SYSTEM GOD THE REBOOTED

Code Bleeds in the Dark

Chapter 3

Sector 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 route

He 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 safer maintenance exit, he headed deeper into the broken canyon sector where signal irregularities pulsed.

Alternate Route Chosen: Debris Canyon – Zone Black Risk Level: 77% – Unscanned Presence Detected

He leaped across collapsed mech armor and ducked into the wreckage of a downed transport tank. Static sang in his ears. Every few meters, echoes of broken data whispered his name. Something here was calling to him—or watching.

The canyon narrowed. Burned-out shells of tech gods from a war no one remembered loomed above like broken statues.

Then he saw it.

A humanoid figure was chained to the skeletal ribcage of a fallen sky-harvester drone. Energy restraints crackled around his limbs, tethered into a dying power core. His skin was pale and flickering, almost translucent. One eye glowed red, the other gray.

Alive.

Barely.

Entity Detected: Glitchborn Variant Status: Fragmented Host – Rogue Seed Code Present Threat Level: Unknown

Zarek stepped forward, wary. His systems pinged a dozen alerts, but none were specific. The figure stirred.

“You're not with them,” the man rasped, voice fractured like broken audio. “But you're not free either.”

“Who are you?” Zarek asked.

“They called me Venn... back before the System erased everything but the name.”

Zarek’s eyes narrowed. “Another Glitchborn?”

Venn nodded slowly. “They let me live. Couldn’t delete me. Not fully. My code’s infected their core routing. Killing me triggers a feedback loop.”

“Why chain you here?”

“Because I tried to overwrite an Alpha,” Venn said with a dark laugh. “Failed. Almost took it with me. They’ve been dissecting my failure ever since.”

Zarek studied the bindings. Advanced quantum locks, coded directly into the air itself. Releasing him could trigger every system watchdog within five kilometers.

“What do you want from me?” Zarek asked.

“Free me. I’ll give you something in return.”

“Like what?”

Venn tilted his head. “The Reaper’s Sigil.”

Zarek stilled. “That’s a myth.”

“It’s not. It’s legacy code from the original purge—before the System consolidated. Before the Gods fell. It lets you rewrite bloodlines. Rewrite origin tags.”

Zarek hesitated. Then a screech tore through the air.

System Alert: Alpha-Class Patch Agent – Arrival ETA: 03:42

He didn’t have time to debate.

Quest Triggered: Release Glitchborn Venn Reward: Class-U Fragment (Unknown Tier)

He stepped forward.

/Command: Override Quantum Chains – Redirect Power Through Terrain Node

Energy surged. The chains snapped. Venn dropped to his knees, shuddering. His eyes blinked erratically as his systems reinitialized.

“Wasn’t sure you’d do it,” he muttered.

“You have 60 seconds. Give me what you promised.”

Venn reached into his chest—literally. His hand phased through his sternum and retrieved a dark-blue shard laced with red code.

Item Acquired: Reaper’s Sigil – Class: Unknown System Trait Tree: Unlocked – Bloodline Override (Locked)

Zarek absorbed it.

Pain stabbed through his mind. Not physical pain—data rewriting itself at the core of who he was.

A new interface emerged. Hidden beneath his main system grid.

Godroot Core: Accepting Bloodline Protocol Seed Fragment Match: 13% – Path Incomplete

Warning: Admin Tier Systems Will Detect Activation

Zarek blinked the message away.

“You’ve got company inbound,” Venn said, rising to full height. “I’ll draw them away.”

“You’re barely stable,” Zarek replied.

Venn smiled crookedly. “I’ve been dying for years. Might as well burn loud.”

With a surge of corrupted energy, he vanished.

Zarek turned and sprinted toward the last open path.

The exit tunnel arced through collapsed terrain and terminated in a crumbling breach that dropped into the underground expressway.

At the far end, five System-born soldiers had arrived—hive-mind enforcers, linked by network pulse, already setting up an energy lock.

He had seconds.

/Command: Extract Kinetic Reserve Available: 41%

/Command: Convert to Shock Nova – Area Radius 30m

The blast cleared them in one scream of white-hot pressure.

Zarek charged.

He hit the first before the dust settled, his arm transforming mid-swing into a rewritten blade of vibrational alloy. The others fell in seconds—paralyzed, their systems infected by his corruption field.

Then the temperature dropped.

The air froze.

His breath curled in front of him like frost.

The Alpha had arrived.

It didn’t walk.

It didn’t hover.

It shifted, existing between layers, as if reality bent to accommodate it.

Zarek stood tall, body bleeding light, interface screaming from the Reaper’s Sigil, the stolen powers, the glitch override.

He smirked.

“You better be worth the fear.”

And he launched his blade.