Thirty seconds.
That's all Nero needed to scan both Debuggers with his Debug Swarm ability and find a weakness they could actually exploit. Thirty seconds that Kade, Finn, and Lyra would have to buy with their lives on the line.
"GO!" Lyra's arrow struck β-3's face, not damaging but drawing attention. The Debugger's blank gaze locked onto her.
Finn appeared at γ-9's back, daggers seeking any gap in its armor. The construct spun with inhuman speed, forcing him to dodge. And Kade charged straight at both of them, shield raised, roaring like a man possessed.
"COME ON THEN! YOU WANT NERO? YOU GO THROUGH ME FIRST!"
Nero ran in the opposite direction, putting distance between himself and the fight. His hands moved through complex gestures as he activated Debug Swarm.
```
[DEBUG SWARM ACTIVATED]
CORRUPTION: 46 → 48/100
SCANNING TARGETS...
```
His vision exploded with data. Not just surface information; everything. The Debuggers' code laid bare, their core processes, their command structures, every line of programming that made them exist. It was beautiful and terrifying.
```
[DEBUGGER β-3 ANALYSIS]
Core Function: ERROR TERMINATION
Weakness Found: Logic Loop Vulnerability
- When presented with paradoxical commands, enters recursive processing
- Can be exploited through contradictory system orders
Corruption Cost to Exploit: 8 points
[DEBUGGER γ-9 ANALYSIS]
Core Function: REALITY ENFORCEMENT
Weakness Found: Shared Network Dependency
- Still connected to terminated α-7's ghost process
- Network lag from missing unit causes 0.3 second delay
- Can be exploited through rapid sequential commands
Corruption Cost to Exploit: 7 points
[COMBINED EXPLOIT IDENTIFIED]
Method: Trigger logic loop in β-3, use network delay in γ-9 to force simultaneous shutdown
Success Rate: 73%
Total Corruption Cost: 15 points
Risk: HIGH
```
Seventy-three percent. Better odds than he'd had all fight.
"I'VE GOT IT!" Nero shouted. "I need them close together! And I need β-3 distracted for five seconds!"
Kade didn't ask questions. He just acted. His [Immovable Object] was still on cooldown, but he had other skills. He activated [Challenge Roar] — a taunt so powerful it basically forced enemies to attack him. Both Debuggers turned toward him as one.
"PRIMARY OBSTACLE DETECTED. REMOVING."
They attacked in perfect synchronization. Kade met them with his shield, and the impact drove him to one knee. His HP bar invisible to him but crystal clear to Nero through their Soul Link, dropped by a third.
"Kade!" Nero felt the pain through their bond, felt Kade's determination burning like a star.
"Don't worry about me!" Kade roared back, blood running from his nose. "JUST HURRY!"
Finn was there instantly, daggers finding β-3's joints, not damaging but disrupting its balance. The Debugger stumbled half a step. Lyra's arrows peppered γ-9, each shot precise, keeping it from overwhelming Kade.
Five seconds. Nero had five seconds. He activated his new Force Patch ability; the one designed for emergency healing but that he was about to use very, very wrong. His hands moved through code-space, reaching into β-3's programming. He found its core logic processor and fed it a command:
"IDENTIFY: IS THIS STATEMENT FALSE?"
β-3 froze mid-attack.
"PROCESSING. IF STATEMENT IS TRUE, THEN IT IS FALSE. IF STATEMENT IS FALSE, THEN IT IS TRUE. ERROR. RECURSIVE LOOP DETECTED. PROCESSING. PROCESSING."
It locked up completely, trapped in an infinite loop trying to resolve an unsolvable paradox.
One down. One to go.
γ-9 realized what happened and turned toward Nero. Its blank face somehow conveyed murderous intent as it raised its hand.
"ELIMINATING PRIMARY THREAT."
Nero felt the deletion sphere beginning to form. Three seconds until reality around him ceased to exist. He couldn't run or dodge. Could only exploit the one weakness his Debug Swarm had found.
γ-9 was still connected to the ghost process of the terminated α-7. That connection caused a 0.3 second delay in its command processing. Nero sent a rapid sequence of contradictory commands through that phantom connection:
STOP. GO. ATTACK. DEFEND. DELETE. RESTORE.
All at once. Too fast for the lag-delayed system to process. γ-9 shuddered. Its deletion sphere flickered, destabilized.
"ERROR. CONFLICTING COMMANDS. UNABLE TO RESOLVE. SYSTEM CRASH IMMINENT."
"Now!" Nero screamed. "Hit Them Now!"
Kade was already moving. His shield bash struck β-3's frozen form with the force of a battering ram. The Debugger, trapped in its logic loop, couldn't defend. The impact shattered something critical. Finn's daggers found γ-9's core, exploiting the moment of system instability. Lyra's arrows, three in rapid succession, struck the same point. And Nero, running forward with his sword, drove it through γ-9's chest just as he activated System Crash one final time.
```
CORRUPTION: 48 → 63/100
```
Reality screamed again. Greater this time. Both Debuggers unraveled simultaneously, their code dissolving into nothing, their forms breaking apart into streams of data that scattered into the wind.
```
[DEBUGGER β-3: TERMINATED]
[DEBUGGER γ-9: TERMINATED]
[+500 XP x2]
[CORRUPTION REDUCED: -6 (Debugging corrupted systems)]
CORRUPTION: 63 → 57/100
[COMBAT COMPLETE]
[ALL DEBUGGER UNITS ELIMINATED]
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: "System Administrator"]
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: "Bug Hunter"]
[TITLE ACQUIRED: "Debugger's Bane"]
[WARNING: Your actions have been logged]
[WARNING: Debugger Central has been notified]
[WARNING: Higher-tier units may be dispatched]
[You won the battle]
[The war has just begun]
```
Nero collapsed to his knees, every muscle trembling. His Corruption sat at 57/100 — more than halfway to Terminal Event. The fight had cost him dearly.
But they were alive. All of them.
Kade stumbled over, his armor dented and blood-streaked but grinning. "We did it! We actually did..." He swayed, and Nero caught him. Or tried to. They both went down in a heap.
"Okay," Kade said from the ground. "Maybe I'm not fine."
Finn appeared above them, looking exhausted. "That was the stupidest, most reckless, most insane thing we've ever done."
"And we lived," Lyra added, lowering her bow. Her hands were shaking slightly. The only sign of stress she'd show. "Against all odds, we lived."
Nero helped Kade sit up, then collapsed next to him. Through their Soul Link, he could feel the big man's vitality; bruised, battered, but fundamentally okay.
"Your HP is at 180 out of 580," Nero said. "You took a hell of a beating."
"Worth it." Kade's hand found Nero's shoulder. "You're alive. That's what matters."
"We're all alive," Finn corrected. "Let's not downplay our collective badassery here."
They sat there in the aftermath, four adventurers surrounded by the residue of a battle that shouldn't have been survivable. The deletion sphere had left a perfect hemispherical void in the landscape, a reminder of how close they'd come to being erased.
"So," Lyra said after a long moment. "What now?"
Nero pulled up the final notification, sharing it with them.
```
[WARNING: Debugger Central has been notified]
[Higher-tier units may be dispatched]
[Estimated arrival: 3-5 days]
[Recommended action: FLEE REGION]
```
"Three to five days before more come," Nero read aloud. "And next time, they'll send something worse."
"Then we have three to five days to get stronger, figure out our next move, and prepare," Lyra said. "We're not running scared. Not after this."
"Agreed," Kade said, struggling to his feet and offering Nero a hand up. "We just killed three reality-deleting murder machines. We can handle whatever comes next."
"Your optimism is inspiring and terrifying," Finn said.
"Thank you!"
"That wasn't a compliment."
Nero looked at his party; his friends, his found family and he felt something settle in his chest. They'd faced impossible odds and won. Not through overwhelming power, but through teamwork, trust, and sheer stubborn refusal to die. His system pinged one more notification.
```
[RELATIONSHIP UPDATE - PARTY BOND EVOLUTION]
Ashford's Vanguard has evolved into:
[SOUL-FORGED VANGUARD]
New Party Effects:
- Shared danger sense (all members)
- Emergency HP redistribution (critical moments)
- Corruption burden sharing (Nero's load distributed)
- Unbreakable morale (fear effects reduced 90%)
[You are not just a party]
[You are family bound by battle]
[This bond is eternal]
```
"Did you guys feel that?" Nero asked quietly.
"Yeah," Kade said, his voice warm. "We all felt it."
Finn nodded. "The party bond. It's different now. Stronger."
"Soul-Forged," Lyra said, reading the term somehow. Maybe she'd felt it intuitively. "That's what we are now."
They stood together as the sun began to set, casting long shadows across the scarred battlefield. In the distance, Grayhollow was safe, its people unaware of how close they'd come to disaster.
"We should get back," Lyra said. "Report to the Guild. And figure out our next move."
"What do we tell them?" Finn asked.
"The truth," Nero said. "That we cleared a corrupted dungeon, fought off a system anomaly, and survived. Leave out the part about me being the glitch user they're looking for."
"So lie by omission," Finn said grining. "I can work with that."
They started the walk back to town, exhausted and battered but victorious.
"Hey Nero," Kade said as they walked. "What's your Corruption at now?"
"Fifty-seven."
"More than halfway."
"Yeah."
"We'll figure it out," Kade said with absolute certainty. "We'll find a way to reduce it, or manage it, or beat it. Because that's what we do."
"Solve impossible problems?"
"Exactly." Kade's grin was infectious. "Besides, you just debugged three Debuggers. If that's not proof you can hack your way out of anything, I don't know what is."
Nero couldn't help but smile. "Thanks, Kade."
"That's what soul brothers are for."
—
They reached Grayhollow as night fell, slipping through the gates just before they closed. The town was quiet, still under curfew, unaware that three system enforcers had been terminated just two kilometers away. The Guild hall was still open—Marge never seemed to sleep. She looked up as they entered, her expression shifting from tired to alarmed when she saw their condition.
"What the hell happened to you four?"
"Dungeon complications," Lyra said smoothly. "The Collapsed Mine had unexpected corruption. We cleared it, but it was rougher than anticipated."
Marge studied them with narrowed eyes. She knew there was more to the story. But she also knew when not to push.
"I'll mark it as cleared with hazard notation. Your payment will be processed by morning." She paused. "Nero Cross. You have a message."
Nero's blood went cold. "A message?"
She handed him a sealed envelope. No name, no return address. Just a symbol on the wax seal, a circle with a line through it.
The universal symbol for deletion. His hands shook as he opened it.
Inside, written in perfect mechanical script:
"ERROR USER DESIGNATION: NERO CROSS, YOUR TERMINATION OF ENFORCEMENT UNITS α-7, β-3, AND γ-9 HAS BEEN NOTED.
THREAT CLASSIFICATION UPGRADED: HIGH.
ARBITER UNIT WILL ARRIVE IN 72 HOURS. YOU CANNOT RUN. YOU CANNOT HIDE. YOU CANNOT WIN.
ENJOY YOUR FINAL THREE DAYS.
—THE SYSTEM"
Nero showed the letter to his party. Their expressions ranged from grim (Lyra) to furious (Kade) to calculating (Finn).
"The Arbiter," Finn said quietly. "That's their leader. The one who commands all Debugger units."
"Three days," Lyra said. "We have three days to prepare for whatever that is."
"Or three days to run far and fast," Finn suggested, though he didn't sound like he believed it.
Kade pat on Nero's shoulder gently. "Three days to get ready. We beat three Debuggers today. We can beat one more."
"The Arbiter isn't just one more," Nero said, his voice hollow. "It's their leader. It'll be stronger, smarter, more dangerous than anything we've faced."
"Then we'll be stronger too," Kade said simply. "Three days, mate. We'll use them. Train. Prepare. Find every advantage we can."
"Agreed," Lyra said. "We're not done yet."
Nero looked at them.
"Alright," he said. "Three days. Let's make them count."
They left the Guild hall together, Soul-Forged Vanguard walking into an uncertain future with their heads held high. Behind them, Marge watched them go, then pulled out a communication crystal. Her expression was troubled.
"Sir," she said into the crystal. "We have a situation. You're going to want to see this."
—
Somewhere far away, in a tower that touched the sky, a figure stood before a wall of monitors showing every region, every dungeon, every adventurer in the system. One screen showed four young adventurers walking through a small town.
The figure smiled.
"So," they said to the empty room, "the Error User has allies. How interesting."
They pressed a button. A new screen activated, showing a single command:
DISPATCH ARBITER UNIT.
PRIORITY: ABSOLUTE.
AUTHORIZATION: FINAL.
"Let's see if friendship is stronger than deletion," the figure mused.
The screen flickered.
ACKNOWLEDGED.
ARBITER DEPLOYMENT: 72 HOURS.