Chapter 1The execution room was cold, sterile, and built to erase souls.Zarek Voss knelt on an obsidian slab, chained at the wrists, ankles, and throat by suppression-forged manacles pulsing with red-lit runes. Each glyph buzzed with anti-system code, programmed to nullify any embedded abilities. His body ached from restraint, his muscles screamed from electroshock overloads, but his eyes... they burned with something primal.Rage. Control. Calculations.Ten meters ahead, separated by a triple-reinforced hex-field, stood the High Warden of Sector 9—a mechanical husk in a human shell. Dressed in gold-lined armor robes and flanked by two Sentinels, the Warden’s voice was monotone as he read the final verdict."Zarek Voss, you are hereby sentenced to terminal deletion under Order Sigma-11. Your crimes: unlawful breach of a Sovereign Core, unauthorized possession of prohibited code, and destabilization of classified system architecture."Zarek didn’t blink. Didn’t speak. He simply stare

Chapter 3Sector 7 groaned under its own instability.With the Omega-Class Patch Agent dead, equilibrium collapsed. Zarek Voss stood in the ruins of his own making—half-limping, half-floating over fractured terrain. The death of a purge-class entity hadn't freed the zone. It had poisoned it.The sky rippled like glass stretched over flame, static clouds breaking open into data-fall—strips of failing code that drizzled down like digital snow. His interface was spasming, overloaded from the fight.Warning: Core Stability 56% Interface Interference Detected System Reaction: Escalation Level – Alpha-Class Patch Agent en routeHe clenched his fists, willing the unstable interface to stabilize. His muscles ached, but his mind raced. The last battle gave him raw access. Power. Root-level intrusion. And now the System wanted to fix its mistake by sending something far worse.An Alpha-Class.He needed to disappear.Fast.Zarek veered off course from the main escape tunnels. Instead of the safe

Chapter 5Smoke lingered in the air, clinging to ruins like ghosts unwilling to let go.Zarek Voss stood on shaky legs, body pulsing with residual energy from the Alpha-Class’s destruction. Every breath came with static. His muscles twitched with overload. His system interface stuttered between functioning and reboot.And yet, the most dangerous thing in the field wasn’t the aftermath.It was the man standing ten feet in front of him.Clad in dusk-black armor laced with flickering code, the stranger looked as if he had stepped out of a corrupted prophecy—solid, quiet, unreadable. His presence triggered nothing. No scans. No threat indicators. He wasn’t there according to the System. And that alone made Zarek’s grip tighten around his blade.“Don’t bother,” the man said calmly. “I don’t register.”“Who are you?” Zarek asked.The man tilted his head, voice low but resonant. “You can call me Kalen. I’m what happens after a Glitchborn wins.”Zarek’s eyes narrowed. “Glitchborns don’t win.”

Chapter 7Zarek didn’t wait for the first strike. He launched it.The crown pulsed behind him like a breathing heart of energy, anchoring itself to his system link. With every second it remained bonded, it fed him tiny fragments of control—of memory, of dominion. But it wasn’t enough to win. Not yet.Three Glitchborn heirs closed in fast.Zarek activated Flicker Chain—a rapid succession of short-range teleport bursts. He zipped left, reappeared high, twisted mid-air, and hurled a newly-formed Sigil Javelin at the brute with the cybernetic arms.New Skill: Sigil Javelin (Lv.1) – Created via Crown ResidueThe attack exploded mid-flight, sending shards of burning red code through the battlefield. The brute flinched, but didn’t fall. He roared, slammed his fists together, and launched forward with shockwaves pulsing from his boots.Zarek barely blinked in time.The shockwave cracked the terrain. His HUD spat errors from kinetic destabilization.Impact Force Detected: Tier 6 Right Leg Armo

Chapter 9Zarek stood in the fading haze of the battlefield, still bathed in the residual hum of the Ghost Crown’s authority. The scorched air, the broken terrain, and the scattered remains of shattered mechs told the story of a war he’d barely survived—and one that had only just begun.Status: Sovereign – Crowned Faction Invitation: The Hollow Thrones – PendingHe stared at the blinking prompt in his interface.There was no dossier. No intel. No background logs. Just a direct request stamped with an access level he’d never seen before—Tier Zeta Clearance. The kind of clearance reserved for system architects, ancient rulers, or... ghosts.Invitation Received: The Hollow Thrones Faction Status: Off-Grid / Origin Unknown Sovereign-Bound Entry OnlyZarek exhaled and tapped ACCEPT.The world disappeared in a pulse of blinding white.When it faded, he stood in a void that wasn’t truly empty. The space around him was layered—fractals of broken thrones floated in suspended stasis, ancient si