Darkness.
It wasn't quiet. There was a sound, like static from a broken screen. Something buzzed near Kael's ears, something that wasn't real—but also wasn't imaginary.
Then came a voice. Not a loud one. Cold. Digital. Stripped of all emotion.
[SYSTEM ERROR: USER NOT FOUND]
Kael opened his eyes.
Above him, the sky was wrong. Glitched lines split the clouds. Blocks of color flickered in and out of existence. A digital aurora bled pixelated light across a shattered dome.
He blinked slowly, trying to breathe, but the air burned his lungs like metal smoke. His back was pressed against cold stone. Cracks ran through the surface like lightning veins.
Kael sat up.
His fingers twitched.
His hands were intact. Skin pale. Normal. But then a glitch shimmered down his left arm—just for a second. A translucent wireframe outlined his veins, like code bleeding through flesh.
He blinked again.
What the hell…?
His heart thumped once. Then again.
His name came back to him slowly.
Kael… Ashborne.
He didn't remember how he died. Or if he even did. But this wasn't Earth. And he wasn't dreaming.
The ground around him stretched out in all directions—a dead zone.
Crushed buildings lay half-sunken in broken terrain. Steel beams jutted out like ribs from corpses. Trees without leaves cracked under their own weight, frozen in motion like time had tried to forget them.
And everywhere, the same hum. Low. Mechanical. Like the world itself was humming with static.
Then—again—the voice:
[WARNING: SYSTEM INTERFACE BOOTING…]
[STATUS: INCOMPATIBLE USER DETECTED]
[INITIATING OVERRIDE PROTOCOL…]
A flicker of light appeared before his eyes. Not on his retina. Not in his brain. It hovered mid-air—a screen, but without glass. Floating. Translucent.
Words began typing themselves across the screen:
USER PROFILE: KAEL ASHBORNE
RECOGNITION: ERROR
SYSTEM TYPE: UNREGISTERED ENTITY
ASPECT: THREAD-ECHO DETECTED
WELCOME TO AETHEROS. YOU SHOULD NOT EXIST.
Kael's jaw clenched.
He tried to stand. His legs buckled, but he pushed through it. The gravity here was strange—too slow, like the world was lagging. When he moved, the delay was half a second off.
A sound echoed nearby.
Crunching gravel.
He turned, eyes scanning.
There. Something moved through the fog. A shape. Four-legged. Mechanical bones scraping against the ground.
Kael crouched low.
Whatever it was, it hadn't noticed him yet.
He looked down at himself. His clothes were torn black fabrics—no armor, no weapons. Just boots, straps, and an unfamiliar wristband glowing faint blue.
[SCANNING THREAT…]
[IDENTIFIED: ECHO BEAST // CORRUPTED TRACKER LV. 3]
[WARNING: HOSTILE ENTITY. USER LEVEL: NULL.]
The creature stepped into full view.
Its face was hollow, skin peeled away to reveal glitched-out muscle lines and flickering bone. Its spine jerked as it moved, like it was being puppeted by laggy code.
It stopped.
Its head twitched.
Then it looked straight at him.
Kael didn't think. He turned and ran.
His boots scraped over fractured stone. The terrain shifted under him—buildings tilted sideways, trees grew horizontal from gravity distortion.
The thing behind him screamed.
A distorted audio file of a scream. Like someone had compressed it and played it backward.
[SUGGESTED SKILL INSTALLATION: GLITCH STEP (Lv. 1)]
[ACTIVATE? Y/N]
"Yes!" Kael barked.
[INSTALLING SKILL… SUCCESSFUL.]
[GLITCH STEP ACTIVATED.]
Suddenly, the world shifted.
Kael's body warped sideways. The landscape blurred. It was like he skipped frames—teleporting without the clean transition. One moment running—next moment, twenty meters away.
The Echo Beast lost him.
It reared back, screeching into the static sky.
Kael slammed into a wall and gasped. His hand dug into the cracked metal. His knees buckled again.
[USER HEALTH: 68%]
"You've gotta be kidding me," Kael muttered.
He peeked over the ledge of a collapsed wall. The beast was still sniffing the air, scanning for him. Its glowing core pulsed erratically—like it wasn't alive, just running.
Kael's breath slowed.
His fingers tapped against the wall beside him—trying to think, to plan.
He didn't have weapons. He didn't have training.
But he had this… system.
Not like a game interface. This one was… broken. Bugged. But alive.
[ECHO POINTS: 0/100]
[CLASS: UNASSIGNED]
[THREAD VISIBILITY: LOCKED]
[REALITY INTERFERENCE: STABLE – 57%]
"What even is this place?" he whispered.
[AETHEROS – DIMENSIONAL CODE WORLD]
[CURRENT ZONE: GLITCHFIELD RUINS]
[YOU ARE THE FIRST ECHO-WALKER.]
The screen flickered. Then expanded.
A small map showed a zone called Scartide Outpost to the west.
Another pinged location read Null Vein to the north—highlighted in red.
Kael stared at the blinking markers. Then at the creature.
It was leaving. Slowly turning away.
He let out a breath. Finally.
He didn't move.
Not yet.
His hands trembled slightly—part fear, part system side-effect. His body wasn't used to this place. Not the way gravity bent. Not the way his legs glitched slightly with every shift.
[CAUTION: USER IS EXPERIENCING REALITY SICKNESS. RECOMMEND STABILIZATION.]
Another echo shimmered on the corner of his vision.
A flicker of something in the air—like a thread of light.
Thin. Pale blue. Floating.
Kael reached out instinctively.
His finger brushed the thread—
And the world twisted.
For half a second, he wasn't in the ruin.
He was in a dark corridor. Metal walls. Lights flickering red. A countdown. A woman's voice screaming something—"Kael! Shut it down!"
Then it was gone.
Back in the ruin.
Kael staggered back, heart hammering.
What the hell was that?
[ASPECT DETECTED: THREAD ECHO ACTIVATED]
[UNLOCKABLE SKILLS: THREAD SENSE, REALITY PING, ECHO MEMORY (LOCKED)]
His chest rose and fell.
His fingers curled into fists.
This wasn't just a new world.
This was something else.
Something that was never supposed to happen.
His existence here… was the glitch.
And the system knew it.
[YOU HAVE BEEN REINCARNATED IN VIOLATION OF SYSTEM LAWS.]
[YOU ARE NOT MEANT TO EXIST.]
[BUT YOU DO.]
Kael looked at his reflection in the broken glass of a data shard beside him.
His eyes… were silver.
Not brown. Not hazel.
Silver, with tiny flickering code rings buried deep in the iris.
He exhaled, quiet.
The wind shifted. A distant howl echoed over the wasteland.
Kael looked to the west—toward Scartide Outpost.
No memories.
No weapons.
No allies.
Just this broken interface, a glitched-out sky…
…and a world ready to erase him.