uneven, my pulse erratic—like I’d been running.
But I didn’t remember why.
A faint sound broke the silence.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
I blinked, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, trying to push through the lingering haze. The sound? It was coming from the window.
Tap. Tap.
I turned my head, body tense, half-expecting something to be watching me from the dark.
Instead—just a branch.
A lone, windblown branch, swaying lazily against the glass.
I let out a shaky breath, shaking my head. Jumping at nothing. That’s all it was. Just a branch. Just the wind.
Just—
A pulse of heat flared from inside my void bag.
I froze.
Light seeped from the maw—faint, flickering, casting jagged shadows across the walls. The kind of glow that didn’t belong. My stomach dropped. Because I knew what that meant.
The orb was reacting to something.
And it wasn’t being subtle about it.
I reached for the bag, hesitating just a moment before unfastening the latch. The second my fingers brushed the orb, everything spiked.
The air turned thick, heavy—pressing in like something unseen was watching. The temperature dropped. Not just cold—wrong.
The branch against the window?
The sound changed.
It wasn’t a branch anymore.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Like fingertips.
I swallowed hard.
The artifact was warning me.
But of what?
I needed more information. Instinct kicked in. I pulled up my map.
And there it was.
A new icon.
Flickering in and out of existence.
A portal.
Glitching.
Only a quarter mile away, buried deep in the nearby forest.
I stared.
My throat tightened.
The last time this happened, I walked into a dungeon that wasn’t supposed to exist. A place the system didn’t account for.
And now?
It was happening again.
I should’ve ignored it. I should’ve stayed in bed. I just got out of a dungeon. I was exhausted. My body ached. My nerves were fried.
I wasn’t ready for this.
…But the artifact burned in my grip, its pull unbearable.
I clenched my jaw. Then, before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed my daggers, pulled on my boots, and stepped into the night.
Because something out there was waiting.
And I needed to know why.
 
The moment I stepped outside, I knew something was off.
The night air should’ve been cool, crisp after a long day. Instead, it felt stale—like the world had paused mid-breath. No wind. No crickets. No rustling leaves. Just my own breathing and the soft crunch of dirt and dead leaves under my boots.
I hesitated, adjusting my grip on my daggers. Every instinct I had was screaming that this was wrong. Screaming at me to go back to bed and just go to sleep.
But I kept moving.
I stuck to the shadows, heartbeat loud in my ears, slipping through the darkened forest. The closer I got, the worse it became. The trees twisted, their shapes warping unnaturally—bending like something unseen was pulling at them.
And the sky?
The stars were glitching.
Blinking in and out like a someone was trying to wipe them away.
Something was wrong with reality here.
And still, I didn’t stop.
I couldn’t.
Then I saw it. The portal.
And it was worse than last time.
The energy wasn’t just unstable—it was broken. A jagged tear in the world, pulsing between deep blue and unnatural purple, crackling with fractured static. The aura around it bled like ink, chains of corrupted runes warping between existence and nonexistence every few seconds.
I stared, jaw tight.
Exhaled through my teeth.
“I should leave,” I muttered.
But I didn’t move.
Because the artifact in my grip was still burning. Still pulling me forward. Like it wanted me to go inside. Like it needed me to.
I swallowed hard. Every bit of logic I had screamed for me to turn around, to forget this ever happened, to crawl back into my bed and pretend none of this was real.
But I didn’t.
I clenched my jaw—
And stepped through.
 
The moment I crossed the threshold, the world broke.
 
Gravity vanished. For one disorienting second, I was weightless—floating in a space that was both there and not. My stomach twisted, my body screaming that I was falling.
But I wasn’t.
I was standing.
Sort of.
The ground flickered beneath me—half-formed stone and shifting void, blinking between solid reality and absolute absence. I breathed slowly, trying to steady myself, forcing my legs to believe they were actually standing on something.
 
I stepped forward and the world twitched.
Buildings blinked into view in the distance—then vanished. Upside-down trees grew with roots stretching toward the sky. The horizon fractured, cycling between a vast cityscape, a barren field, and a sheer drop into nothing.
It felt like I was walking through a memory of places that never existed.
Then, a system notification blinked into view.
[WARNING: DATA CORRUPTED.]
I stared at it.
“No shit…”
The text glitched, flickered—then disappeared.
I needed to focus. I needed to—If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
A sound cut through the air.
Not a growl. Not a scream.
Something glitching.
Like reality itself was tearing.
I turned—
And realized I wasn’t alone anymore.
They were forming out of the distortion—creatures. Things. Their bodies were made of fractured system data, pulsing with a broken code. They twisted and stretched unnaturally, flickering in and out like unfinished thoughts.
No faces.
No form.
Just errors.
My stomach dropped.
Then they attacked.
 
The first one lunged—if you could even call it that.
One second, it was flickering, its half-formed body rippling like a candle flame in the wind. The next, it skipped forward—jumping frames like a broken recording, like reality itself was struggling to keep up.
I barely ducked in time, instincts flaring a second too late.
Its arm—claw—blade? Something jagged and wrong lashed out, trailing a smear of flickering distortion through the air. I twisted, throwing myself backward just as the limb tore through the space I’d been standing.
No sound. No impact.
Just a piece of the world vanishing—like the attack had erased it.
Yeah. This was bad.
I flipped my daggers. Echoing Blades surged to life as I lunged in. The moment my blade connected, the creature shattered.
Not like a body breaking—like glass fracturing. Its form split into jagged shards of corrupted data, floating in the air.
For a second, I thought I had it.
Then the shards twitched.
My stomach dropped.
They were rebuilding, reforming.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I hissed, already on the move.
Another one glitched forward, skipping through space like a puppet with half its strings cut. I spun, flashing a dagger through its midsection. It broke apart—then immediately started reforming.
No blood. No bodies.
Just things that refused to stay dead.
Fine.
If killing them didn’t work, I’d just have to make sure they didn’t come back.
One struck from the side, its body distorting mid-motion. I Shadow Stepped behind it—appearing just as it glitched forward again, overshooting where I’d been.
Before it could recover, I drove both daggers into its back, twisting hard as I activated Specter’s Rend. A burst of shadow energy rippled outward, striking the other two nearby and sending them flickering out of sync.
The one I hit directly?
Collapsed into jagged shards—then stayed down.
One down.
The other two weren’t so easy. They moved erratically, glitching between jittering slowness and sudden, impossible speed. One phased straight through a stone outcropping, appearing beside me.
I dodged this time. It slashed at me with something I couldn’t see. My HP dipped.
Not from a hit. Just from being near its attack.
Like its existence was corrupting me with some kind of deadly aura.
“Yeah, no,” I muttered, and threw both daggers at once.
Daggerstorm kicked in—second blade trailing just behind the first. Both struck true. The creature cracked apart, fragments flickering, trying to rebuild.
But I wasn’t waiting.
I sprinted forward and stomped into the shards, scattering them across the void.
They didn’t reform this time. They were too far apart.
Two down.
The last one glitched forward—suddenly right in my face.
I moved to dodge—
Too late.
It predicted me. Its jagged, data-torn hand lashed out, catching my arm.
Pain flared, sharp and electric, as my status screen blinked violently.
[WARNING: DATA CORRUPTED.]
I tried to Shadow Step out of reach but it was still on cooldown.
My HP was dropping fast.
But I wasn’t dead.
Not yet.
And this thing needed to die.
I exhaled, looking at my depleted Guile reserves. Then Second Wind surged. My wounds sealed. Stamina swelled.
The last creature?
It hesitated.
For half a second, like it knew something had changed.
I didn’t give it time to adapt.
I lunged forward—daggers flashing, shadow trailing behind me in broken afterimages.
One strike. Then another.
Then—
The last entity shattered.
Its fragments dispersed into the static-choked void.
I staggered back, chest heaving, breath loud in the silence.
No more glitching. No more… whatever the hell those things were.
Just me.
And a blinking system notification floating in my vision:
[ERROR: UNAUTHORIZED SURVIVOR.]
My heart dropped.
Because that?
That didn’t sound like a warning.
That felt like a threat.
 
The moment the last creature shattered, something shifted.
The air thickened—pulsing like a dying heartbeat.
Then—
Text flickered to life in front of me. Jagged. Fragmented. Barely readable.
[WARNING: SYSTEM INTEGRITY AT RISK.]
[CULLING… PENDING.]
[RESET TRIGGERED.]
[ERROR. ERROR. ERROR.]
[SURVIVOR DETECTED.]
I could barely make out the message—too many glitches, too many missing pieces. But what I could read?
Culling.
Reset.
Survivors.
My breath quickened. “What the hell does that mean?”
I took a step back, hands clenched, thoughts spiraling.
Was the system wiping people out?
Erasing things it didn’t want to exist?
And I was still here.
Still alive.
A survivor.
Was I next?
 
The realization hit just as the dungeon began to tremble.
The glitched world fractured—jagged veins of blue and purple light ripping through the terrain. The ground beneath me flickered violently, sections vanishing and reappearing like a collapsing simulation.
I spun toward the exit—
The portal was shrinking.
“Shit—!”
I ran.
Each footstep landed on unstable ground, the floor glitching under my boots like I was sprinting across a broken old rope bridge. The static hum in the air swelled to a roar. The corruption was folding in on itself.
I was almost there—
Then the final enemy spawned.
No face. No shape. Just a mass of pure corruption, pulsing and twitching, hovering in front of the portal like a final barrier.
I didn’t fight it.
I ran.
Shadow Step.
The world snapped sideways as I blinked past it, my body flickering mid-air—
The portal was closing fast.
I dove, hurling myself forward with everything I had left—
And just as the collapsing void howled behind me—
I made it out.
I stumbled back into the forest, gasping. My whole body shook.
The cool night air wrapped around me—but it didn’t feel real.
I still felt the weightlessness, the broken flicker beneath my feet, the sound of something unraveling behind me.
I was out.
I was alive.
But I had barely made it.
I received a new notification.
[Dungeon Cleared]
XP Gained: 5000 (+1000 Bonus XP)
I stared at it.
6,000 XP?
That was… insane. I didn’t really do anything.
Hands still trembling, I pulled up my status.
Felix Ravensburg – Level 21
Two levels.
I had gained two full levels.
Another notification flashed.
[WARNING: YOUR ACTIONS HAVE BEEN LOGGED.]
[YOU ARE NOT ALONE.]
I froze.
The cool night suddenly felt colder.
The forest around me was silent.
Too silent.
Like something was waiting.
Watching.
And then—
A voice. Low. Measured.
“You shouldn’t have gone in there.”
 
At the edge of the clearing, a figure stood.
A ragged, older man—barely more than a shadow against the trees. His clothes hung in tatters, filthy and weather-worn, like they hadn’t been changed in weeks. His hair was long and matted, a scraggly curtain that clung to his face and neck, strands catching the breeze like dead vines. Just above his left eye, an old scar cut jaggedly through his brow, deep and discolored, pulling the skin in a permanent scowl. On his right hand, half-hidden by grime and shadow, was the faint outline of a tattoo—coiled and draconic, its tail curling around his wrist like it was alive.
His posture sagged, slack and uneven, like someone who’d walked too far and forgotten where he was going. But his eyes?
His eyes were wrong.
Distant. Phased. Like he wasn’t really here—like he was seeing something the rest of us couldn’t. He muttered to himself, words too low and scrambled to make sense of, his breath uneven, barely more than a whisper.
I tensed immediately. Someone had found me doing something I probably shouldn’t.
An Enforcer? A bounty hunter? Cassian’s lackey? I didn’t know. But I wasn’t taking chances.
My hand drifted toward my daggers, every instinct on high alert. I eased a step to the side, keeping him in my peripheral as I tried to move past. Probably just another broken, wandering vagrant. A drunk, lost on his way home from the tavern. A poor soul the system had chewed up and spit back out.
Nothing to do with me.
Then—he spoke again.
“You shouldn’t have gone in there.”
I froze.
Pulse spiked. Every muscle in my body locked up.
Slowly, I turned to face him. His eyes had cleared. They were focused now. Sharp. Locked onto me.
I tightened my grip on my blades. “What did you just say?”
His head tilted slightly, like he was seeing me for the first time. Then, in a rough, cracked voice—like someone who hadn’t spoken aloud in years—
“You’re looking for answers, aren’t you?”
My throat went dry.
This was bad.
Cassian was already hunting me. Now some cryptic old man knew what I was doing too?
How?
No one else was supposed to see the portals. No one else was supposed to know what I saw inside.
But this guy did.
Every instinct screamed: move. Fight. Run.
I shifted into a defensive stance, muscles tight, coiled, ready to fight or flee.
I didn’t attack—not yet. But my hands already held my daggers, and my breathing slowed into something calm. Controlled.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked.
The man didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink. Just let out a long, tired sigh—like he’d done this before. Like he already knew how the conversation was going to go.
“You’re not the first, Shadowborn,” he said. His voice was rough, brittle, but steady. “You won’t be the last.”
Not a threat. Not a warning.
Just a fact.
My skin prickled.
Not the first?
What the hell did that mean?
My fingers curled tighter around the hilts. “Start making sense. Now.”
Because the longer this conversation went on, the worse this was starting to feel.
My brain scrambled for an explanation.
He knew about the glitches. About the portal. That meant—he’d seen it before.
Which meant he had answers.
I swallowed down the urge to lash out, forced myself to think. If I fought or ran, I’d learn nothing. So I tried a different angle.
“Then help me,” I said, keeping my tone level. “If you know what’s happening—tell me how to stop it.”
The man’s gaze flickered. His expression stayed unreadable.
“If you want to live?” he said softly. “Walk away.”
Those words caused my body to break out into sweat from head to toe.
“There is nothing good at the end of this path.”
I scowled. Of course. Another vague warning. Another half-answer meant to keep me in the dark.
I was so damn tired of being told not to ask questions.
“That’s not good enough,” I snapped.
His jaw tightened. He let out a slow breath.
“I tried to find the truth once,” he murmured.
And just like that, the air shifted.
His voice had weight now. A heaviness behind it. Regret.
“And now?” His eyes met mine.
“I don’t even remember my real name. They just call me Hollow.”
I froze.
I felt something cold creep into my chest.
That had to be an exaggeration.
Right?
Then the man took a step forward.
His gaze locked onto mine.
“Tell me, Felix,” he said, voice low and even. “What’s your earliest memory?”
I opened my mouth, ready to brush it off. Ready with some sarcastic deflection.
But—I stopped.
I could remember the last few years. My first dungeon. The training. The struggle.
But before that?
I frowned.
It wasn’t blank. I hadn’t lost everything. But there was a gap—subtle. Just enough to feel off.
A memory that should’ve been there… but wasn’t.
My stomach twisted.
The man watched my face, saying nothing. Then, slowly, he nodded.
“You won’t even notice it happening,” he said.
His voice was quiet.
Certain.
“Until one day, you wake up… and you’re me.”
A chill crawled down my spine.
I was fully unnerved now.
This man wasn’t lying. I could see it in his eyes—the weight of something terrible. Something he couldn’t even put into words. He’d been through this. And whatever he found?
It had hollowed him out.
He ran a shaking hand through his unkempt hair. His voice came quiet. Tired.
“I hunted the last few people who looked into this.”
I swallowed hard.
Because the way he said it—it wasn’t a threat. There was no heat behind it. No anger.
Just pity.
“Because death,” he murmured, “is a mercy. Compared to what the system will do to you.”
My breath caught.
He meant it. Every word. I could feel it in the air between us—this wasn’t some scare tactic, some attempt to rattle me. It was a lifeline. A warning from someone who didn’t want me to end up like him.
I didn’t argue. I didn’t ask for more answers.
I turned around.
And walked away.
My thoughts spun too fast to catch. My heartbeat felt wrong—too loud in my ears, too out of sync. A piece of the puzzle had just landed in my lap, heavy and awful.
Someone else had been through this. Someone else had tried to find the truth.
And they’d lost everything.
Maybe—just maybe—Hollow was right.
Maybe I should drop this.
Maybe I should stop searching.
 
I continued to walk back to the inn, pretending I wasn’t shaken.
Pretending the cold hadn’t settled into my bones.
But even after Hollow was gone, his words stayed with me.
What’s your earliest memory?
And no matter how hard I tried…
I couldn’t answer.