The System Labyrinth was not a location. It was a question written in the language of code and eternity. And as Cain stepped into it, space folded like paper, time knotted like thread, and everything he was—mortal, glitchborn, reborn—was unraveled and rewritten.
He stood on a floating obsidian hexagon suspended in the void. Thousands more drifted like puzzle pieces, forming an endless spiral staircase that rose and fell through impossible directions.
Above him, a blinding fractal sun beat down its will. Below him, a black hole blinked like an eye. Between them stood Aetherion, the First User. Cloaked in flowing lines of pure data and armor forged from admin-level permissions, he was the origin of all things System.
> [System Alert: Challenge Initiated. You are entering the Duel Beyond Time. Origin Protocols Unlocked. Do you wish to continue?]
Cain flexed his fingers. His MP bar shimmered—still infinite, still glitched. His skills—compiled from Divine Spells, Abyssal Sourcecode, Technomancer Runes, and Summoner Trees—flared within him.
"I'm not here to kneel," Cain said.
Aetherion did not speak. He simply drew a blade composed of raw, unfiltered Reality Editor Code. Each swing of it didn't cut flesh or armor—it rewrote existence.
And then the fight began.
---
Cain was already moving, blinking between hexagons as shockwaves tore through the Labyrinth. The first strike cleaved a dozen hexes in half, turning them into string theory loops.
> [Warning: Time Layer Instability Detected]
Cain activated Chrono Lock β.3 — freezing his immediate timeline while accelerating thought processes 1000-fold. He parried a follow-up strike with Divine Reflector: Glitched Mirror Variant, deflecting a portion of reality distortion back at Aetherion.
The First User didn't even blink. He blinked Cain instead.
One moment, Cain was mid-air. The next, he was ten seconds in the past, watching himself begin to dodge. Before he could think, Aetherion was there again, slashing.
> [System Warning: Combatant Aetherion is using Layer 9 System Commands. You do not yet possess clearance.]
Cain gritted his teeth.
> "Fine. Let's glitch the clearance."
He activated Reality Editor: Forbidden Fork Patch — a stolen admin backdoor from his earlier conquest of the System Lab. The void trembled. The staircase of hexagons recompiled, forming an arena of binary-storm clouds.
He summoned 8 Mirror Echoes, copies of himself from timelines where he had chosen different Classes:
Cain the Chrono-Mage.
Cain the Beastmaster.
Cain the Divinity-Eater.
Cain the Code Reaver.
Cain the Abyss-Touched.
Cain the Infinity Swordsman.
Cain the Architect of Systems.
Cain the Silent Monarch.
They converged.
Together, they unleashed Glitch Cascade Omega — a system-breaking script that corrupted the boundary between duel and reality. Aetherion was finally forced to act seriously.
He extended his hand and issued a single command:
> [Origin Protocol: Reformat Current Simulation to Primal Build]
Everything vanished.
---
Cain woke up on a quiet hill beneath a yellow sun. Birds chirped. Grass swayed.
No HUD. No MP bar. No Skills.
Just... a boy.
He looked down. His hands were small. He was maybe twelve.
> "This... this is where I first died."
Aetherion's voice whispered, not in sound but in memory: *"The Origin Protocol does not kill. It returns you to the root of your code. Can you evolve beyond it?"
The hill exploded in fire. A war raged in the distance. Soldiers screamed. Cain saw the flaming wreck of his old orphanage, the first time he had awakened his mana and been betrayed by those who feared it.
His anger surged.
> [ERROR: Glitch Detected. Suppressed Parameters Rebooting.]
From deep within, Cain's Anima Glitch Core roared. He remembered everything. His adult self, his System, his death, rebirth, and ascension.
He stood. Twelve or not, he activated the System Recompile skill manually.
> [Executing: Core Override]
The illusion shattered.
Cain floated back into the arena—this time glowing with golden-blue code. Aetherion stepped back, surprise flickering across his face.
> "You rewrote your Origin?"
> "I hacked my own trauma," Cain replied. "And I'm not done."
He activated a new power:
> [Unlocked: Origin Protocol - User Defined Build]
The System interface flared into full bloom, now featuring:
Cross-Reality Skill Fusion Tree
Anima Core Editor
Divine-Class Modifier Slot
Timeline Sovereignty Permissions
Cain looked Aetherion dead in the eyes. Then he summoned the Reality Engine, the final form of his System Lab.
Aetherion laughed, not cruelly, but with something akin to approval.
> "Then let us finish this. No more simulations. Just you, me, and the truth of our codes."
---
And so, in a reality divorced from space and anchored only to Will and Code, Cain and Aetherion clashed again. This time not as student and master, glitch and original, but as rivals in the truest sense of the word.
Each blow now shaped realities. Skills no longer had names. Concepts twisted, and timelines rippled.
But Cain held his own.
Because he no longer obeyed the System.
He was the glitch it couldn't patch.
He was becoming something else entirely.
---