The moment the light cleared, silence fell.
Not the peaceful kind—but the thick, oppressive silence that made Elian's ears ring. His eyes adjusted slowly, the afterimage of the notification still burned into his vision.
[System Initialization Complete.][Tutorial Disabled: Admin Override Detected.]
Admin override?
He blinked again. His HUD was different from what he'd seen briefly on the others. Where their screens had rigid options—basic menus like [Inventory], [Stats], [Quests]—his pulsed faintly, shifting like liquid code.
More importantly, he could see the coding framework beneath it.
And that terrified him.
"Okay… Okay," he muttered, glancing around.
The world was no longer what it had been five minutes ago. Cracks spread across nearby buildings like spiderwebs. Trees flickered, some glitching slightly as if rendering errors were trying to fix them. And worst of all, people were gone—disconnected from his immediate surroundings, except for a single figure standing near the edge of the shattered sidewalk.
She was tall. Slender, wrapped in dark tactical cloth that shimmered like obsidian. A flowing, asymmetric coat waved behind her in the stillness. And her eyes—silver, almost reflective—were locked on him.
Elian tensed. "Who—"
"I saw your interface," she said calmly, her voice clear but unreadable. "You weren't supposed to get that."
Elian's pulse quickened. "And you were?"
"I was born with it," she said. "But you... You glitched into it."
She stepped closer, eyes narrowing. "What's your name?"
"Elian."
She studied him. "You shouldn't exist like that, Elian."
He took a defensive step back, but she raised her hand in a peaceful gesture.
"I'm not your enemy," she said. "Name's Kalith. And if you want to survive the first twenty-four hours, you'll need to listen to me."
Suddenly, the ground shook violently beneath them.
[WARNING: First Cataclysm Detected — Urban Reset Protocol Initiated.]
From the sky, an enormous object began to descend—a black cube, humming with raw energy. As it approached, gravity seemed to warp, making the air ripple like a heatwave.
Kalith didn't flinch.
Elian, however, gritted his teeth. "What the hell is that?!"
"A System Dungeon," she said. "The first one. And probably the last if you don't move."
She turned and began walking toward the rising hill of debris as if this were normal. Elian hesitated, eyes darting to his interface. A faint line of text hovered in the corner of his screen now:
[Admin Status: Provisional. Interface: Unstable. Access Level 0.5][Trace Detected – Entity: Architect Unknown]
Trace? Architect?
"Come on," Kalith called over her shoulder. "Unless you want to be the System's first casualty."
They moved through twisted streets, scavenging what they could—old backpacks, a dented crowbar, a few ration packs. The world had shifted into game logic, and Elian was learning that meant everything could be a mechanic.
Kalith led him into a collapsed building. As they moved deeper, a faint hum of energy passed through the floor.
[New Zone Discovered: Safehouse Instance – Tier F]
A faint blue shimmer outlined the entrance. "This place is protected for now," she said. "Each city has a few left behind by... someone. The original Admins. I don't know how long it'll last."
Elian finally caught his breath. "So... this is real?"
Kalith gave him a strange look. "You still think it's a dream?"
"No—I think it's worse."
That night, Elian couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, fragments of code floated behind his eyelids.
And worse, the same message pulsed faintly at the edge of his vision:
[Welcome, Provisional Administrator.][Do you wish to begin Debug Mode? Y/N]
Elian hovered his finger near the "N."
But deep down, he knew the only way out of this wasn't to follow the rules.
It was to rewrite them.