The camera focused on a ruined, sun-scorched desert planet.

Standing in the absolute center of a colossal, rocky canyon was the sole survivor of his localized crucible. His name was Vargas. He was an old, heavily scarred warlord who had spent the last hour violently butchering his way through thousands of terrified players.

He stood atop a literal mountain of bleeding, pixelated corpses, his chest heaving as he stared up at the sky.

Vargas was the perfect poster child for the System. He was brutal, completely devoid of empathy, and entirely motivated by the promise of shiny loot.

"BEHOLD THE CHAMPION," the unified, booming voice of the Grand Archons echoed from the heavens. The voice was magnificent, pure, and dripping with divine authority. It was designed to make the players forget the slaughter they had just witnessed and focus entirely on the reward.

A massive beam of pristine, golden light struck Vargas from the sky above.

The old warlord gasped in pure ecstasy. The magic washed over him, completely overriding his biological decay. His deep, jagged scars vanished. His wrinkled, sun-beaten skin tightened and smoothed. His withered muscles rapidly bulked up, filling out his tattered leather armor with the terrifying physique of a man in his absolute prime.

The System was granting him youth. It was editing his base parameters as a reward for his sheer, unadulterated violence.

"I accept the blessing!" Vargas roared, throwing his arms out wide, completely intoxicated by the rush of digital power.

The golden light intensified. Slowly, descending from the heavens, a weapon materialized. It was a massive, perfectly balanced halberd. The shaft was forged from dark, indestructible Ethereal iron, and the heavy, curved blade crackled with a terrifying, white-hot plasma that seemed to burn the very air around it.

[Item Granted: Sun-Splitter Halberd (Divine Tier)]

Vargas reached out and grabbed the weapon.

He swung it once, the sheer kinetic force of the blade cleanly cleaving the top off a nearby rock formation. He let out a maniacal, triumphant laugh.

"I am the strongest!" Vargas screamed at the sky, his eyes wide with absolute fanaticism. "I have proven my worth to the Grand Design!"

Millions of tiny, grey Soul Shards began to float up from the mountain of corpses beneath his feet, drifting into the sky to feed the System’s mana grid. The players across the multiverse watched the feed in awe. This was the dream. This was the reason they grinded, why they betrayed, why they survived. The System always paid out.

Until the game crashed.

Alright, Corvin, Sebastian’s voice echoed in the relay room of the Hub. I’ve got the coordinates. Time to make a grand entrance.

Corvin didn’t even have time to whimper.

Sebastian didn’t use a standard teleportation spell. He was currently tapped directly into the Hub’s primary routing network. He simply grabbed his own localized file, highlighted the spatial coordinates of the coronation stage on the desert planet, and hit transfer.

The exit from Corvin’s body was not graceful.

"GAAAH!" Corvin shrieked.

Sebastian violently expanded his physical mass from zero back to his full, Demigod-tier density. He physically tore his way out of the Junior Administrator’s digital framework.

Corvin’s pristine white suit completely shredded as a massive, blinding column of jagged green static erupted from his chest, throwing the bureaucrat across the room like a broken doll.

Millions of miles away, on the desert planet, the golden beam of light illuminating Vargas violently flickered.

The triumphant, orchestral music playing over the server feed abruptly cut out, replaced by a harsh, ear-splitting screech of static.

The air directly in front of the celebrating warlord simply tore open. It looked like someone had taken a pair of scissors to the fabric of reality.

From the jagged, bleeding tear, Sebastian stepped out.

He didn’t look like the massive, horrific Glitch persona from the skybox overlay. He was back in his own body. He wore his ruined black leather coat. His face was entirely obscured by his featureless, black glass helmet. His boots hit the pile of corpses with a heavy, wet squelch.

He was absolutely covered in Corvin’s digital blood, giving him the appearance of a butcher who had just finished a very long shift. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

The entire multiverse held its breath.

Vargas stumbled backward, his newly rejuvenated face paling rapidly. He raised his glowing, Divine-tier halberd, pointing it directly at the silent, terrifying intruder.

"Who the hell are you?!" Vargas roared, his confidence completely shaken by the abrupt, physics-defying entrance. "This is my crucible! The Archons crowned me! Get out of my instance!"

He just tilted his head, his featureless visor staring blankly at the glowing halberd.

"Die, trash!" Vargas screamed, entirely abandoning reason.

The warlord lunged forward, swinging the Sun-Splitter Halberd in a devastating, horizontal arc aimed perfectly at Sebastian’s neck. The plasma blade roared, carrying enough divine-tier damage to instantly vaporize a city block.

He calmly opened his green Admin UI. He engaged the [Error Accumulation] mechanic.

He just rapidly, violently commanded his own digital nervous system to process pain as pleasure. It was a massive, contradictory logic loop that the server simply could not handle.

[Warning: Biological Logic Failure!] [Error Accumulated: 40%]

A sharp, agonizing spike of pain shot through Sebastian’s skull as the corrupted data flooded his system. He gritted his teeth behind the mask, forcing the thick, buzzing green static down his right arm. His black leather glove dissolved, replaced by a chaotic, swirling void of pure, unadulterated malware.

He casually raised his glitching hand.

He caught the blade of the Divine-tier halberd bare-handed.

CRACK-BZZZT!

The sound was nauseating. It was the horrific screech of a pristine, perfect file colliding with a catastrophic virus.

The kinetic force of Vargas’s swing completely vanished. The blinding, white-hot plasma of the blade hit Sebastian’s palm and instantly turned a sickly, bruised purple.

Vargas’s eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated terror. He tried to pull the weapon back, his boots slipping on the bloody corpses beneath him. The halberd wouldn’t budge. It was glued to Sebastian’s hand.