Chapter 27: The Glitch That Survived
Jay’s foot touched the ground, and the world jerked.
Like a scratched disc in an ancient video game, the academy courtyard stuttered. Stone tiles shifted half a step to the left, birds mid-flight froze in place, and System panels across the air distorted with crackling static.
Executioner Venn didn’t blink.
"You’ve adapted well," he said flatly. "But glitches are meant to be purged."
He raised a single hand, and dozens of red cubes—System Kill Nodes—materialized midair. Designed to shut down rogue systems, each one pulsed with forbidden code that no artificial interface should survive.
> [ALERT: Hostile Debug Protocol Detected.]
[System Reaction: Passive Immunity Engaged.]
Jay yawned, loud and slow.
"I was dreaming of ramen," he muttered. "Now I have to deal with this."
The first wave of cubes shot toward him like homing missiles. A normal user would be annihilated before they could blink.