The login screen pulsed with violet light.
Welcome to SANCTUM ONLINE — Where Your Fate Begins.
Please select a class:
▢ Warrior
▢ Mage
▢ Assassin
▢ Cleric (Healer)
▢ Tank
▢ Custom Class (Restricted)
Violet Maxwell hovered her finger over Cleric. It wasn't a popular class. In the gaming forums, it was often labeled "deadweight" the type of support role that only got carried by over-leveled players in high ranking parties. No damage. No flash. No glory.
Exactly what she needed.
She tapped Cleric. A subtle vibration rippled up her hand as her in game avatar formed a mirror of her real body, but lighter, freer. The weight she carried offline, the exhaustion etched in her eyes from endless hospital visits and whispered condolences, didn't follow her here.
Name your character.
Default: VioletMaxwell_Cleric001
She smiled faintly and edited it.
Username: Virelia
Class Confirmed. Loading into Sanctuary…
The world exploded into color. Skies the color of twilight stretched overhead, and beneath her feet, cobbled stone streets wound through a medieval town square filled with flickering torches, bronze statues, and echoing NPC chatter. The loading faded. The HUD blinked to life. Her first quest was waiting.
[System Notification]: Join a Party to Begin Your Adventure.
And that's when the invite came.
[Party Invite from: Raven_Godmode]
Members: Raven (Knight), Lyra (Archer), Dredge (Berserker), Synn (Mage)
Role Needed: Healer
Accept?
Violet hesitated. She didn't know them. But with zero gear and a default level of 1, soloing was a death sentence. And they had flashy usernames veterans, probably.
She clicked [Accept].
Their voices greeted her in party chat.
Raven_Godmode: Ugh, another healer chick. You new?
Lyra: At least she's not using an anime profile pic. That's a win.
Synn: Don't care what she looks like, just keep my HP bar green.
Dredge: Let's see how long this one lasts.
Violet didn't reply. She followed them through the forest, healing when she could, watching as their glowing weapons tore through boars and corrupted goblins with ease. They didn't thank her once.
Two hours later, they entered a dungeon.
[DUNGEON: Whispering Vaults – Level 5-10 – UNSTABLE ZONE]
It was darker than the others, and colder. Stone corridors stretched endlessly, covered in runes that blinked like server code. The enemies glitched. Some NPCs looped their screams. A whisper echoed every few seconds: "You shouldn't be here…"
Raven: We farm this for XP. Just keep up, rookie.
Lyra: You see anything weird, don't touch it. This place is cursed.
Synn: It's not cursed. It's an unfinished zone. Developers dropped it after patch 1.3.
Dredge: Bet we could still cheese a boss.
They pushed deeper. Violet's mana bar flickered low as she spammed heals to keep the reckless frontliners alive. Then they reached the final chamber.
A massive obsidian door stood before them, carved with a serpent swallowing its own tail glitching in and out.
Raven: This is it.
Synn: There's a trick here. Someone needs to touch the core rune.
Lyra: Virelia can do it. She's got the least to lose.
Violet frowned. "What does that mean?"
Raven: You're Level 1. We're all 9 or 10.
Dredge: If it explodes, you're expendable.
Lyra: Just go.
Her breath caught in her throat. She was here to escape cruelty not find it coded into every line of virtual reality.
But she still walked forward.
The rune pulsed beneath her hand. It felt cold… and then unbearably hot. Her screen flashed red.
ERROR: PLAYER NOT AUTHORIZED TO ENTER CORE VAULT.
REWRITING CLASS PATH...
RECOMPILING... RECOMPILING...
"Wait—!" she tried to pull away.
The floor beneath her collapsed.
[SYSTEM ERROR: You Have Died.]
Rebooting system soul… class mismatch detected…
The loading screen didn't appear. There was no respawn timer. Instead, she found herself floating in black code scrolling across the void around her.
And then:
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
CLERIC CLASS REJECTED.
HEALING PROTOCOL: UNSTABLE.
REWRITING CORE CLASS → FATEBREAKER
You have become a SYSTEM ANOMALY.
Reward: Unique Class Tree Unlocked. Access to Rewrite Points Granted. Death Flag Removed.
You are now being tracked by Admin Hunter Protocols. Survive at all costs.
She gasped awake alone, in a glitching version of the dungeon. Everything shimmered. The stone floors were cracked, but overlaid with what looked like shifting fragments of broken code. Trees flickered in the ceiling. Screams echoed from walls that weren't there.
She opened her HUD.
Name: Virelia
Level: 1
Class: Fatebreaker (Glitched Healer)
HP: 500/500
MP: ???
Status: Corrupted | Soul Anchored | Death Flag Removed
[Skill Unlocked: Rewind Pulse Lv. 1]
→ Reverse 10 seconds of action for a single ally or enemy. 1 RP
[Skill Unlocked: Death Unwritten Lv. 1]
→ Cancel a single fatal blow. 3 RP
[Skill Unlocked: Patch Note Lv. 1]
→ Rewrite any one minor stat once per day.
She blinked. This was… broken. Game-breaking. Illegal.
Then came a final notification.
[New Target Assigned: ADMIN HUNTER — CODE: TYLER_JAX]
You are being hunted.
She heard footsteps in the glitching corridor behind her. Not monsters. Not code.
Real.
"You weren't supposed to survive," a low male voice echoed.
She turned.
A tall figure stepped through a rift in the air. Black armor with gold trim. His name hovered above his head in red.
[TYLER_JAX — ADMIN HUNTER | LEVEL ???]
His gaze landed on her with something between interest and calculation.
"You're the system error they're all panicking about."
She raised her staff instinctively, even though she knew it wouldn't help. "What do you want?"
He smiled slightly. It didn't reach his eyes.
"To delete you, obviously. But... now I'm curious."
Her heart pounded.