Leo hit the ground hard.
Stone shattered beneath him like brittle glass.
The sky above the Failed Instance wasn't a sky at all—just fractured layers of static and darkness, like reality had been torn and poorly stitched back together.
No System UI.
No minimap.
Only silence.
Then—
Movement.
Dozens of figures crawled out of the ruins.
Not monsters.
Broken NPCs.
Their bodies glitched mid-animation. Faces looping between fear and rage. Health bars flickered, corrupted, unreadable.
One rushed him.
Instinct moved before thought.
Leo raised his hand.
The hollow inside him pulled.
The NPC collapsed mid-step, body draining into gray dust that spiraled into Leo's chest.
Pain.
Cold.
Then clarity.
The System slammed back online violently.
ABSORPTION CONFIRMED
DATA TYPE: EXPERIENCE / CODE FRAGMENT
LEVEL UP
Level 1 → 5
Leo staggered.
Five more rushed him.
He didn't fight.
He walked forward.
Each step erased one.
No skills. No weapons.
Just absorption.
The Instance reacted.
Walls bled static. Gravity twisted. Screams echoed without mouths.
LEVEL UP
5 → 9
Something roared.
The ground split open.
A Failed Boss emerged—half dungeon core, half executioner.
Its HP bar showed a single word:
INVALID
It swung.
Leo caught the blade.
The hollow screamed.
He pulled.
The boss screamed louder—then folded inward, collapsing into raw System mass.
MASSIVE DATA INGESTION
LEVEL UP
9 → 14
Leo dropped to one knee.
His bones felt heavier. Denser. Realer.
Not stronger—more anchored.
The Instance began to collapse.
Reality couldn't sustain him anymore.
But something deeper woke up.
A sealed chamber cracked open.
Inside floated a black cube covered in warning glyphs.
A Core Fragment.
The thing that caused the Instance to fail.
The moment Leo touched it—
Everything stopped.
Time froze.
A voice spoke from nowhere.
LEVEL ZERO HAS NO CEILING
The cube shattered.
The hollow consumed it completely.
The System screamed.
FORCED CALIBRATION
LEVEL UP
14 → 18 → 20
The world detonated into white.
Leo slammed back into his apartment floor.
The portal collapsed behind him violently.
Alarms blared from the beacon in his hand.
Hale and Cross were already there.
But they weren't looking at him.
They were staring at the floating System screen hovering above Leo's head.
Clear.
Stable.
Terrifying.
LEVEL: 20
CLASS: NONE
SKILLS: UNDEFINED
STATUS: UNRESTRICTED
Cross whispered, "That took seven minutes."
Hale didn't blink.
"The Failed Instance is gone," she said slowly. "Not cleared. Not reset."
"Gone how?" Cross asked.
She looked at Leo.
"Erased from the System."
Leo stood up.
He felt normal.
That scared him more than anything.
"What happens now?" he asked.
The System answered before she could.
LEVEL ZERO — STABILITY ACHIEVED (TEMPORARY)
NEXT THRESHOLD: LEVEL 50
WARNING: ARCHITECT AWARENESS INCREASING
Somewhere far above them—
Something adjusted its gaze.
Hale finally smiled again.
"Now," she said, "things get expensive."