Chapter 3: The First Battle

The metal creatures moved unnaturally fast, their bodies making muffled screeching sounds with each step. Every part of them seemed to have been assembled from rusty and broken parts, but that didn't stop them from menacingly approaching the group of people. Max was the first to charge forward. His sword flashed in the air, and he swung a quick blow at the nearest robot.

"Stay behind! — Stop it! " he shouted, fending off a blow from the monster's metal arm.

"Lisa," Anya shouted, " set up communications, we need reinforcements!"

Lisa screamed as she opened the interface and tried to contact someone through the game system, but her hands were shaking and panic was starting to take over. Anya knew to act quickly — if they were stuck in this battle for too long, their chances of survival would decrease."

Dima, analyze them! — Stop it! " she ordered him. — We must learn their weaknesses."

Dima was already ready to go. His eyes quickly scanned the screen, capturing the structure of the robots. He quickly calculated something: "They're unstable!" Their code is corrupted. If you hit the joints, they will fall apart."

 Anya darted towards one of the enemies, imitating Max, but instead of aiming at the body like he did, she aimed her sword straight at one of the robot's knee joints. The mechanical creature let out a screeching sound, and its body began to collapse, as if streams of code were spreading through the air.

— It works! She shouted proudly, and Max just nodded, continuing his attack. His movements became more focused — now he aimed exclusively at the weak points of the opponents.

One by one, the robots fell, scattering in a cloud of code and debris. But Anya felt that this was only the beginning of the war. Their opponent watched, studied them. Each step forward felt like another step into the depths of their digital prison.

— I contacted several players! Lisa finally regained control of herself and activated the voice chat. "They're all panicking, but I was able to calm them down." Some have already noticed that there is no way out, and everyone is afraid that this is not just a game.

"Great," Anya said, grabbing her sword. "Tell them we have a plan." We are looking for a game developer and trying to find a backdoor loophole from the\system. Let them gather in one place. Together, we'll have a better chance."

Lisa nodded and began to pass on the instructions. Meanwhile, the last robot collapsed under Max's blows, shattering into pieces.

"We did it,"he breathed, sheathing his sword. But his gaze remained intense.\ — What's next?"

Anya thought about it, peering at the horizon of the digital world. The sky above them was still flickering with glitches, and the environment seemed unstable, as if the entire world could collapse at any moment.

— We need to find this place-the server or master node. Where access to the backdoor should be located. Dima, what do you see?

Dima was already exploring the surrounding area through the\interface. — Judging by the structure of this world, there are several "gaps" - places where the code is particularly unstable." One of these "sinkholes" is located nearby. This may be our chance to find a loophole."

"Then that's where we'll go," Anya said, trying to keep her voice steady even though her stomach was churning. They won this fight, but they knew that the real challenges were still ahead of them."

"The underworld is changing," Dima remarked quietly. — The further we go, the more the world reacts to our actions." Someone or something is definitely following us.

"Maybe the director himself," Max said thoughtfully. — He didn't just lock us up here."

"But why?" Lisa looked up from her interface, her eyes flashing. — We're just players." Why not just shut down the game and finish?

"Because it's not a game for him," Anya said. "This is an experiment." And we are his test subjects. We need to understand what's behind this before it's too late."

"So we need to hurry," Max said, already turning in the direction Dima had indicated. "Let's find this 'hole'." Time is running out.

The group moved forward, leaving a distorted wreckage of robots in its wake. Ahead of them was the next stage of the game — a world that continued to break down, adapting to their decisions and mistakes.