Noah had died. Or at least, he thought he had.

He remembered the feeling of cold steel cutting through his body, the weightlessness of falling, and the suffocating darkness that followed. But then, against all logic, he woke up.

A sharp breath filled his lungs as he jolted upright, heart pounding like a war drum. His body ached, but he was… alive? He blinked rapidly, adjusting to the unfamiliar sight before him.

He wasn’t in his world anymore.

Instead of the sterile hospital room where he’d drawn his last breath, Noah found himself in an endless expanse of white. It wasn’t just bright—it was empty. No walls, no floor, no ceiling. Just a vast, colorless void stretching infinitely in every direction.

And then—

Ding!

A translucent blue screen flickered into existence in front of him.

[Welcome to the System]

[Initializing…]

[ERROR: Fatal corruption detected]

[System rebooting…]

[Reboot failed. Emergency Protocol initiated.]

Noah frowned. "The… hell is this?"

The screen glitched violently, the text scrambling into unreadable symbols before stabilizing. His confusion only deepened when a second window appeared.

[Congratulations! You have been chosen as Player One.]

[Your journey begins now.]

[Initializing Starter Package…]

[ERROR: Starter Package not found.]

"What kind of busted game is this?" Noah muttered.

It wasn’t just strange—it was wrong. Even if he somehow ended up in some sci-fi VR experiment, no game would launch with this many errors.

Then the final message appeared.

[Warning: The System is broken.]

[You were never meant to be here.]

[Survive if you can.]

The screen shattered like glass.

Noah barely had time to react before the ground beneath him—if it could even be called that—collapsed.

Gravity, silent until now, returned with a vengeance. He fell.

The First Glitch

Noah slammed into something solid, pain shooting up his spine.

"Ow…"

Groaning, he forced his body to sit up, feeling soft grass beneath his fingertips. This place was nothing like the void. He was now in a dense forest, the air thick with the scent of damp earth and unfamiliar foliage. The sun hung low in the sky, casting an eerie golden glow through the trees.

This wasn’t a dream.

He touched his chest, half-expecting to find the wound that had killed him. Nothing. His body was completely intact.

"What the hell is going on?"

The moment he spoke, the System responded.

[New Environment Detected.]

[Loading Map…]

[ERROR: Map data unavailable.]

The glitching text only reinforced what he already suspected. This "system" was completely broken.

A new window appeared, this one more ominous than the last.

[Survival Challenge: First Blood]

[Objective: Kill or be killed.]

[Time Limit: 5 minutes.]

[Failure Penalty: Instant Termination.]

Noah’s stomach dropped.

Before he could fully process the message, the forest shifted. The trees groaned as if something massive was moving through them. Then, from the shadows, came a monster.

It was at least eight feet tall, its body a grotesque mix of bone and shadow. Hollow, glowing eyes locked onto him as jagged claws scraped against the ground. It let out a low, guttural growl—like a predator savoring its prey.

Noah didn’t get a weapon. He didn’t get instructions. He didn’t even get time to breathe.

"Wait, wait, WAIT—"

The beast lunged.

The Moment of Death

Instinct took over. Noah threw himself to the side, barely dodging as claws tore through the ground where he had been standing.

"Shit, shit, shit!"

His heart pounded. He needed a weapon, a plan—anything. But all he had was his body and a system that didn’t work.

The monster lunged again. This time, Noah wasn’t fast enough. Claws raked across his arm, searing pain ripping through him. Blood splattered onto the grass.

[WARNING: Health critically low.]

[ERROR: Healing function not found.]

No healing? No second chances?

He was really going to die here.

The monster loomed over him, raising a claw for the finishing blow.

Noah’s mind raced. If he couldn’t run, and he couldn’t heal, then there was only one choice left.

He had to fight.

His hands grasped at the ground, fingers closing around something solid—a jagged rock. Not much, but it was something.

As the monster struck, Noah moved first.

With all the strength he could muster, he threw the rock straight into its eye socket.

The impact sent a sickening crack through the air. The creature reeled back, howling in agony.

Noah didn’t waste the opportunity.

Ignoring the pain, he surged forward, grabbing a broken tree branch. He drove it into the beast’s exposed eye, twisting it deep.

A shriek of pain.

A violent thrashing.

Then—silence.

[Challenge Completed: First Blood]

[Reward: Player Status Unlocked.]

The System dinged, but Noah barely noticed. His arms trembled. His breath came in ragged gasps. His entire body ached.

But he was alive.

The System Unlocks

His surroundings blurred as a new status window appeared.

[Player: Noah]

[Level: 1]

[Title: ERROR]

[Stats: Unavailable]

[Skills: Unavailable]

[Equipment: Unavailable]

[Perks: Unavailable]

A hollow laugh escaped his lips. "Even now, it’s still broken?"

But then, another message followed.

[Notice: Due to your unique nature, your status cannot be read.]

[Activating manual mode…]

[Player Authority: Unlocked.]

Noah blinked.

This… this wasn’t normal.

Even in the broken mess that was this System, one thing was clear—he wasn’t just another player.

The System didn’t know how to classify him.

And that meant…

"If the rules don’t apply to me," he muttered, gripping his still-bleeding arm, "then I just need to make my own."

A new path had opened before him. One filled with glitches, dangers, and secrets even the System itself feared.

But for the first time since waking up, Noah felt something other than confusion.

He felt in control.

And in a world ruled by a broken system, that made him the most dangerous anomaly of all.

To Be Continued…

Noah stumbled through the flickering landscape, his breath sharp and uneven. The very world around him was glitching, breaking apart at random—one moment, the grass beneath him was soft and real, and the next, it was jagged lines of red code spiraling into nothingness.

ERROR: UNIDENTIFIED ENTITY DETECTED.

WARNING: SYSTEM PURGE INITIATED.

The cold, mechanical voice echoed in his head, but he barely had time to process it. His body felt wrong, like his very existence was being pulled in different directions. He wasn’t supposed to be here.

Then, a deep growl rumbled behind him.

Noah turned, and his breath caught.

A twisted, malformed creature stood at the edge of the glitching terrain. Its body was unstable, constantly shifting—one moment sleek and wolf-like, the next, a tangled mess of jagged limbs and hollow, glowing eyes.

It wasn’t just corrupted. It was wrong.

And it was hunting him.

The creature’s red eye locked onto him, pulsing with unreadable symbols. The world trembled around it, as if reality itself was recoiling from its presence. Then, in a flickering blur—

It lunged.

Breaking the Rules

Noah barely reacted in time. He threw himself to the side as the beast’s clawed appendage slashed through the air, cutting through space itself. The place he had stood a second ago collapsed into raw code, breaking apart into a void of nothingness.

His heart pounded. One hit would erase him.

The creature let out a distorted snarl, its body flickering out of existence for half a second—then reappearing inches from him.

Too fast!

Noah’s instincts screamed at him to move, but the attack was already coming—

OVERRIDE ACCEPTED.

Suddenly, the world blurred, and Noah found himself several meters away, standing completely still.

The creature’s attack slashed through empty air, missing him by a fraction of a second.

He gasped. What just happened?

His body felt weightless, like he had skipped through time itself. He had moved without moving. His mind struggled to process it, but then—

The creature turned.

It didn’t care about how he had dodged. It was still hunting him.

It lunged again.

Noah didn’t hesitate. If the world was breaking, then he’d break it first.

He stepped forward, this time punching at the air between them.

ERROR: INVALID HITBOX DETECTED.

OVERRIDE ACCEPTED.

His fist phased through reality, bypassing normal physics—and suddenly, it landed directly on the creature’s core.

The beast froze. Its entire form glitched violently, its body twisting into unreadable data—

Then—

CRACK!

It shattered.

Noah stood there, panting, as fragmented code rained down around him.

He had broken something that shouldn’t have been breakable.

And for the first time since arriving in this world—he wasn’t the one being erased.

The System’s Enforcers

His victory lasted only seconds.

A new notification flashed violently across his vision.

WARNING: SYSTEM PURGE INTENSIFIED.

DEPLOYING SYSTEM GUARDIANS.

Noah’s stomach dropped.

From above, the sky ripped open—a golden rift tearing through the glitching horizon. From within, figures descended, tall and humanoid, their bodies made of pure golden light. Their faces were blank, their movements eerily precise.

Noah instinctively knew what they were.

System Guardians.

The enforcers of reality.

He took a step back. He had fought one unstable creature and barely survived. But these? These were designed to erase anomalies like him.

One of the Guardians raised its hand.

A pulse of golden light flared—

And a blinding spear of energy shot toward him.

Noah barely had time to react before it slammed into the ground at his feet. The impact disintegrated everything around it, leaving only raw void in its wake. If he had been a second slower, he would have been erased.

His chest heaved. He had to run.

The Guardians moved in unison, stepping toward him with an eerie grace, their golden auras humming with power. They weren’t just fast—they were precise. Their movements felt calculated, inescapable.

PURGE SEQUENCE INITIATED.

ALL GLITCHES MUST BE REMOVED.

Noah gritted his teeth.

A glitch—that’s what they saw him as.

And maybe he was.

But if they wanted to erase him…

He wasn’t going to make it easy.

Glitching Out

Noah ran.

The world around him distorted, the sky glitching between deep purple and an empty void. The terrain shifted unpredictably—sometimes solid, sometimes just an illusion, forcing him to rely on instinct rather than sight.

OVERRIDE ACCEPTED.

His body flickered—jumping forward through space, skipping entire distances in the blink of an eye.

He could move like before—but now, he was starting to understand it.

This wasn’t teleportation. It was an error.

He wasn’t moving faster. The System simply wasn’t registering his movement correctly. He was breaking the logic of space itself.

But even with this advantage, the Guardians were gaining.

One appeared directly in front of him, materializing out of golden light.

CALCULATING COUNTERMEASURE.

Its hand closed around his throat.

Noah choked, struggling against the crushing force. His body flickered unstably, his vision flashing with errors—

WARNING: ENTITY STABILITY AT 25%

He was losing cohesion. If they held him long enough—he’d break apart.

No.

Not like this.

Noah forced his mind to calm. He had broken a creature before—could he do the same now?

He focused—reaching into the glitch that made him different.

OVERRIDE ACCEPTED.

The Guardian’s grip faltered—and Noah’s body dissolved into fragmented code.

For a fraction of a second, he felt like nothing—just a scattered mess of data.

Then—

He reassembled behind the Guardian.

The entity hesitated—just for a moment.

Noah took his chance.

He clenched his fist and punched forward.

ERROR: IMPOSSIBLE HIT DETECTED.

His fist phased past the Guardian’s defenses, bypassing its protections—

And landed directly in its core.

BOOM!

A golden explosion erupted as the Guardian glitched out of existence, its form breaking into particles of light.

Noah didn’t wait.

He turned, sprinting toward the only thing he could see in the distance—

A massive, crumbling structure, hidden within the flickering storm.

As he approached, a single word appeared in front of him, written in glitched-out text.

SANCTUARY OF ERRORS.

His breath hitched.

He didn’t know what it was. But if it was outside the System’s control…

It might be his only chance at survival.

With the remaining Guardians closing in, Noah leapt forward—

And disappeared into the Sanctuary’s collapsing gates.

End of Chapter 2

Noah hit the ground hard. The air around him pulsed with unstable energy, sending glitching waves through his vision. The Sanctuary of Errors wasn’t just crumbling—it was alive, shifting unpredictably like a broken simulation trying to hold itself together.

He pushed himself up, panting. Behind him, the System Guardians hovered outside the entrance, their golden forms flickering with unreadable calculations.

WARNING: SANCTUARY IS OUTSIDE SYSTEM JURISDICTION. ENTRY PROHIBITED.

They hesitated.

Noah’s heart pounded. They couldn’t enter.

This place—whatever it was—was beyond their control.

He forced himself to his feet, stepping deeper into the ruins. The interior was vast, stretching into impossible directions, with staircases that looped in on themselves and hallways that flickered between existence and nothingness.

NEW LOCATION DISCOVERED: SANCTUARY OF ERRORS

STATUS: UNSTABLE – UNKNOWN ENTITY DETECTED

Noah frowned. “Unknown entity?”

A sudden voice answered.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

His blood ran cold.

A figure emerged from the shifting shadows—a man with piercing red-glowing eyes, his body half-formed, flickering in and out of existence. His form glitched violently, as if reality itself refused to stabilize him.

And yet… he was smiling.

“Looks like the System really screwed up this time,” the man chuckled, his voice layered with distortion. “So, tell me, kid. What kind of mistake are you?”

The Glitched Man

Noah took a step back, every instinct on high alert. The man’s presence felt wrong, like staring into a broken reflection of reality.

“Who are you?” Noah asked cautiously.

The man tilted his head. “I could ask you the same thing.”

Noah hesitated.

He didn’t know how to answer.

He had woken up in this corrupted world, constantly chased and hunted by entities calling him an anomaly. He barely understood what he was himself.

But the man in front of him?

He looked like Noah’s future.

“Let’s start with something simple,” the man continued, stepping closer. “I’m Elias, and this—” he gestured to the collapsing structure around them— “is my prison.”

Noah frowned. “Prison?”

Elias smirked. “A place for things that don’t belong—things the System wants to erase.” He spread his arms dramatically. “Welcome to the last sanctuary of mistakes.”

Noah swallowed hard.

This place wasn’t just outside the System’s control.

It was a graveyard for anomalies like him.

The System’s Lies

Elias turned, motioning for Noah to follow. “Come on, unless you wanna let the corruption eat you.”

Noah hesitated but had little choice. He followed, weaving through glitching corridors where reality bent unnaturally—walls shifted positions, floors dissolved, and whispers echoed from nowhere.

Elias finally stopped in a chamber filled with floating fragments of broken code.

“This place…” Elias said, running his fingers through a glowing script, “is a scar on the System itself. A remnant of something erased.”

Noah frowned. “The System keeps calling me a glitch. An error. Why?”

Elias gave him a knowing look. “Because you are one.”

Noah’s stomach tightened.

Elias smirked. “You don’t belong here, kid. You’re an outsider—something that exists outside the System’s rules.” He held up a hand, letting raw red energy flicker around his fingers. “Just like me.”

Noah’s heart pounded.

“Then what is the System really?” he asked.

Elias sighed. “A lie.”

He turned, looking at the shifting codes around them.

“It calls itself ‘reality,’ but it’s just a program. A construct controlling everything—who lives, who dies, who gets erased. And anyone who doesn’t fit its design?” He gestured at the ruined Sanctuary. “They disappear.”

Noah’s chest tightened.

He had felt it. The way the System tried to erase him, to overwrite his very existence.

“But if that’s true,” Noah said, “then why am I still here?”

Elias grinned.

“That’s the real question, isn’t it?”

A Power Beyond Limits

Elias circled Noah, his glitching gaze scanning him.

“You fought back against the System’s enforcers,” Elias said. “That shouldn’t be possible.” He tapped his chin. “And yet, here you are, breaking the rules without being erased.”

Noah clenched his fists.

He remembered the fight—the way his body phased through space, the way his attacks ignored logic.

It wasn’t magic.

It wasn’t skill.

It was something deeper.

Elias smirked. “Kid… I think you’re something even worse than an anomaly.”

Noah frowned. “What does that mean?”

Elias leaned in.

“It means…” His voice dropped to a whisper.

“You might be a hacker.”

Noah’s eyes widened.

A hacker.

Someone who didn’t just break rules—but could rewrite them.

A shiver ran down his spine.

If that was true…

Then he wasn’t just running from the System.

He was a threat to its entire existence.

A New War Begins

A sudden shockwave tore through the Sanctuary, making the entire structure quake.

Noah stumbled, catching himself on a fractured pillar.

Elias narrowed his eyes. “They’re here.”

Noah turned toward the entrance.

Outside, the System Guardians hovered in formation, their golden light burning brighter than before.

OVERRIDE DETECTED. SECURITY MEASURES ENHANCED.

INITIATING FULL ERASURE PROTOCOL.

The air trembled with overwhelming pressure.

They weren’t hesitating anymore.

This time, they weren’t just hunting Noah.

They were erasing everything.

Elias cursed. “Looks like your little stunt got their attention.” He turned to Noah, eyes burning with amusement. “Guess you’re not just some random mistake after all.”

Noah clenched his fists. His body still felt unstable, but deep inside—he could feel something stirring.

Something awakening.

Elias grinned.

“Well, kid? You wanna keep running?”

Noah exhaled slowly.

Then he looked up, meeting the golden eyes of the Guardians.

“No.”

His voice was steady.

“If the System wants me erased…”

His fingers twitched, and for the first time—he willed the world to bend.

OVERRIDE ACCEPTED.

Noah’s entire form flickered, and in an instant—he was gone.

Not erased.

Not destroyed.

Just beyond their reach.

Elias let out a low whistle. “Now that… is interesting.”

The Guardians hesitated for a fraction of a second.

And in that moment—Noah struck back.

A new war had begun.

End of Chapter 3