The armored enforcer, now loyal to Mark, stood silently by his side like a guardian knight, its presence a testament to the sheer absurdity of his newfound powers. But there was no time to celebrate. The void around them flickered again, and a dozen more enforcers materialized—each one shifting like digital static, each movement sharper, more efficient. They came at Mark with the cold precision of an algorithm running flawlessly.
"Okay," Byte muttered nervously, readying his spear. "I know I said we could take them, but... uh, this might be a bit much."
Aya shot him a glare. "Shut up and fight. We've got a system to hack."
The enforcers advanced, glitching and distorting as they closed in. Mark's mind was already working at lightning speed, calculating, planning, and preparing his next move. He felt the weight of his new powers, the thrill of rewriting reality still buzzing in his veins.
He raised his hand again, activating Architect's Core Rewrite just as the first wave reached him.
Taming the System
This time, instead of reprogramming a single enforcer, Mark dove deeper into the Nexus's core. His vision blurred as lines of code streamed before his eyes, endless sequences of rules governing space, matter, and life within the system. The enforcers were only fragments—tiny pieces of a much larger machine.
He identified their behavior script—a cluster of cold logic dictating their hostility toward anomalies like him. A wild idea sparked in his mind.
"Let's see what happens when we tweak the rules a bit..."
With a thought, he altered the fundamental parameters of the enforcers' behavior. He injected chaos into their code, disrupting their collective intelligence, and then added a simple condition:
Priority Target: Destroy each other.
As if a switch had been flipped, the enforcers stopped mid-charge. Their forms flickered violently as they turned on each other, swarming like a hive collapsing into disarray. The void erupted into chaos as they clashed, tearing each other apart with merciless precision.
Aya's eyes widened. "Did you just make them… fight themselves?"
Mark grinned. "Yup. And it looks like it's working."
Byte laughed, spinning his spear in excitement. "Oh man, you're officially my favorite kind of overpowered!"
A Small Victory
Within moments, the enforcers had decimated one another, leaving only fragments of their shattered forms scattered across the void. The air shimmered with residual data, bits of broken code drifting aimlessly.
Aya folded her arms and tilted her head. "So... what now? We just walk out of here like badasses?"
Mark scanned the chaotic expanse. "Not quite. That was only the first wave. The system's still rebooting—more enforcers will be coming, and we need to be gone before that happens."
Byte knelt next to a pile of shattered enforcer fragments. "Think we can loot these things? Maybe sell their code on the black market or something."
Aya smacked the back of his head. "We're not selling glitched code to hackers, you idiot!"
Mark chuckled. "As much as I love your entrepreneurial spirit, Byte, we don't have time for that."
He closed his eyes, focusing on the shifting currents of the void. He could feel the Nexus's code surging around him, chaotic and unstable. Somewhere within the mess was the exit—a gate leading back to the world they knew. But finding it would be like locating a needle in a digital haystack.
Aya tapped her foot impatiently. "You have a plan, right? Please tell me you have a plan."
Mark grinned. "Of course I do. I just need a little time to rewrite reality again."
Coding Their Escape
Mark knelt on the ground, his fingers tracing glowing lines of code that floated in the air like holograms. He isolated a portion of the system's core logic—something that resembled a transportation protocol, albeit fragmented and unstable.
"Got it," he muttered. "There's a backdoor we can use, but it's messy."
Aya leaned closer. "Messy how?"
"More like... violently teleporting through corrupted data streams kind of messy."
Byte raised an eyebrow. "So, the kind of teleportation where we might arrive without, say, our internal organs?"
Mark rolled his eyes. "It's a calculated risk. I'll stabilize the stream as much as I can, but we need to go now before more enforcers show up."
Aya sighed. "Fine. If I lose any limbs, I'm making you buy me a new wardrobe."
"Deal," Mark said with a grin. "Everyone ready?"
Byte gave him a thumbs-up. "Ready to ride the glitch wave."
The Jump
Mark activated the makeshift portal, and a swirling vortex of glitching code materialized before them. It pulsed with unstable energy, crackling like a broken hard drive on the verge of meltdown.
"Stay close!" Mark shouted over the roar of the vortex. "This is going to get weird!"
Without hesitation, he stepped into the swirling mass of code, Aya and Byte following close behind. The sensation was unlike anything Mark had ever experienced—like falling and flying simultaneously, his body stretched and compressed through streams of raw data.
Reality blurred around him, fragments of worlds flashing by: a futuristic cityscape, an ancient battlefield, a quiet suburban street, and countless other realities woven together by the Nexus.
For a moment, Mark felt weightless, suspended in the chaotic flow of the system. But then, with a sudden lurch, the vortex spat them out.
Back to the Real World
Mark hit the ground hard, groaning as he picked himself up. The familiar scent of the city's smog hit his nose, and the distant hum of traffic confirmed they had made it back. They were standing in the middle of an empty alleyway, neon signs flickering overhead.
Aya stumbled, catching herself on a nearby wall. "Okay... never doing that again."
Byte looked down at himself, patting his limbs to make sure everything was intact. "Still got all my organs! Woo!"
Mark dusted himself off and checked his surroundings. The world felt normal—at least, as normal as a modern city could feel after you'd just escaped a digital void of doom.
"Alright," Mark said, catching his breath. "We're back. But the system isn't done with us yet. We need to lay low and figure out our next move."
Aya narrowed her eyes. "What's the plan?"
Mark's grin was sharp and determined. "Simple. If the system wants to hunt us down, we're going to hit it first."
A New Threat
Just as the trio started to move, Mark's phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, expecting another notification from Byte's questionable apps. But what he saw made his heart skip a beat.
SYSTEM ALERT: Enforcers Deployed in Sector 7. Anomaly Mark Veil Identified. Immediate Action Required.
Aya peered over his shoulder. "They've already tracked us? How?"
Mark's grin widened. "Looks like I pissed them off. Good."
Byte cracked his knuckles. "Guess we're not done glitching the system just yet."
Mark slid his phone back into his pocket, his mind already racing with possibilities. The Nexus had declared war on him.
And Mark Veil? He wasn't about to back down.