Chapter 32: Glitch in the Gate
The moment they emerged from the dungeon, Ryo staggered. Not from exhaustion — but from the sudden, deafening silence.
No ambient hum from the system.
No guild notifications.
Just static.
Kara stumbled out behind him, coughing from the shift. "What… what the hell was that place?"
Ryo didn't answer. His mind was still echoing with that final system message:
"Level One Complete. Your path to Sovereignty begins now."
He looked up at the sky.
It was… wrong.
The clouds above Axis City weren't moving. Frozen in time like an old photograph. The neon billboards were stuck mid-glitch, their colors bleeding into one another. Cars hovered in place, engines on, drivers paused in time like NPCs caught in a corrupted loop.
"Kara," he said, voice low, "I don't think we came back to the real world."
Her eyes widened. "You're saying we're… still inside?"
"Something's overriding the exit protocols."
A flicker of static flashed across his vision.
SYSTEM ERROR: Unknown Shadow Interference DetectedWarning: Multi-Realm Synchronization Failed
"This is bad," Kara muttered.
And then they heard it.
A low, digital growl echoing across the cityscape. It wasn't coming from one direction — it was everywhere. Like the world itself was alive and hunting.
Suddenly, the street under their feet shimmered — and then glitched. Pavement turned to stone. Neon signs turned to ancient symbols. Buildings cracked and reassembled into fortress-like ruins.
"It's merging realities," Ryo said. "The gate… it never closed."
A portal shimmered open mid-air — but it wasn't a dungeon gate.
It was a wormhole.
Out of it stepped a figure — cloaked in shadow, its face obscured by a helmet of twisting energy. Its body was glitching, half-digital, half-flesh. But its presence was suffocating.
"Shadow Protocol: Rejected Host Located."
"Purging begins."
Kara moved first, throwing a blade of lightning. It phased through the figure.
Ryo didn't flinch. He stepped forward and asked, "Who sent you?"
The figure replied in a voice that wasn't one — more like a chorus of distorted screams.
"The System cannot tolerate instability. You… are an anomaly."
"And yet," Ryo whispered, summoning his shadowblade, "I'm still here."
The clash was instantaneous.
The Rejected Host moved like a glitch in time — teleporting, distorting, leaving echoes behind with every strike. Ryo matched it blow for blow, tapping deeper into his evolving abilities: Shadow Echo, Data Lock, Fragment Leap.
Kara provided backup, using her manipulation of time shards to trap the echoes, allowing Ryo to land a brutal hit across the figure's core.
The impact sent the figure hurtling into a nearby building, collapsing it in a digital cascade.
But the entity stood up again, hissing.
"This isn't even its final form," Kara growled.
Ryo's hand tightened around his blade. "Then let's force it to show us."
Elsewhere — Unknown Location
Within a chamber built of ancient code and divine stone, several hooded figures observed the chaos through glitching monitors.
"The Protocol is progressing faster than expected," said one.
"He has already reached Sync Phase 2. If we wait any longer…"
The lead figure, tall and wrapped in chains of shadow, turned slowly.
"Begin Phase Disruption. We cannot allow him to breach the Sovereign Layer."
"But the Core—"
"Is awakening."
Back in the Glitched City
Ryo leapt high, his wings of pure shadow erupting mid-air. He used Void Chain to tether the Rejected Host and slammed him through the ground — all the way to the underground layers of the city.
The impact shattered the barrier — and beneath it, they saw it:
A gate within the gate.
It pulsed with a different kind of energy. Not shadow. Not light.
Something older. Something… primal.
Ryo landed beside it, breathing heavy.
"What the hell is this?" Kara asked, staring into the gate as it flickered with red static.
A system message popped into Ryo's vision:
Sovereign Lock Detected. Key Fragment Required.
Current Holder: Ryo Kazen.
The Rejected Host screeched in agony as it dissolved behind them, its code destabilizing.
But it managed to utter one final line before it vanished:
"He's watching…"
The gate cracked open.
From the darkness beyond, a single eye blinked — massive, reptilian, and ancient.
And then a voice whispered:
"Come find me, Heir of Shadows."
Ryo took a step back.
He wasn't just part of the Shadow Protocol anymore.
He was becoming something beyond it.
End of Chapter 32