The ground shuddered as a massive skeletal frame slammed into it, rolling violently before coming to a halt. A wide expanse of meadow lay flattened in its wake, dirt and debris scattering through the air. Before the dust could fully settle, a powerful tail swept across the ground, clearing the haze and exposing the creature in its entirety. It raised its head, its empty eye sockets scanning for the one responsible for dragging it here.
At first, it saw nothing. No one stood on the ground. But then its gaze shifted upward, and there they were—Magnus, hovering roughly twenty meters in the air, staring back with an expression caught between disbelief and confusion.
"This... is the Nullfang?" Magnus muttered, his voice low but audible, disbelief creeping into his tone.
[I believe so; the music being produced by the BGM Glitch confirms it.]
Magnus gave a slow, hesitant nod. Basker was right. That haunting melody had played the first time he and Marcos encountered the Nullfang. Yet, even with that confirmation, it was hard to accept.
What Magnus saw before him wasn’t a creature of flesh and scales anymore. It was a skeleton. Every trace of its former body had been stripped away, leaving behind only blood-stained bones as a reminder of the life it once had.
How the hell is this thing still alive?
He’d questioned if he was seeing things when he first flew close to where Mia and the others were set to ambush the Nullfang, wondering if his high speed had distorted his view. But now, seeing it clearly, there was no doubt. It shouldn’t have been possible. The Nullfang had no remaining biological functions. Nothing that would allow it to move, let alone exist.
[It's likely the result of some nullified state.]
Yeah, I figured that. But what kind of state could it nullify to end up like this? It can’t be death itself, right? Otherwise, it wouldn’t have had the chance to nullify anything in the first place.
States in source code, at least as Magnus understood them, were essentially binary—ones and zeros, or in simpler terms, true and false. If something was alive, its state of death, or being dead, would be false, or zero. Conversely, its state of being alive, or living, would be true, or one. He knew he was oversimplifying it in his mind, of course. Reality was infinitely complex, and he did not doubt that source code mirrored that complexity.
Who could say how many states shifted when something—or someone—died? A fraction of infinity was still infinity, meaning there could very well be an infinite number of states in a living being's source code that determined whether it was alive or dead.
But that complexity didn’t really matter right now. Magnus likened it to a game: when a player’s state shifted from "Walking" to "Running," it triggered a chain reaction. Abilities tied to running would activate, while those requiring the player to stand still became unavailable.
If that logic applies here, then the Nullfang couldn’t have nullified one of the states tied to death. For it to do so, it would have had to die first—and the moment it did, all its other states would have shifted accordingly. Its ability seems to be tied to its mind, and the dead can’t think, right?
This wasn’t just speculation—it was a question for Basker. Magnus didn’t know what truly happened when someone died, but if anyone could answer, it was the hound that could prowl through minds.
[That is correct, Master. When a living creature dies, the connection between the brain and mind is severed. While they are separate entities, they rely on one another. The mind cannot generate its own stimuli without external input, and without the brain, it loses access to all sensations and experiences. It’s like a wind-up toy—everything you feel, see, and experience keeps the mind’s gears turning. Without those inputs, the mind grinds to a halt.]
The end result was that the mind didn’t vanish after death; it simply became void. No thoughts, no sense of time or self. Like a deep, dreamless sleep, with no way to wake up.
I see...
Magnus thought, a chill creeping over him.
That’s slightly terrifying to think about. But that confirms the Nullfang couldn’t have nulled any state related to being dead, since it wouldn't be able to think if that was the case. However it still leaves us clueless as to how it ended up as some kind of undead skeleton.
[Indeed. However, I’m afraid that question will have to wait. It’s coming.]
Snapping back to reality, Magnus saw the Nullfang surging toward him with startling speed, its skeletal form slithering effortlessly. He couldn’t fathom how it was navigating without eyes, but like Basker said, now wasn’t the time for questions. Even as it closed in, Magnus didn’t flinch. His expression remained calm as he visualized the next move in his mind.
The Nullfang reared up, raising the front half of its body before launching itself into the air. Its damaged jaw opened wide, aiming to tear into him. But in the blink of an eye, Magnus vanished, leaving behind the faintest afterimage. A shockwave rippled through the air where he’d been moments before.
Before the Nullfang could react, Magnus reappeared at its side, his stance already primed. His fist flew forward with precision, ready to strike. Yet just as it connected with the textured surface of the Nullfang’s skull, the creature nullified the state of experiencing external force at the impact zone.
What happened next surprised them both.
Instead of a kinetic blast or recoil, the skull shifted sideways, moving just enough for Magnus’s punch to follow through unobstructed. There was no force, no energy transfer—just the eerily smooth motion of the bone adjusting to allow Magnus’s arm to complete its movement.
Huh? Is it nullifying force itself?
With how fast Magnus could think on the fly when he was focused, it only took him a couple of moments to figure it out.
[Master, if your strike managed to move the Nullfang’s head despite it nullifying force, it likely means the Command Console has a higher permission level than the Null State Glitch it’s using.]
Well, isn’t that interesting...
With that thought, Magnus didn’t hesitate. Before the Nullfang could hit the ground, he surged forward and delivered another punch to the same spot. Once again, the Nullfang’s head shifted from the impact. Magnus tilted his head slightly, intrigued, and used the Command Console to visualize a loop of simple, repetitive movements he wanted his body to perform.
In an instant, Magnus unleashed a barrage of strikes, each one faster than the last as he propelled himself forward. Every blow connected, halting the Nullfang’s descent and instead driving it backward. The pace of the strikes steadily increased, and soon Magnus’s arms were nothing but a blur of relentless attacks. With each hit, the Nullfang was forced further through the air. Magnus’s flight speed climbed, his strikes growing faster and stronger, turning into a storm of sheer force.
Against anything else—a mana barrier, the hardest of materials, or even the most resilient auras—this assault would have been catastrophic, crushing all in its path. But the Nullfang wasn’t bound by the rules of the natural world. Its glitch-ridden existence was the only reason it endured the onslaught. Still, it couldn’t keep up with Magnus’s speed or adjust to the chaotic barrage. At this point, Magnus was flying at nearly half the speed of sound, striking the Nullfang across its body and changing his angle of attack with precision.
The Nullfang responded predictably, nullifying the state of experiencing force across its entire frame. The result? It became little more than a giant piñata. Magnus continued to batter it through the air, redirecting its trajectory with each strike. If it started to fall, he would dart around and send it flying in another direction. The Nullfang didn’t even have a chance to touch the ground.
Still, even as he pummeled it, Magnus frowned.
Hmm... this isn’t getting me anywhere. I can move it, but I’m not actually hurting it.
The Nullfang seemed to reach the same conclusion. Staying on the defensive wasn’t an option. It shifted tactics, unleashing an ability Magnus hadn’t seen before—one clearly designed to be lethal to humans. The blade-like tip of its tail became coated in frost, and it lashed out with a strike laced with absolute zero. The melody in the air shifted, and Magnus’s instincts kicked in. He immediately canceled the visualization loop that controlled his strikes, pulling back in a fluid arc. His body twisted midair, evading the icy slash with a graceful backflip.
The tail’s frost-coated edge missed, leaving a sharp, frozen trail in its wake. But the attack gave the Nullfang the opening it needed. It finally crashed to the ground, the sheer weight of its skeleton shattering the dirt and rock beneath it on impact.
Ice?
Magnus thought, narrowing his eyes.
It didn’t have a null state that allowed it to do that before, right? If it had, it would’ve used it in the magma chamber. That means... it’s been learning while fighting Mia and the others. I guess that’s not surprising. The plan to take it out in one shot was doomed to fail if this thing really couldn’t be killed.
In truth, Magnus considered it a miracle that Mia and the others had managed to hold out as long as they had against a glitch like this. At the moment, the Nullfang was practically immortal, armed with optional invulnerability and intangibility. Aside from another glitch or someone like himself with source code-level abilities, Magnus doubted anyone else could hold their own against it.
Now the question is, how am I supposed to defeat this thing?
Magnus stared down at the Nullfang as it gazed back at him. His thoughts raced for a moment before he activated the Command Console. In an instant, a massive sword of condensed mana materialized a couple of meters from the Nullfang. The blade was enormous, around eight meters long, and its tip pointed directly at the creature’s cervical vertebrae—the connection between its skull and body. Without hesitation, Magnus launched the blade as soon as it formed.
But even that wasn’t enough. Compared to Magnus’s speed and the Nullfang’s reflexes, the sword’s formation and launch were simply too slow. The blade passed harmlessly through the Nullfang as it nulled its state of interacting with the world. The mana sword continued on its trajectory, cutting effortlessly into the ground before dissipating into nothingness.
Not going to be that easy, huh? Well, at least it’s not running. It seems like it wants to end this as much as I do. That means I need to either wait for it to make a mistake—or force it to. Once it’s vulnerable, I’ll destroy it.
Though that was easier said than done, especially since the Nullfang would be trying to kill him the entire time. But for now, it was the only viable plan.
Without wasting another moment, Magnus dove, his figure blurring with speed. As he flew, eight points of mana rapidly formed and condensed around him, transforming into glowing spheres of flame. Magnus cut through the air like a missile, the fiery orbs firing ahead of him toward the Nullfang. Just before the first sphere hit the ground, Magnus felt a sharp pain stab through his mind—the Nullfang nullifying yet another state. A moment later, the sphere erupted in a fiery explosion that scorched the earth, followed by another, and another.
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Each sphere detonated like a bomb, sending waves of destruction rippling across the meadow. As the last explosion died down, Magnus arrived. He didn’t crash into the ground but stopped abruptly, hovering just above it before landing. He ignored the flames still raging around him; heat no longer posed a threat to his body. Instead, his focus was drawn to the ground beneath his feet, which crunched as he stepped on it. A quick glance revealed the source—everything, from the grass to the dirt itself, was encased in ice.
Magnus didn’t have time to investigate further. The melody of the Nullfang warned him of an incoming attack. He leaped back just in time to avoid its frost-bladed tail, which narrowly missed piercing his skull. But the attack wasn’t over. As he backstepped, the Nullfang’s head lunged toward him from behind, having arced its body under the world. Magnus spun, reacting instantly. Instead of dodging, he raised his right leg and lashed out with a kick aimed at the base of its jaw. His leg moved like a whip, too fast for the Nullfang to counter, but it did manage to nullify the force of the strike.
Even so, the redirection from Magnus's leg caused its bite to miss and sent its body flying over Magnus.
He wasn’t done. As the Nullfang’s skeletal form arched over him, Magnus reached out, grabbing hold of its tail. With a powerful pull, he halted its movement entirely, swinging the massive body through the air. The Nullfang’s skeleton was on course to crash into the ground when, at the last moment, it slipped beneath the world, avoiding impact entirely.
It counterattacked just seconds after that, reemerging directly beneath Magnus.
Magnus leaped into the air, avoiding the creature’s jaws, and simultaneously conjured nearly a hundred mana spheres around the area he’d just vacated. The spheres detonated in unison, their timed explosions creating a violent shockwave that tore through the ground. The resulting twenty-meter-wide crater sent debris and raging mana flying in all directions.
Yet, predictably, the Nullfang emerged unscathed. Ignoring the destruction, it surged upward, using its momentum to close the distance. Magnus stopped rising, hovering midair as he prepared his next attack. But then, something unexpected happened. The Nullfang didn’t slow down—in fact, it seemed to accelerate. Its entire body surged toward him as it turned to static, signaling that yet another state had been nullified.
What the hell?
Magnus flew backward, eyes narrowing as the Nullfang shot past him, its skeletal body slicing through the air. Only after it had passed did the null state vanish, allowing gravity to reclaim it. Twisting mid-fall, it aimed its descent directly at him.
It can fly now? No... it nullified the state of being affected by gravity.
The Nullfang had adapted again, in an attempt to counter Magnus’s ability to fly. As it plummeted, its tail lashed out, forcing Magnus to dodge by a narrow margin. In the same instant, its body shifted to static twice—first nullifying its momentum, then nullifying gravity once more. Using a combination of anti-gravity, anti-kinetic force, and its own momentum, the Nullfang began throwing itself through the sky. It would hurl itself toward Magnus, attack at high speed, and then correct its trajectory in an instant.
Worse still, it was still improving. What started as chaotic, uncontrolled movement quickly became terrifyingly precise. For the first couple of minutes, Magnus dodged with relative ease, but soon, it was as if the Nullfang had truly mastered flight.
The battle took a turn after that.
Magnus’s mind ran multiple visualizations simultaneously, each guiding his movements through the air. The Nullfang became like a predator missile, cutting through the sky with relentless precision, its body twisting to change direction on a dime.
Dodging a tail strike, Magnus raised a finger, condensing a sphere of water at its tip. A second later, the water was released, transforming into a tightly pressurized jet capable of slicing through nearly anything. With a subtle flick of his finger, the waterjet tore through the air. The Nullfang twisted its body unnaturally, narrowly avoiding the attack as it launched itself at him again. Below, the waterjet left a perfectly clean cut through the earth, as if a scalpel had been taken to the land.
The two clashed, their movements weaving through the sky and occasionally crashing to the ground. Each exchange left destruction in its wake. The Nullfang’s tail, coated in frost, disintegrated everything it touched, while Magnus’s waterjet carved the battlefield into ribbons. Thin, impossibly long gashes crisscrossed the meadow, the terrain collapsing under the weight of their impacts. The ice, the slicing attacks, and the upheaved earth turned the area into a frozen wasteland.
In minutes, over two hundred meters of meadow had been reduced to a jagged, chaotic mess of shattered rocks and churned soil. Above the ruins, the Nullfang and Magnus continued their battle, moving at speeds that defied what either species was naturally capable of. The snake, impossibly agile for its size, pursued Magnus relentlessly, while his smaller figure darted ahead, always staying a step faster.
Around them, mana constructs and spells filled the air, creating a storm of chaos. Explosive blades of mana detonated on impact. Spheres of energy tracked the Nullfang with pinpoint accuracy. Fireballs acted like aerial mines, detonating as anything passed near them. Massive javelins, each weighing tens of tons and made of condensed mana-formed rock, tore through the air like missiles.
It was utter chaos. And through it all, the Nullfang adapted like a chameleon, nullifying states to avoid or counter every attack thrown its way. Neither side could gain the upper hand; they were locked in a stalemate.
Midair, Magnus suddenly stopped and quickly turned around to throw a punch at the incoming Nullfang, its fangs bared and ready to tear into him. The clash seemed inevitable—either it would bite off his arm, or he would crush its skull. But neither outcome came to pass. Instead, the Nullfang slipped through his attack—and through Magnus himself—its head phasing through his body like a ghost. A sharp, searing pain pierced Magnus’s mind as he saw its static up close, freezing him in place for just a moment.
In that instant, the Nullfang became tangible again. Its tail coiled around Magnus, using its momentum to yank him through the air. With a sudden, violent motion, it whipped its tail, hurling Magnus out of the sky. His body rag-dolled as he crashed into the already-ruined ground below with a thunderous impact, embedding him into the shattered earth.
"Agh..." Magnus groaned as he shook his head, his gaze snapping upward just in time to see the Nullfang charging straight at him. Instinctively, he kicked off the ground with one leg, launching himself through the air to the right. He narrowly avoided the Nullfang as it shifted states and disappeared into the earth. While still in midair, Magnus twisted to right himself, and the moment his feet touched the ground, over twenty condensed spheres of water materialized around him.
The spheres rotated rapidly, growing smaller and denser before releasing twenty water jets in every direction. The jets cut through the ground and air like lasers, leaving perfectly clean slices wherever they passed. For five seconds, the jets continued to wreak havoc, carving through everything in their path. When the attack finally weakened and the spheres dispersed, Magnus tensed, his senses on high alert.
The ground beneath him shifted abruptly as a side effect of him cutting through it. Massive slabs of earth rose and fell, the grinding sound of stone against stone echoing through the air. Magnus kept his balance, scanning the battlefield and waiting for any sign of the Nullfang.
[Master, I believe I’ve figured out what state the Nullfang nullified to reach its current state of immortality.]
Huh? Is that why you’ve been so quiet?
[Yes. Rather than directly nullifying a state related to death, I believe the Nullfang nullified the state leading up to death.]
Magnus’s tense expression softened for a moment as Basker’s words sank in. Something clicked in his mind, a mental understanding forming as it often did when one of them had an idea and was explaining it to the other. They were almost one entity, after all.
I see. I get it now. So instead of nullifying the state of death itself, it nullified the state of dying.
It sounded similar but was entirely different—and it explained how the Nullfang was still alive or at least seemingly. The ambush Mia and the others had launched had in fact worked and been enough to kill it. Magnus was certain the creature had likely been mere moments away from death. But in that brief transition from life to death, it had experienced the state of dying. Whether through instinctive survival or deliberate action, the Nullfang had nullified that state.
In doing so, it had severed its ability to die entirely.
No matter how severe its injuries or how much of its body was destroyed—even reduced to a skeleton—it remained alive. The source code defining its existence dictated that it was alive, and so it continued to be, regardless of its form.
Still, that doesn’t explain how-
Magnus’s thoughts were interrupted as the ground erupted. The Nullfang burst forth, rushing at him with terrifying speed. Reacting instantly, Magnus launched himself into the air, narrowly evading its strike. In a split second, the battle resumed. The sky became a chaotic battlefield as countless projectiles conjured from Magnus’s thoughts rained down, and the Nullfang adapted to counter every attack.
As they clashed, Magnus continued his mental conversation with Basker, his mind racing to piece together the rest of the puzzle while fighting.
I still don’t get how it’s moving as a skeleton. Even if it can’t die, being alive doesn’t mean you can move without muscles or biological functions.
[Master, don’t forget: Codebreak-008 doesn’t just nullify a state—it triggers an Automatic Manifestation to replace the reaction of the lost state.]
Oh, right...
Automatic Manifestations were essentially the source code’s way of self-balancing in response to glitches. Magnus had seen examples of this before, like the Nullfang’s ability to slip through the world by nullifying its state of interacting with it.
But what exactly did "not interacting with the world" entail?
How far did such a state go?
A being in that state couldn’t be interacted with physically or through supernatural means like magic or aura. But what about other dimensions of existence? Did it still interact with time? What about space? Did something that no longer interacted with the world still exist spatially?
It was a cascading list of questions that could go on infinitely. Without intervention, this cascade would also create an endless list of errors that would cause the scripts maintaining reality to fail.
Yet, in a strangely cosmic way, the universe acted like a living organism. Instead of collapsing under the weight of these errors, it adapted to the glitches plaguing it. It redefined rules to keep itself functioning. In the Nullfang’s case, this meant that instead of breaking when the creature nullified its interaction with the world, reality took the time to define what phasing through the world meant—and what it allowed.
That explains why the Nullfang can swim through the world despite not interacting with it. By all logic, if it's not interacting with anything, it should just fall straight down through everything or not move at all—since gravity itself counts as a form of interaction. I'm willing to bet even its ability to see while moving through the world is thanks to an Automatic Manifestation.
[Exactly. And if that’s true, it stands to reason that its ability to move despite being a skeleton is also the result of an Automatic Manifestation. This compromise allows reality to function despite the presence of a being that cannot experience the state of dying.]
Magnus’s expression darkened as he processed Basker’s explanation.
[If that’s the case, Master, then I believe the likelihood of stopping the Nullfang by catching it off guard is extremely low. Based on its behavior, I suspect destroying its skeleton may prove impossible—or worse, that the Nullfang could continue operating even without a physical body.]
The nullification of the state of dying had already rendered the Nullfang immortal. The Automatic Manifestation tied to that nullification had allowed it to move when logic dictated it shouldn’t. The same principle enabled it to open and close its jaw despite missing muscles—and half of its head.
If the Automatic Manifestation has already stretched the rules this far, then there’s no reason to assume it wouldn’t let the Nullfang interact with the world even if its body were entirely destroyed.
Logic had no power here. Source code-level abilities didn’t need to obey logic. As long as no errors arose, anything—even the impossible—was within reach.
But in that case, aren’t we essentially fucked?
Magnus voiced the thought as he dodged another of the Nullfang’s lunges, twisting through the air and firing off a barrage of mana spheres. The glowing orbs arced toward their target, but this time, the Nullfang didn’t evade or phase through them. Instead, it allowed itself to be hit. Magnus watched in disbelief as the areas where the mana spheres were about to strike turned to static. When the spheres made contact, they simply dispersed.
It was like watching water balloons hit a brick wall—no resistance, no explosions. The mana that composed the spheres was deconstructed on impact, scattering harmlessly before fading away.
Shit! It’s learned to nullify a state that lets it be affected by magic!?
Reacting instantly, Magnus summoned an arc of lightning around his body and fired it toward the Nullfang. He aimed precisely for the areas where his mana spheres had been dispersed. No matter how fast the Nullfang’s reflexes were, it couldn’t react to something moving at that speed.
The lightning sliced through the air, heating it as it traveled, and struck the Nullfang dead on. To Magnus’s relief, the attack didn’t disperse. The electricity crawled across the creature’s skeleton, leaving no visible damage but proving it wasn’t invulnerable to everything. The Nullfang shook off the strike almost immediately, continuing its charge toward Magnus.
The battle resumed, weaving through the sky. But now, Magnus was on the defensive, his movements more cautious and retaliations more hesitant.
Okay, good. It looks like it’s limited to being immune to uncategorized magic, not elementrix. But still... what the hell are we supposed to do? If I can’t end this soon, it’s only a matter of time before it becomes immune to my entire arsenal.
[Master, I do have an idea.]
Magnus blinked in surprise at Basker’s sudden suggestion.
What is it?
[Although I am bound to you, as long as you remain close enough, I can leave your mind and enter the Nullfang's mind instead. From there, I could attempt to assimilate and destroy it from the inside. However, while I am separated from you, your ability to use the Command Console and your control over your mind will drop sharply. You’ll be vulnerable.]