I enter through the portal and a wide, glitchy wasteland littered with rubble and ruins greets me. Aside from the static-like distortions and random tileset swaps, it almost looks like a normal place; no more sepia-like color filters.

Also, there's no sky to be seen because there's a whole goddamn planet in the way. I doubt it is further away than five to ten kilometers. Of the second world, I see only a village in a mountain range surrounded by a couple of ominous black towers covered in crystal-like clouds.

This whole situation makes little sense, gravity would be completely fucked up by the proximity. But then, since when do glitches care about the laws of physics? None of them went to university to study law.

It seems like it is exactly like Lady Orpyne said: glitches are not affected by the stasis protocol enforced by this emergency situation. I don't want to know what that means for me...

Anyway, I gather my party members - shit, they are trapped in the stasis. Then how about my many summoned spirits? Yeah, dream on, they are also unavailable... The more things change the more they stay the same. Fuck, still alone up against the unknown, every dungeon or "dungeon" that mattered was more or less a solo venture.

I look behind me, and as I hope, the entrance door is still there. It is an unassuming, damaged door frame in another ruin in the middle of nowhere. I'll have to keep that building in mind if I want to leave, it doesn't stand out at all.

Before surveying the area further, I hide behind the walls. I've no clue what is out there, but they are likely glitch creatures, and as my encounters with Para and his girl have shown, I doubt I currently have a way to fight them. I could fight creatures that are normal monsters just with a mutated class or something, but not living glitches. I might have some luck with lesser ones, but at least not those on his level. Or rather, who can do anything to them at all? They are living anomalies in reality. Anything reliant on stats means nothing to them, making me effectively unarmed.

And right on cue, I spot several glitch creatures in the distance spread around the area. They seem to be on patrol and easily number in the hundreds if not thousands. Makes me wonder how I wasn't immediately discovered when I entered through the door.

Anyway, it seems this is the stealth section in the game of life.

I mean I have the [Stealth] skill, but I'm still not sure how exactly it is supposed to work, and who knows if it even works on them. For all I know, it might make it easier for them to discover me since they "eat" System-related stuff, and most people notice when food is shoved into their faces, with the keyword being "most".

Yeah, better stay clear of them. Para and the girl may have been mostly friendly towards us but there's no guarantee all the other glitch creatures are the same just because I now might qualify as one of them thanks to the whole Hybrid thing. Until proven otherwise, I'll assume the worst from them.

But what am I even looking for? I only want to pass through to Orpyne's whereabouts, but what does that equate to in this glitch world? No clue.

But thinking about it, isn't this way too convenient? I need to reach Lady Orpyne who is on another planet, but thanks to glitches, I coincidentally have access to this shortcut - at least I hope it is a shortcut and not a pointless side area.

Admittedly, I'm glad that it is possible, otherwise, the System may be unrecoverable, but... it still feels utterly wrong. It is as if someone knew this would happen or even orchestrated it, and now wants me to solve it for some reason.

If Elly's story about the universe being reset thanks to backups is true, this may not be as unlikely as I want it to be...

I sneak over to the next ruined building and spot a half-withered sign there: PUEDES RETIRARTE CUANDO QUIERAS, PERO NUNCA PUEDAS IRTE.

I can't read it either, but the characters look identical to what was on the door frame outside, they are possibly in the same language. Not sure what to make of that.

Maybe these are the remains of an ancient civilization that was ruined by a glitch outbreak? Orpyne said that the accident with my new skill caused enough errors that at least one solar system was lost and it wasn't the first time something like that happened. So it would be in the realm of possibility that these ruins are the result of a similar occurrence.

While I was distracted by this discovery one of the glitch patrols got closer to me. This is too close for comfort.

It seems they haven't spotted me, but I can hear them talking. I can't understand what they are saying, but knowing how close they are is enough for now. But isn't it weird? I could understand Para once I got more infected, closer to being a glitch creature myself, so why can't I understand them? Are they a different kind or tribe?

The patrol group consists of three mostly humanoid glitch creatures, a huge scorpion-shaped one, and a crossbreed of a snail and a fish, as well as a literal tank - how the hell didn't I hear them approaching!? Doesn't matter now, I have to get out of here.

I quickly look around for another patrol group and don't see one. I wait until the patrol group turns around a corner so I can buck it out of here.

It still doesn't seem like they noticed me.

Wait, why don't I adapt my form? I have an improved version of my [Disguise] skill that lets me assume an elemental form, and thanks to the recently acquired Hybrid skill I have access to wind magic, so I should be able to turn into air and therefore kind of invisible that way. Worth a shot.

I quickly turn my body into pure air. The regular air tries to pass through me, it feels weird. Very unpleasant. But at least it appears I'm now indistinguishable from the general air, so that should work.

There's no point in thinking about using this chance for a sneak attack. I might get off a first strike, but after that, I'm a sitting duck, spells take too long to charge up and the charge itself would be a dead giveaway. And if it wasn't for that problem, I know of no method to deal with a simple glitch creature, especially not a whole army mixed with fucking tanks. This is simply no place for experimentation.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

I wait for a moment, look around, and then get out of my hiding spot. No one follows me.

I sneak around carefully for a long time. Ruins here, wrecked vehicles there, rubble everywhere - a veritable war zone. But so far, none of the places have a door frame that is mostly intact or similar to the entrance I come from.

And then I run into something despite watching my surroundings carefully.

Thunk

Scales?

I take a few steps back to see what it is I collided with.

Ah. nothing to worry about, just a glitch-infested dragon the size of a mountain, I'm not even as big as its toe. And that monstrosity somehow turns invisible when you're more than five meters away. Great.

Just give me time for a training montage and I'll be ready to solo it. No sweat. Fuck, get me out of here already.

While I'm contemplating my mortality, the gigantic beast steps forward out of my sight, and I can only see how a neighboring ruin gets crushed by the invisible lizard. Man, am I glad that wasn't me. That would've been a lame way to go out.

It is also very worrying that I couldn't hear or feel it moving at all. You'd think that such a massive creature would cause earthquakes with every step but that wasn't the case.

On a slightly positive note, it didn't care about me bumping into it. It must have a very thick skin when not even stepping unto a ruin fazed it, so what would I amount to? Nothing.

I continue my search for cover or progress, and eventually, I find something new: stairs leading down into a cellar of sorts.

With no other leads to go on, I enter the cellar. Better than getting stepped on by gigantic, invisible glitch lizards.

The cellar itself has nothing to do with the previous aesthetic. Instead of the expected brick-and-mortar type cellar, I find myself in a more organic hallway. It's kind of like seeing the inside of a tremendous alien creature. The walls are covered by several tiny maws, some of which munch on corpses, and a few more corpse chunks cover the ground. It is quite an unpleasant sight.

The air is incredibly unpleasant as well, like smoke clouds mixed with rotten eggs.

Seriously, Orpyne, you gotta clean up your living room every once in a while; the current state is just disgusting!

As far as I can see, I'm alone down here but I still feel like I'm being observed.

The room itself doesn't contain much, just the usual innards you'd expect from a creature, but also a metal door. Yet another unreadable inscription is on it:

DONT DEAD

OPEN INSIDE

Well, I can't read the text, so it can't stop me and neither is the door locked, so I carefully open it, and on the other side is absolutely nothing. Literally nothing. A vast, endless nothingness like looking at the night sky but deleting every single star, that kind of nothing.

Ah, no, I take it back, there's something. A few spaces in the nothingness are flickering with glitches as if they were trying to come to life and reality immediately killed them. I guess this is what the situation looks like which Elly saw in that memory; a universe gets overrun by glitches and then deleted by this god of gods.

Uh, if this is the vacuum of space, shouldn't there be a massive physical force that tries to drag me there? The one I feel barely qualifies as a small breeze, nothing worth mentioning, really. Weird.

Well, I can see a lot of the foul air flowing through the door to the outside, so it isn't nothing. Should I leave it open so I can some fresh air in here? No, better not, that would be a massive safety hazard.

I quickly close the door and head back before I have an accident and stumble into this nothingness. I lack the ability to fly so that would be the end for me.

So this is a complete dead end. I make my way back, but my exit isn't there anymore. The stairs are just gone, and instead, the flesh passage flows into a glass tube in the middle of the sea.

Great, it is Antichamber all over again... the way forward isn't the same as the one back, or maybe they change after some time or when not observed? Who knows, this is just frustrating. I already have no idea what the correct way is, and now the path isn't even fixed enough to randomly guess...

Where's a goddamn walkthrough when you need one? Yeah, right, the internet is down again...

As far as I can see, the way forward through the tube itself is empty, but there are all kinds of dangerous glitch beasts outside. Various cross-breeds of sharks and stingrays with missile batteries instead of lungs. I hope they get no funny ideas.

Ah, how could I overlook the most dangerous of sea creatures? A tank of maybe half the size of the invisible dragon. A main turret with three rows of seven barrels each and about two dozen smaller turrets plastered all over the thing with two rows of quad barrels each. Whoever designed this abomination must've been extremely insecure about their size, hence I shall dub this war machine "the Compensator".

At least it seems to be a unique machine and isn't heading this way-

Creak Wirr

I and my big mouth... there are two more of that model on the other side of the tube. What kind of fucking threat are you facing that you need that kind of firepower!? Are you hunting paperwork!?

One of the two uber tanks seems to be on a collision course with the pipe. Yeah, fuck this path, I have to get out of here, and that's not only because of the impending doom tank but also because I want to check if the path changes again. I hope it does. But most importantly, I need a break.

I've been here for a while now and I'm feeling the glitch-fullness creeping in again. The density of glitches in the air here is much higher than back at home, and even with the new, additional Hybrid skill, it exceeds how much I can take at once. I've no idea how long it'll be until I arrive at my unknown destination, but I've to do something, or I'll go native...

I've no choice, I have to do something now while I have some time to breathe, who knows when the next time will be that I have an undisturbed moment.

I head back to the room covered in flesh and maws and sit down. By now, all corpses are gone, and I think one of the maws just burped. Can I get some lunch as well? No? Damn...

I once again fall into a meditation-like state to try and work on the remaining broken skill. This time, however, I'm kind of System-blind, I can't check in my menu what the result would be. I simply have to trust that the resulting skill won't be to my detriment, but that shouldn't be too hard. When I worked on that skill the first time, all results were active skills, so in the worst case, I could simply not use it.

As before, I see in my mind how some ghastly arms work on the skill plate, following my mental orders.

I've no idea what to do about the shape, all of my previous attempts resulted in garbage skills. How about I use the same shape I used for the other skill? In the worst case, it will be a dud which I already expect.

I do my best to recreate it and now I only need to add exp to solidify the final skill. I feel something flowing in, but it feels different from before.

Right, I used all exp up when I created the previous hybrid skill. What flowed in this time, were the local glitch particles. Now that I examine them closer, they are different from the ones at home. They feel feral and quite ancient. There are also traces of exp still mixed in.

Could it be that this brand of glitches has trouble digesting the exp? Or maybe they keep them for later. There's no System here so presumably no food for them.

Oh, damn, that would make it even worse! I'm still connected to the System, I must look like a buffet for them. Well, uh, time to bite back, I guess?

I try to guide the particles into the skill shape, so they can serve as an exp substitute. When I let go of the shape, it stays in place. Seems like it unexpectedly did work.

Now I only have to make sure to not use the skill. Ever. One apocalypse is enough for one day.

I can already sense how the feeling of fullness from the glitches gets less. Is it supposed to work that fast? I thought the skill shape needed to harden out first but it seems I was mistaken and I'll gladly take this solution to my problem.

It has been quite a while, so if the tank really ran into the pipe this whole area should've been flooded by now. Either that or the path changed again.

I head back and indeed, the path changed. It no longer leads to the undersea pipe but to what looks like an underground crypt.