The Enforcer struck.
Ethan barely had time to react before a wave of crushing force exploded toward him. He threw himself backward, flickering out of sync with reality, but the attack clipped him—sending a jolt of static through his body.
His vision glitched.
For a split second, he saw two versions of himself—one standing, one already falling.
Then the world snapped back.
Ethan hit the ground hard, rolling to absorb the impact. His body screamed in protest, but he didn't stop moving. He couldn't.
The Enforcer was already recalibrating.
Vance's voice rang out, distant but sharp. "Kid! You can't keep fighting it on its own terms!"
Ethan gritted his teeth. "Then I'll change the terms."
The system worked on rules. Every action followed a process—a calculation. And right now, the Enforcer was processing him as an anomaly to be erased.
But what if he forced another glitch?
Instead of dodging the next attack, Ethan pushed himself forward.
The Enforcer lashed out—a precise, system-calculated strike designed to correct him. But Ethan didn't move away.
He moved through it.
The moment the strike made contact, he activated the glitch—forcing reality to lag, shifting his position between frames.
For an instant, he was both hit and unharmed.
The Enforcer froze.
Ethan felt it—an overload.
The system had processed two conflicting realities. It couldn't reconcile them.
The Enforcer's glowing eye flickered. Its entire body stuttered.
[Error Detected.]
[Recalculating…]
Ethan didn't let it finish.
He forced the glitch further.
The world warped around him. His body desynced, splitting across microseconds, slipping in and out of reality faster than the system could track.
And then—
He overclocked.
Time itself fractured.
For a single heartbeat, Ethan wasn't just moving faster—he was everywhere.
And the Enforcer—wasn't.
With a sound like shattering glass, its body collapsed in on itself. The system, unable to process the contradiction, forcibly terminated its own enforcer.
Reality snapped back.
Ethan staggered, his vision swimming. The Enforcer was gone. Deleted.
Vance let out a breath. "Holy shit."
Ethan wiped the sweat from his forehead. His pulse was erratic, but he was alive.
And more importantly—he had broken the system's rules.
Which meant the system would adapt.
Ethan exhaled, steadying himself. "That was just a test."
He glanced at the Mark on his hand. The glow had changed—darker, deeper.
The system wasn't done with him.
And neither was he.