The world cracked.
Not from war. Not from cosmic fire.
But from rollback.
The moment the System's clock struck zero, signaling the end of the trace countdown, the very fabric of Cain's reality staggered. The skies didn't darken—they reverted. Trees ungrew. Mountains crumbled into base terrain assets. Reality shimmered as though a previous save file had overwritten existence.
> [PATCH 0.0.9e LOADED] [WARNING: UNSTABLE LEGACY CODE DETECTED — NULL WARDENS INCOMING]
Cain was already in his Hackspace Spire when it happened. The air inside the spire buzzed with active debugging scripts and anti-corruption daemons, but even here, he felt the tremble.
> "This isn't a patch," Cain muttered. "It's a purge."
A rift tore open above Glitchborn Vale. Hexagonal codeplates cascaded like shattered glass. Out of it poured them—
The Null Wardens.
Seven in total, each shaped like a forgotten algorithm, veiled in incomplete rendering. Their bodies flickered between pixel art, 3D wireframes, and incomprehensible abstraction. But their effect on the world was absolute.
Wherever they passed, code decompiled. Towns turned to polygons. Creatures reverted into raw data strings. Magic spells failed to compile mid-cast.
> [SYSTEM MISSION: SURVIVE THE INTEGRITY SIEGE — 24:00:00] [BONUS: Patch the Realm Core to prevent total rollback]
Cain activated the Hackspace Spire's Mod Compiler, a swirling vortex of upgrade tiles, root permissions, and unauthorized admin tools. He had only seconds to act.
Unlocked MOD FUNCTIONS:
Summon Override vX.1 — Remove unit-type restrictions and allow multi-realm summoning.
Loot Logic Fork — Drop multiple loot tables simultaneously from a single entity.
Evolution Lock Bypass — Force evolution conditions outside combat or territory.
System Field Recode — Define terrain-wide passive modifiers.
> "Perfect."
He coded mid-air, rewriting the battlefield.
[Applied Mod: Terrain Field — 'Quantum Instability'] Effect: All nearby constructs enter accelerated evolution states. AI may become sentient. Logic errors possible.
From the barracks, Cain's Glitched Knights screamed as they ascended three ranks at once, glitching through armor, code, and concept. Their weapons became abstract—each swing rewriting the local code physics.
> "Deploy the Ascended Generals."
His elite squad—summoned across realms and corrupted by Cain's evolving System—rushed the nearest Null Warden. A being called {Checksum Devourer} met them head-on, erasing portions of time around its body.
The battle ruptured the sky.
But Cain wasn't done.
> "Reality Editor — Source Layer Access!"
He reached into the base game layer—where even the System feared to dwell. A place of hard-coded laws and developer notes. There, he found it:
> [LEGACY DEVICE DETECTED: Realm Patch Anchor v0.0.9e.1]
A tool used by the original programmers to fix glitched zones.
Cain seized it. And then, like a mad god with a stolen paintbrush, he rewrote:
The Core Spawn Timetable to delay further Wardens.
The Damage Output Formula to scale with user intent, not stats.
The Spatial Combat Zone Permissions to allow time-locked duels.
> [MODIFIED REALITY SAVED — TEMPORARY STABILITY ACQUIRED]
The Null Wardens halted for a moment. Their bodies tried to parse the new rules. The simulation groaned.
Cain stood atop his spire, System UI glowing across multiple planes of interaction, drenched in the light of a hacked sun.
> "This is my realm now," he whispered. "And I don't rollback. I *fork."
---
Somewhere beyond the System, within a cracked developer node long thought erased, another presence stirred. Watching.
[ADMIN-CLASS ENTITY 'Z3RO' FLAGGED CAIN FOR OBSERVATION] [REQUEST: SYSTEM COMMIT AUTHORITY FOR RECLAMATION PATCH 1.0.0]
The war wasn't over.
It had just been compiled.
Chapter 21: Patch 0.0.9e — The Invasion Begins is complete and saved. It launches a high-stakes arc with Null Wardens, System Mods, battlefield rewrites, and foreshadows the rise of ADMIN-CLASS threats like Z3RO.