The First Rewrite

The world shifted around Noah in a blur of data and fragmented space. One moment, he was standing in the Sanctuary of Errors, facing the System Guardians. The next, he had willed himself into motion, and reality bent to his command.

He wasn’t teleported.

He wasn’t erased.

He rewrote the rules.

Noah stumbled as he reappeared on a floating platform of shifting code, deep within the Sanctuary’s core. He gasped for breath, his body tingling with a sensation beyond pain—a glitching resonance that pulsed beneath his skin.

OVERRIDE ACCEPTED. LOCATION: UNREGISTERED ERROR ZONE.

He had no idea how he did it, but it didn’t matter. The Guardians wouldn’t stop until they erased him.

“Impressive,” Elias’s voice echoed from behind.

Noah spun around. The glitched man stood casually, arms crossed, red-glowing eyes analyzing him.

“You rewrote your position,” Elias mused. “Not teleportation, not speed. You changed where you existed.”

Noah clenched his fists.

“I don’t know how,” he admitted.

Elias smirked. “Of course you don’t. You’re still thinking like a ‘player’ in this system. But you’re not.”

He stepped closer, his fragmented form flickering.

“You’re something new, kid. A hacker—someone who doesn’t just break the rules… but reprograms them.”

Noah’s heart pounded.

If that was true, then—

A sudden shockwave blasted through the Sanctuary.

The Guardians had followed.

Noah turned sharply as golden figures tore through the broken corridors, their bodies radiating overwhelming authority.

EMERGENCY OVERRIDE PROTOCOL – ERASE ALL ERRORS.

The space around them distorted, breaking apart like a corrupted file.

Elias let out a low whistle. “Looks like they’re done playing nice.”

Noah barely had time to react before the first Guardian struck.

Fighting Against Reality

The golden enforcer rushed forward, its hand forming a blade of pure light, slashing toward Noah’s chest.

Instinct took over.

Noah shifted, his body flickering out of sync with reality for a split second—the attack passed through him.

Elias raised an eyebrow. “Now you’re getting it.”

The Guardian adjusted instantly, recalculating its attack pattern. Four more appeared, surrounding Noah from all sides.

MULTIPLE ERRORS DETECTED. INCREASING ERASURE SPEED.

Noah barely had time to react before they attacked simultaneously.

The world slowed.

His mind raced.

Think.

Teleporting wouldn’t work. Dodging was pointless—they were too fast.

But what if…

Noah reached into his glitched instincts and did something insane.

He grabbed reality itself.

The First Rewrite

For a split second, Noah’s fingers brushed against something unseen—a layer of existence beneath reality.

OVERRIDE ACCEPTED.

His vision expanded, flooding with lines of code, shifting numbers, and raw commands buried deep within the System’s architecture.

He saw it.

The rule governing the Guardians’ movement. Their speed function.

And he rewrote it.

EXECUTING OVERRIDE: SET SPEED \= 0.

The results were instant.

The Guardians froze mid-attack, their bodies locked in place, unable to process the sudden law-breaking command.

Noah staggered, his breath ragged. His head ached—rewriting reality wasn’t effortless.

Elias let out a loud laugh. “Kid, you just hacked existence!”

But Noah wasn’t done.

He focused again.

OVERRIDE: ERASE TARGET DATA.

The stopped Guardians glitched violently, their golden forms flickering between existence and deletion.

They tried to resist, but the code had been rewritten.

In a single, silent second—they vanished.

Deleted.

Gone.

Noah gasped, sweat dripping down his face. His fingers trembled. He felt it—the weight of what he had just done.

He hadn’t killed them.

He had removed them from reality itself.

Elias whistled. “And just like that, the System lost five of its perfect little soldiers.” His eyes gleamed. “Now, imagine what you could do with more practice.”

Noah swallowed hard.

He wasn’t just fighting the System anymore.

He was learning how to break it.

The Cost of Power

But before Noah could even process his victory, his body seized up.

Pain exploded in his skull, his vision distorting. His entire being flickered uncontrollably, like he was coming apart.

Elias was instantly at his side, gripping his shoulder.

“Breathe, kid. You just tampered with something way beyond you.”

Noah gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stay conscious. “What’s… happening to me?”

Elias’s expression darkened.

“The System’s fighting back.”

He gestured to the flickering space around them.

“You’re not supposed to exist the way you do. The more you rewrite things, the more the System will try to erase you in return.”

Noah clenched his fists.

So there was a limit to his hacking.

For now.

Elias smirked. “But don’t worry. You’ll adapt. The real question is—how far are you willing to push before the System pushes back harder?”

Noah exhaled slowly.

He had already crossed the line. There was no turning back now.

“I’ll keep pushing,” he said, determined. “I’ll break whatever I have to in order to survive.”

Elias grinned. “Good answer.”

But before they could continue—

The Sanctuary shook violently.

A new presence had arrived.

And it was stronger than anything Noah had faced before.

The System’s New Weapon

The space ahead of them ripped apart, revealing a figure unlike the Guardians.

This one wasn’t golden.

It was black as the void, its form wrapped in chains of code, its eyes burning with deep crimson.

Elias’s smirk vanished.

Noah’s pulse spiked.

ERROR SUPPRESSION UNIT ACTIVATED.

DESIGNATION: ENFORCER-NULL.

This was no ordinary Guardian.

This was the System’s failsafe.

The ultimate eraser of mistakes.

And it was here for him.

The Battle Begins

The Enforcer-Null moved faster than anything Noah had seen.

One moment it was standing across the ruined hall—

The next, it was right in front of him.

Noah barely managed to shift reality—

OVERRIDE: MOVE POSITION – 10 METERS BACK.

—before a blackened fist crashed down where he stood, obliterating the floor in an explosion of corrupted code.

Noah skidded back, heart racing.

The Enforcer-Null didn’t freeze like the Guardians.

It was immune to basic rewrites.

Elias cursed. “Of course they’d send a Null Unit. That thing isn’t just strong, kid—it’s built to adapt to hacks.”

Noah wiped sweat from his brow.

“So how do I stop it?”

Elias grinned. “You don’t.”

Noah froze. “What?”

Elias’s grin widened.

“You overwrite it completely.”

Noah’s breath caught.

Overwrite…?

Before he could process that idea, the Enforcer-Null charged again.

Noah braced himself—this battle was just beginning.

End of Chapter 4

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