Reality Bends, But He Endures
The world was no longer stable.
The battlefield twisted, collapsing into something wrong—gravity inverted, the ground stretched, time itself flickered in and out of existence. The system was rewriting reality around him, molding the battlefield into an inescapable death trap.
And at its center stood the Executor.
It didn't rush him. It didn't need to. The world itself was its weapon.
Ezekiel's body screamed in pain—his limbs felt heavier, his mind felt sluggish. The system was actively suppressing his existence, making it harder to move, to think.
[ System Absolute Command: Anomaly Correction Commencing. ]
A new force clamped down on him. His skin burned, his bones felt like they were coming apart at the seams. His very presence was being rewritten.
The system wasn't trying to kill him.
It was trying to remove him from reality itself.
And yet—
He refused to vanish.
Ezekiel gritted his teeth, planting his feet against the unstable ground. Every fiber of his being screamed for him to give up—to let go, to fade away.
But something inside him pushed back. Hard.
A pulse of defiance surged through him. His presence reasserted itself, disrupting the system's hold.
The world shuddered. The correction faltered.
The Executor tilted its head slightly, adjusting. A new command echoed.
[ Final Execution Protocol: Conceptual Erasure. ]
The void warped.
And the Executor moved.
The System's Strongest Weapon
It was faster.
Where before it had attacked with precision, now it overwhelmed. Each movement shattered the space around it, each strike carried the weight of absolute finality.
Ezekiel barely managed to dodge the first attack—a blade of pure system authority, aiming directly at his core. He twisted his body, feeling the very concept of movement flicker as the blade passed inches from his ribs.
Too close.
The second strike came instantly. No wasted movement. No hesitation.
It was adapting.
He tried to counter—**his fist shot forward—**but his attack phased through the Executor.
For a split second, his mind screamed in confusion. It had been right there.
Then—pain.
A crushing force slammed into him from behind, sending him crashing through what was left of the broken ruins. His breath left his lungs in a sharp gasp as he hit the ground, skidding until he slammed against a fractured wall.
It was already behind him.
The Executor stepped forward, unhurried. Unstoppable.
Ezekiel pushed himself up, blood dripping from his forehead. His body was barely holding together. The Executor raised its hand—reality itself bent around its next strike.
One more hit like that—
And he was gone.
No.
Something inside him snapped.
His breathing slowed. The world around him felt clearer.
And suddenly—he understood.
Breaking the System's Rules
He wasn't fighting the system.
He was outside of it.
The reason he could still move, the reason he still existed despite everything the system was throwing at him—
Was because he was something it couldn't fully control.
A grin formed on Ezekiel's bloodied lips.
"Your system's rules don't apply to me."
The Executor didn't hesitate.
It lunged—its blade carving through reality itself, aiming for his core—the final strike.
But this time—
Ezekiel moved differently.
Not dodging. Not countering.
Ignoring.
The moment the blade touched him—it didn't connect.
It phased through him, as if he wasn't there.
For the first time—the Executor hesitated.
Ezekiel grinned.
His fist slammed into the Executor's core.
And this time—
It connected.
A shockwave tore through the battlefield.
The Executor staggered—its form flickering. The system struggled to process what had just happened.
And Ezekiel didn't let it recover.
He attacked again.
Blow after blow—his strikes shattered the system's control over reality.
Each punch tore apart the rewrite.
Each movement reasserted his existence.
The system had made one mistake.
It had tried to correct him.
But he wasn't something that could be corrected.
He was an anomaly.
The final punch connected—directly into the Executor's core.
For the first time—the system's weapon failed.
The Executor collapsed.
Reality snapped back.
The battlefield stilled.
A single message appeared.
[ Error. System Override Failed. ]
[ Anomaly Cannot Be Corrected. ]
[ Warning: Unknown Threat Level Detected. ]
Ezekiel exhaled. His body ached, but he was still standing.
The Executor—was not.
He had won.
But as the broken fragments of the system's enforcer faded into data, another message flickered in his vision.
Something new.
[ "You were never meant to return." ]
The words felt different.
Like they weren't from the system.
Like something else had been watching.
Then—
Everything went dark.
---
Ezekiel's eyes snapped open.
Silence.
No battlefield. No system alerts. No shattered reality.
Just—
The quiet hum of a city.
He was lying on rough pavement, the smell of rain and asphalt filling his lungs. Above, neon signs flickered against the night, casting a dim glow over the empty street. Skyscrapers loomed in the distance, their windows reflecting the city's artificial light.
This was—impossible.
He pushed himself up, scanning his surroundings. A familiar skyline stretched before him, but something was wrong. The air felt different, as if the entire world was just slightly out of sync.
His mind raced. The last thing he remembered—
The Executor. The fight. The system rewriting reality.
And then—this.
No system interface. No status screen.
Nothing.
He clenched his fists. The system wouldn't let him return. He had been exiled, erased. This shouldn't be real.
Yet he was here.
And he wasn't alone.
Footsteps echoed in the distance. Ezekiel turned, instincts sharpening—only to see people walking along the street. Normal people. Dressed in casual clothes, checking their devices, talking in hushed voices.
For a brief moment, relief washed over him. This was the real world.
But then—
He caught his reflection in a store window.
And his stomach dropped.
His face—his presence—was distorted. Like a blur in reality.
No one noticed him. Not one passerby gave him a second glance. It wasn't just that they ignored him—they didn't register his existence.
Ezekiel's breath steadied. He hadn't returned. Not truly.
This world remembered the city. The people. The rules.
But not him.
The Error in the System
A sharp chime rang in his head—
Not from the system.
From something else.
A message appeared in the air before him, glitching at the edges.
[ Observation Status: Unstable Presence Detected. ]
[ System Override Pending… ]
Ezekiel's heartbeat slowed.
The system hadn't let him go.
It was just watching.
And somewhere, deep in this world that shouldn't exist—
Something else had noticed him, too.
---