The world dissolved.
One moment, Kaito was under the silver willow tree. The scent of damp earth and leaves filled his nose. The next moment, there was nothing. There was only silent, rushing darkness. It was not like falling. It was like being erased. Then being redrawn somewhere else entirely.
There was no sound. No light. No air. Just a terrible, cold pressure all around him. He tried to scream. The scream was trapped in his throat. He couldn't breathe.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it ended. Light returned. Sort of.
He stumbled forward. His bare feet hit solid, cold stone. The darkness around him peeled back. It peeled back like a heavy curtain being drawn aside.
He was in a hall. A castle hall. But it was not like any castle from stories. This was a hall born from a nightmare of geometry and shadow.
The walls were smooth. They were polished obsidian. They were blacker than black. They reflected no light. They only seemed to absorb it. High above, there was no stone ceiling. Instead, a swirling vortex of purple and black clouds churned silently. It cast a dim, bruised glow over everything. The air was completely still. It had no scent. It was so quiet he could hear the frantic, pounding thump of his own heart.
The only furnishings were a few twisted pieces of furniture. They looked like they had been grown from the stone itself, not built. Thick, velvety black tapestries hung on the walls. They depicted strange constellations. Stars and patterns he did not recognize.
Lilith released him from her cold embrace. He staggered. He caught himself on a cold, glassy wall. The wall felt like ice under his palm.
"Wh… where is this?" Kaito gasped. His voice echoed in the vast, empty space. The echo sounded wrong. It was too sharp. It died too quickly.
"Home," Lilith said simply. She glided a few steps away from him. She moved without a sound. Her dress of pure darkness flowed around her like liquid shadow. She turned to look at him. Her violet eyes glowed softly in the gloom. They took him in like a precious artifact. "My little pocket of quiet. Safe from the noisy, bright world outside."
Safe. The word felt like a trap. A gilded cage.
A notification flickered in his vision. His Analyze skill was updating.
[Analyze Update: Location Identified.]
[The Shadow Keep. A demi-plane anchored to Elysia.]
[Ambient Mana: High. Shadow Affinity: Supreme.]
[Exits: None detected.]
No exits. His stomach twisted into a hard, cold knot. He was trapped. In a pocket dimension with a Calamity.
He pulled up his main System screen. His HP was at 30/50. It was still regenerating slowly from his earlier wounds. His MP was at 15/30, recovering. The Glitch Meter sat at 3%. It was unchanged by the shadowy travel.
Then he saw it. The Bond Links screen was blinking. Blinking urgently with a red border.
With a thought, he opened it.
1. Seraphina (Valkyrie Captain). Status: ❤️⚔️❓ (Conflict Deepening). Glitch Resonance: Low.
2. Lilith (Shadow Sovereign). Status: ❤️🔥🔄 (Obsession Stabilizing). Glitch Resonance: High.
3. Frost-Fang Alpha (Deceased). Status: — .
Obsession Stabilizing. A heart. A flame. A recycling symbol. His blood ran cold in his veins. This was bad. This was so much worse than Seraphina's confused hostility.
"You're looking at your little screens," Lilith murmured. Her head tilted to the side like a curious bird. She wasn't asking. She knew. "I can feel it. That glitch in your soul. It's… beautiful. Like a crack in a perfect, priceless vase. It lets the light in. A strange, painful light."
She drifted closer. Kaito pressed his back harder against the unyielding obsidian wall. He had nowhere to go.
"Who are you? What do you want?" he demanded. He tried to sound brave. It came out as a shaky, terrified whisper.
"I told you. I am Lilith. The last of my kind. A Calamity, they call me. A thing to be feared. A story to tell children to make them behave." She said it without pride or shame. It was just a fact. Like stating the color of the sky. "And I want to understand you. Your light is wrong. It hurts to look at, but… it's a good hurt. Like warmth after centuries of cold."
She reached out again. He flinched, expecting pain. But her touch was feather-light. Her cold fingers touched his injured shoulder, right over the claw marks. A deep chill spread from her touch. But it soothed the burning pain instantly. He watched, stunned, as his HP bar on his status screen jumped.
HP: 35/50… 40/50…
The wounds closed faster than his Minor Regeneration ever could.
"You're hurt," she said. Her voice softened into something dangerously, terrifyingly gentle. "The noisy Valkyrie. The mindless beasts of the wood. This world is not kind to broken stars. But I will be. I will be kind."
"I don't need your help," Kaito said. He pushed her hand away. The moment his skin made contact with hers, a sharp jolt went through him. Like a static shock, but deeper. His Glitch Meter ticked up.
Glitch Meter: 4%.
Lilith's eyes widened. Then they half-lidded in a strange, clear pleasure. "Ah. You see? Even your rejection feeds it. Our connection. It grows."
"It's not a connection! It's a… a system error! A bug!" he insisted.
"Is there a difference?" She smiled. It was a genuine, sad smile. It still didn't reach the ancient hunger in her eyes. "The feeling is real to me. The resonance is real. You are the first warmth I have felt in a thousand years that didn't burn. That didn't seek to destroy me."
As she spoke, a memory flickered at the edge of his mind. It was not his own.
A village at night. But not a peaceful night. Screams filled the air. The smell of smoke and blood was thick. A small, cold hand was clutching hers. Then, the small hand let go. It went limp. A feeling followed. A cold so deep, so absolute, it became a part of her soul. It became her core.
The memory-vision lasted only a heartbeat. Then it was gone. A piece of her backstory. A fragment of her pain. It was leaking through the Bond Link his Glitch had created.
"You saw," Lilith whispered. Her smile vanished. Her face was a mask of old, frozen grief. "Good. Now you know. I have nothing left. Nothing but the cold. And the quiet. And now… you."
This was worse. So much worse than Seraphina's holy judgment. Seraphina represented a prison of rules and light. Lilith… Lilith was offering a gilded cage. A cage made of sorrow, shadow, and obsessive, suffocating care.
A soft, melodic chime echoed through the shadow hall. It came from a large, ornate mirror on one wall. The mirror's surface, which had been dark, rippled like black water.
Lilith sighed. It was a sound of profound, weary annoyance. "She is persistent. Like a gnat buzzing at a window."
The mirror's surface cleared. It did not show a reflection of the room. It showed a scene. It was the forest clearing. The clearing where he had fought and killed the Frost-Fang Alpha. Seraphina stood there. She was alone now. Her brilliant silver armor was scuffed and dirty. Her face was smudged with grime. A thin line of dried blood traced from a cut on her brow. The Legion scouts were gone. Probably tending to wounds or scouting the perimeter. She was staring intently at the spot where Kaito had vanished. Her spear was held tightly in her hand. Her expression was a storm. Frustration. Duty. And that lingering, unwanted confusion.
"Anomaly!" Seraphina's voice came through the mirror. It was clear and commanding. It echoed slightly in the shadow hall. "I know you can hear me! I can feel the remnants of your chaotic signature! Whatever that creature is, it is a documented Calamity! Its very existence is a corruption of Order! Surrender to my custody! You will be protected!"
Lilith made a small, dismissive sound in her throat. "Protected? She means caged. Caged in a cell of blinding light. Studied by her Artificer-Sages. Poked and prodded until your beautiful glitch is 'purified' away." She turned her violet eyes to Kaito. "Is that what you want, little star? To be unmade by their righteous, boring order?"
Kaito didn't answer. He was trapped. Truly trapped. A prisoner of shadow or a prisoner of light. Those were his choices.
Seraphina took a step forward in the mirror-view. Her eyes scanned the empty air of the forest. "Do not trust the shadows! They consume! They twist everything they touch!" Her voice hitched. Just slightly. A crack in her composure. "That… pulse you created. It showed me something. A memory of my own. I do not understand how or why. But it proves you are not a mindless corruption. There is a soul there. A soul worth saving. Do not throw it away on a creature of ancient darkness!"
She was pleading. A Valkyrie Captain, a being of absolute order, was pleading with an anomaly.
Lilith's gentle, sorrowful demeanor cracked. A flicker of true, ancient anger crossed her perfect face. It was like watching a volcano stir beneath ice. "She presumes to know your soul? After one stolen glimpse? I can feel it. Every flicker of your fear. Every beat of your stubborn heart. She wants to save you for her own conscience. To fulfill a vow to a dead man. I…" Her voice dropped. "I simply want you to be. Here. With me."
The mirror's view shifted slightly. Seraphina was now kneeling on the moss. She placed her hand flat on the ground. She closed her eyes. A soft, warm golden light emanated from her palm. The light spread over the ground like glowing water.
"Tracking magic," Lilith said. Her voice was now flat and cold. "She is trying to find the thread. The thread of my shadow-path back to this place. How… rude."
Seraphina's head snapped up. Her eyes, blazing with golden light, seemed to look right through the mirror. Right at them. "I can feel you watching, Calamity. Release him. This is your only warning."
"Or what, little knight?" Lilith whispered to the mirror. Seraphina couldn't hear her. "You will bring your noise to my quiet? You will shatter my peace?"
In the mirror, Seraphina rose to her feet. She planted her spear firmly into the ground. She took a deep, centering breath. Then she began to chant. Her voice gained power with each word. It rang with celestial authority. The air around her in the forest began to shimmer. Golden motes of light, like tiny fireflies, appeared from nothing. They swirled around her. They gathered, coalescing into a brilliant point of light at the tip of her spear.
"A beacon," Lilith sighed, as if disappointed. "She's calling the rest of her Legion. She is trying to triangulate this demi-plane's anchor point in the real world. To force a doorway open." She turned fully to Kaito. Her expression was grim. "She will shatter my quiet to take you. She will rip a hole in reality to 'save' you. Do you see now? Her mercy is just another form of violence."
Kaito watched, horror dawning in his gut. He wasn't a person. He was a prize. A trigger. A spark that could start a war. A war between a reclusive Calamity and the full might of the Celestial Legion. All because of his glitched, stupid System.
A desperate thought formed. A terrible idea.
"I have to go out there," he said suddenly. His voice was stronger than he felt. "I have to talk to her. Make her stop. I started this."
Lilith was in front of him instantly. There was no blur of movement. She was just there. Her face was inches from his. The sadness in her eyes was gone. Replaced by a terrifying, possessive intensity. "No. You. Will. Not. You are mine to care for. She cannot have you. I will not allow it."
"I'm not a thing to be owned!" Kaito shouted. The fear turned into hot anger.
"Everything in this world is owned or lost!" Lilith shot back. Her voice rose for the first time. It echoed powerfully in the silent hall, shaking the very air. "I lost everything! My family! My world! My warmth! I will not lose the one flicker of heat I have found in an eternity of cold! You will stay. You will be safe. You will be… loved."
The final word was a vow. It was heavy. It was absolute. It was a chain.
In the mirror, Seraphina's chanting reached a deafening climax. The light at her spear-tip blazed like a tiny, captured sun. The forest around her was bathed in harsh, holy radiance.
"She's going to force the anchor point," Lilith said. Her anger cooled. It hardened into a deadly, calm resolve. "I must sever the connection. Now."
She raised a hand toward the mirror. Shadows gathered around her slender fingers. They coiled and sharpened. They formed into long, wicked claws made of pure, cutting void.
Kaito acted. He couldn't let this happen. He couldn't be the cause. He couldn't let Seraphina invade this place and get herself killed. He couldn't let Lilith kill her scouts. He was the anomaly. He had to fix it.
His mind flashed to his only option. The nuclear option. The one that had attracted Lilith in the first place. His Limit Break.
He focused inward. On the skill: Limit Break: Seed. The icon was grayed out. A cooldown timer glowed beside it: [43 minutes remaining].
He was out of time.
But then he saw it. Below the main skill, another option pulsed. A new one. It was unlocked. Unlocked by his rising Glitch Meter. Unlocked by the extreme, soul-crushing stress of this moment.
[System Override Available: Forced Limit Break.]
[Description: Bypass cooldown and natural soul safeguards by forcibly channeling ambient Glitch energy. Triggers an immediate, uncontrolled Glitch Pulse of magnitude 300%. WARNING: May cause permanent system instability. Bond Links will be violently affected. High risk of soul damage.]
Permanent damage. System corruption. But it was power. It was the only thing powerful enough to maybe, just maybe, break this deadly stalemate.
"Lilith, don't!" he yelled, stepping forward.
She ignored him completely. Her full focus was on the mirror. Her shadow-claw drew back, poised to tear through the magical connection.
Kaito made his choice. There was no time to think. He reached for the override in his mind. He grabbed it with his will.
"SYSTEM OVERRIDE: FORCED LIMIT BREAK!" he screamed, not with his voice, but with his soul.
It was nothing like the first time.
The first Limit Break had been a wave of clean, overwhelming power. This was an explosion from within.
Agony erupted from his core. It was pure and white and total. He didn't feel strong. He felt like he was being torn into a million pieces. Blue light, shot through with violent, crackling red static, erupted from his body. It shot from his eyes. It poured from his mouth in a silent scream. It bled from his pores. His skin glowed from the inside with a sick, chaotic light.
He screamed, but no sound came out. The shadow hall itself shuddered. The vortex of clouds above churned violently, flashing with red and blue lightning.
Lilith whirled away from the mirror. Her attack was forgotten. Her eyes were wide. Wide with shock. And with something that looked like real fear. "Stop! You fool! You'll unravel your own soul! You'll break your mind!"
[Limit Break: Seed - FORCED ACTIVE]
[Duration: 10… 9…]
Kaito couldn't control it. The power lashed out from him blindly. It was wild. It was hateful. A bolt of glitched energy, half-blue mana, half-crackling red error-code, shot from his trembling hand. It slammed into the far obsidian wall.
The wall didn't crack. It pixelated. A large section of it flickered in and out of existence. It turned into a blurry mess of green and purple squares for a full second. Then it snapped back to solid, smooth obsidian.
In the mirror, Seraphina cried out. She stumbled. The brilliant beacon of light at her spear tip flickered wildly and died. The uncontrolled Glitch Pulse was hitting her through the magical connection. It was a hundred times stronger than the first one. It was a psychic hammer blow.
Kaito, through the blinding pain, saw his Bond Links screen. It was going haywire. Text scrolled too fast to read. Icons flashed and distorted.
Seraphina: ❤️⚔️❓ >> ❤️⚔️💢(GLITCH OVERLOAD)
Lilith: ❤️🔥🔄 >> ❤️🔥⚠️(SYSTEM FEEDBACK)
He had to direct it. He couldn't let it just destroy everything. He had to use it.
With a thought that felt like dragging his own brain through broken glass, he focused the raging energy. Not on Lilith. Not to attack. Not on the mirror, to destroy it.
On the space. The space between him and Lilith.
He raised both hands. The glitched energy swirled around them like a storm. He didn't know this skill. He had no skill for this. He willed it into being. He used the Glitch to create.
[Skill Forged Under Duress: Glitch Barrier.]
A wall erupted from the floor. It was a wall of shimmering, distorted reality. It wasn't solid matter. It was a rolling, vertical wave of visual noise. Of conflicting colors. Of impossible, shifting geometries. It hissed and crackled with raw, chaotic energy. It stood between him and Lilith.
Lilith's shadow-claw struck the barrier. It recoiled instantly. The shadows themselves unraveled at the touch of the glitched field. They dissolved into harmless mist.
"You foolish, beautiful, stubborn star!" Lilith cried. Real pain was in her voice now. Not physical pain. A deeper hurt. "You're hurting yourself! You're burning your own future for a moment of defiance!"
[Duration: 5… 4…]
The countdown was a death knell in his mind. Kaito turned. Every movement was pure agony. He looked at the mirror. At Seraphina. She was on one knee in the forest. She was clutching her helmeted head with both hands. The forced Glitch Pulse was overwhelming her senses. Overloading her ordered mind.
He had to get out. He had to get to the real world. He had to stop being a prize they fought over.
He focused the last dregs of the Limit Break's wild power. Not on attack. Not on defense. On a single concept: Exit.
He poured the chaotic energy into his Analyze skill. He forced it. He commanded it to scan not objects, but the fabric of reality itself. To scan the shadow hall. To find the thinnest point. The weakest seam. The place where this demi-plane touched the real world of Elysia.
[Analyze Overdriven. Scanning…]
[Location Found: West Wall, Lower Quadrant. Anchor Point Detected.]
There! A section of wall that looked no different from the rest. But to his overdriven, glitching senses, it pulsed. It pulsed like a weak, struggling heartbeat.
He stumbled toward it. The Glitch Barrier behind him flickered. It wavered as his concentration split.
"No!" Lilith screamed. This time, she didn't attack the barrier. She did something else. She reached a hand through her own shadow on the floor. Her arm vanished into the pool of darkness at her feet. At the same instant, her hand reappeared. It reached out from Kaito's own shadow, right in front of him. Her cold fingers brushed his arm.
The touch was the final straw. It sent a catastrophic surge of feedback through the unstable System link.
[Duration: 1… 0.]
[Limit Break Terminated.]
[Glitch Meter: 100%]
[WARNING: CATASTROPHIC GLITCH PULSE IMMINENT.]
The power vanished. It was sucked out of him. The hollow, broken ache returned. It was a thousand times worse than before. He felt shattered. Empty. Like a glass vase dropped on stone.
And then, the Pulse came.
To be continued...