Chapter 2 – Exploiting the System (Like a True Gamer)
The Assassins Arrive
Noah had always believed that knowledge was power. Unfortunately, knowledge alone didn't stop shadowy assassins from lunging at him with the clear intent of reducing his life expectancy to zero.
A bone-chilling mechanical voice echoed through the air, devoid of emotion yet dripping with finality.
"TERMINATING UNREGISTERED ENTITY."
The words sent an unnatural shudder down Noah's spine. It wasn't just the voice—it was the way reality itself seemed to reject him.
The air crackled, as if the very world had detected an error and was actively trying to purge it. He could feel it in his bones. He didn't belong here. And the system had sent its enforcers to correct that mistake.
From the rooftops, five figures dropped soundlessly, their movements too precise, too flawless to be human.
No footsteps. No heavy breathing.
Just silent, perfect execution.
They weren't ordinary assassins. They were system enforcers.
Noah barely had time to process the implications before the first one lunged.
A flash of silver streaked toward his throat.
Something's Wrong With Them.
Noah threw himself backward, narrowly avoiding the blade. He landed hard on the dirt road, pain jolting up his spine, but adrenaline shoved it aside. Move, dammit!
He scrambled to his feet, heart hammering. The villagers should have noticed the commotion by now. A bunch of hooded killers descending from the sky wasn't exactly an everyday event—right?
But something was wrong.
No one reacted.
The blacksmith, standing barely a few meters away, kept hammering a glowing-hot horseshoe on his anvil. The merchant woman continued arranging apples at her stall. A child ran past, laughing.
They didn't even glance at him.
It was as if he didn't exist.
No. It's as if they can't see this happening.
A chill slithered down his spine.
He turned back to the assassins. Their faces were obscured by porcelain-white masks, smooth and expressionless. Their bodies—humanoid, but not quite. Limbs that moved too fluidly, heads that tilted at unnatural angles, as if puppets were being guided by unseen strings.
And their eyes.
Deep, glowing red slits carved into the masks. Not like normal human eyes—more like sensors, cold and unfeeling. They stared straight at him, calculating, adjusting.
Not a single wasted movement. Not a single twitch of hesitation.
Noah's breath hitched. These weren't just elite AI soldiers.
These were perfect executioners—designed for one thing.
Erasure.
No Status. No Skills. No Hope.
Noah did what any sane person would do when faced with five death-bots.
He ran.
His legs burned as he tore down the street, shoving past an old man who didn't even react to the collision. The world blurred around him, the pounding of his footsteps drowned out by the rush of blood in his ears.
A sharp whistling sound.
Noah's instincts screamed at him to duck. He obeyed—just in time for a curved dagger to slice through the air where his head had been.
It embedded itself into a wooden signpost, but there was no impact sound.
No shattering of wood. No vibration through the post.
It simply phased into existence—like it had always been there.
Noah didn't stop to process the horror of what that meant. He kept running.
He clenched his fists, willing his status screen to open.
Nothing.
He tried again.
Still nothing.
Come on, come on, give me something!
But the game refused to acknowledge him.
His inventory? Locked.His stats? Nonexistent.His skills? Unavailable.
I'm not a player. I'm not even a character. I'm a damn bug in the system.
The realization hit like a punch to the gut.
He had no abilities. No respawns.
And these assassins?
They were made to delete things like him.
Death Inches Closer.
A shadow loomed overhead.
Noah instinctively threw himself to the side—just as one of the enforcers landed where he had been a second ago, the force of its impact cracking the stone road beneath it.
Too fast.
His muscles screamed as he stumbled forward. He wasn't going to make it. He wasn't supposed to make it.
The game had already decided his fate.
From behind, he heard the unsettling hum of a blade slicing through the air.
Then—
Pain.
Sharp, cold, and wrong.
His body locked up as the edge of a dagger barely grazed his shoulder. The wound wasn't deep—but the sensation that followed wasn't normal.
It was like his very being was unraveling.
A strange distortion effect rippled from the cut. His vision flickered—his limbs glitched for half a second, jittering unnaturally.
A corruption effect.
A system-level attack.
The world around him became fragile—as if at any moment, he might fall through the cracks of reality itself.
His breath came in ragged gasps. His mind screamed at him to keep moving.
Because if they landed a direct hit?
He wouldn't just die.
He'd be erased.
The Kill Command.
The enforcers moved again.
No wasted effort. No emotion. Just pure deletion.
The tallest of the five raised a single hand. The air around it shimmered, forming a jagged, black symbol.
Noah's stomach twisted. That was new.
What the hell are they doing now—?
And then—
SYSTEM OVERRIDE: EXECUTE COMMAND.
The words forced themselves into his mind.
A soundless voice. Cold and absolute.
Noah's entire body locked up.
I… I can't move.
His breath hitched. His limbs refused to respond.
The enforcer took a slow, deliberate step forward. Its mask expressionless.
Its blade already swinging.
Noah's eyes widened in horror.
I CAN'T MOVE!
The killing blow was coming.
No evasion. No glitches to exploit.
Just game over.
His heart pounded as he braced for the inevitable.
And then—
Something broke.
A shattering, like glass fracturing.
The command failed.
The enforcer's blade stopped mid-swing.
Noah gasped as he stumbled backward, his body free once more. His lungs burned, his mind racing.
The assassin in front of him twitched.
Its head tilted—just slightly.
A glitch.
A flaw in the system.
And that's when Noah understood.
The game wanted him gone.
But he wasn't playing by the rules anymore.
And that?
That meant he had a chance.
Exploit #1 – Collision Bugs Are a Gamer's Best Friend
Noah's heart thundered in his chest. His body screamed at him to move, to run, to do something—anything—before those things erased him from existence.
He had no sword. No spells. No skills.
But he had knowledge.
And knowledge, in a broken game, was more dangerous than any weapon.
His eyes darted wildly across his surroundings, looking for something, anything, to use to his advantage. Come on, come on, there has to be a bug, a glitch, something—
Then he saw it.
An old, rickety wooden cart leaning precariously against a stone wall in the alleyway.
His brain fired at light speed. He knew that cart. He remembered that cart.
It had been in the original game, just another piece of background clutter. But there had been a problem—a tiny, stupid problem with the game's hitboxes.
A faulty collision box.
If an enemy got too close, sometimes their model would clip into it. And if they got stuck just right—
Noah didn't hesitate.
With every ounce of strength, he threw himself sideways, squeezing his body into the impossibly tight gap between the cart and the wall.
The assassin lunged after him.
A flash of silver, a dagger slicing through the air.
Noah felt the wind of death rush past his face, the cold metal whispering past his skin.
A fraction of a second later…
The enforcer's foot clipped the cart.
The effect was instantaneous.
The assassin froze, body twitching erratically as it struggled to process the sudden collision error. Its red-glowing eyes flickered—
And then—
WHOOSH!
The enforcer catapulted into the sky at a speed that should have been physically impossible, disappearing into the stratosphere like a glitchy rocket-propelled ragdoll.
PING!
The sound echoed faintly as the universe itself seemed to rage-quit the assassin's existence.
That Wasn't Supposed to Happen.
For a moment, Noah just stared at the empty space where his executioner had been.
His brain struggled to process the absolute nonsense that had just occurred.
Then, slowly, a snort escaped him.
Then a chuckle.
Then—
"BWAHAHAHAHA! Oh my god, that actually worked!"
His laughter rang out through the alley, a mix of hysteria, relief, and sheer disbelief.
It had been the dumbest, most desperate move of his life.
And yet—
It had worked.
He wasn't a fighter. He wasn't a hero. But this world was still a game, no matter how real it felt.
And if the system wanted to erase him?
He'd break the system first.
The Horror of Adaptation.
But his victory was short-lived.
The remaining four assassins stood motionless for a brief moment, their glowing eyes flickering as they processed what had just occurred.
Then—
A sound.
A low, inhuman whirring, like gears shifting in the depths of some unseen machine.
Noah's laughter died in his throat.
One of the enforcers tilted its head unnaturally, as if listening to something. Then, in a cold, synthetic monotone, it spoke:
"Warning: Unexpected anomaly detected. Adjusting approach."
Noah's stomach dropped.
The assassins weren't just mindless AI.
They were learning. Adapting.
They wouldn't fall for the same trick twice.
The remaining enforcers moved—and this time, their approach was different.
They didn't rush him. They didn't lunge blindly.
Instead, they spread out, cutting off every possible escape route.
Their movements were calculated. Precise. Perfect.
Like code rewriting itself in real time.
"Oh, crap," Noah muttered, the sheer weight of horror settling in.
A Broken World vs. A Broken System.
Noah's pulse pounded as he backed away, his mind racing for another exploit, another flaw.
There had to be something.
Think, dammit!
The first enforcer moved.
Its body blurred—an unnatural, teleporting lunge, blade arcing toward him.
Noah dove—barely avoiding the slice. His shoulder scraped the stone wall, pain flaring as he hit the ground.
He scrambled backward, only for another assassin to step forward, cutting off his retreat.
Too fast. Too efficient.
They were closing in.
And then—
He saw it.
Beyond the alley, just a few feet away—another glitch.
A wooden fence, barely holding together, its textures flickering in and out of existence.
Noah's breath hitched.
In the original game, that fence had never been solid.
Noah's Gambit.
He had seconds to act.
Noah twisted, forcing his aching body to move.
The assassins followed.
Their footsteps made no sound. No wasted movement. Just pure execution.
He sprinted.
Every step felt like running toward his own death—but if he hesitated, if he stopped, he'd be deleted for good.
The fence loomed ahead.
Noah threw himself forward—
And—
SLIP.
His body phased through it.
Like stepping through thin air.
The enforcers—
Did not.
The first one hit the fence full force, its blade barely an inch from Noah's neck—
And bounced back like a broken physics object.
Noah didn't look back.
He just kept running.
His heart pounded as he tore down the street, lungs burning.
Behind him, the enforcers twitched—their AI struggling, glitching, failing to process why the laws of the world had just betrayed them.
Noah grinned through his exhaustion.
He wasn't stronger than them. He wasn't faster.
But he wasn't playing fair.
Exploit #2 – The AI Can't Handle Dumb Decisions
Noah's chest heaved as he stared down the four remaining assassins. His legs burned with the effort of running, but his mind was buzzing with pure adrenaline. The street was narrowing; his options were shrinking, the walls closing in as if the game itself was intent on squeezing him out of existence.
But Noah wasn't going to be erased that easily. He had one last card to play, and it was… well, it was stupid.
It was reckless. It might even get him killed.
But that was nothing new, right?
Noah clenched his fists. If the system wanted him gone, it was going to have to deal with some of the dumbest, most unpredictable behavior it had ever processed.
Without warning, he turned toward the assassins, his mouth stretched into a grin of sheer, manic defiance.
He didn't run.
He charged.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHH!" Noah screamed at the top of his lungs, flailing his arms like a lunatic, the sound echoing down the alley.
It was a war cry. Or at least, that's what it felt like to him. In reality, it probably sounded more like a man on the verge of a mental breakdown.
But Noah didn't care.
What he cared about was the AI. The perfect, unyielding logic machine that ran the world around him. The thing that couldn't handle stupidity—not real stupidity, anyway.
No NPC, no player, was ever programmed to do what he was doing.
In Eclipse of the Gods, commoners ran from danger. They weren't supposed to stand their ground. They weren't supposed to charge directly at armed assassins, yelling like a rabid chicken.
The AI's First Glitch
For a brief, terrifying moment, the assassins didn't move. Their glowing eyes flickered, their bodies jerked ever so slightly, as if they were trying to comprehend what had just happened.
They were frozen.
Not because they feared him.
Not because they were confused.
But because no line of code had ever accounted for something so irrational, so human, as a commoner running straight into the jaws of death with no plan, no strategy, no chance of survival.
The AI systems couldn't handle that level of unpredictability. Their logic algorithms, honed for perfect decision-making, got caught in a loop.
One assassin's arm twitched, its blade raised but unmoving. Another one took a single step forward, only to freeze again. A third tilted its head like an animal trying to figure out whether it was staring at a threat or a completely insane glitch.
For 1.5 seconds, the system itself was paralyzed.
1.5 seconds.
To most people, it wouldn't mean anything. But to Noah, it was a lifetime.
Noah's Brilliant, Chaotic Escape
In that precious moment, Noah didn't hesitate. He dropped low, his muscles screaming in protest, his brain running at full speed. The world around him seemed to slow as he executed the only move that made sense:
He slid between the assassins' legs, as if he was some kind of demented snake slithering past an immovable wall of death.
The first assassin barely registered the movement, its logic too delayed to react. The second one tried to shift its weight, but Noah was already past it. The third attempted to block him, but Noah's body was too quick, too low.
For a moment, it felt like he was gliding through them, like he had hacked the very system that was trying to kill him.
He was unstoppable.
For a split second, he could almost hear the disappointment in the air as the AI watched him defy all expectations.
But there was no time to dwell on that.
Noah was already sprinting.
The Horror of Being Chased by Perfection
Noah tore down the alley, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He could feel the heat of the AI's pursuit—he knew they were behind him, every step more precise than the last.
They weren't like humans. They didn't make mistakes. They didn't hesitate.
They were perfect.
But as Noah's legs pumped harder, his mind started to race. He needed to stay one step ahead. He couldn't outrun perfection forever. The AI wouldn't give up until it had erased every trace of him.
In a sick, twisted way, he could almost feel the hunger in their pursuit, the absolute certainty that their programmed logic had been temporarily disrupted—but it wouldn't last.
They would adapt.
He had to keep moving.
Had to keep exploiting the flaws in this broken system.
Had to survive.
The Brief, Glorious Victory
Noah's heart was still pounding when he slid into a side street, the noise of the assassins' footfalls fading for a moment. His breath came in ragged, desperate gasps. His body screamed in protest, the adrenaline still pumping through him.
But his lips curled into a wild grin.
He'd done it.
He'd actually done it.
The AI had stalled, and he had gotten away.
"Hah!" he wheezed, slapping his hand against the nearest wall for support. "Suck it, AI!"
His laugh was breathless, almost delirious. He felt like he had just hacked the world—cheated it in a way no one had ever done before.
For the first time since he'd been thrown into this nightmare, Noah felt alive.
Alive, and unbeatable.
The Price of Victory
But there was no time to savor it.
As he leaned against the wall, catching his breath, a cold chill crawled down his spine. He knew that victory, in this world, was always fleeting.
The AI was adaptive.
And the system never forgot.
Just as he was about to turn the corner, a familiar sound reached his ears—the whirring of gears, the unmistakable hum of a system adjusting.
Noah's heart stopped.
He was about to turn, to run again, when a single notification flashed in his vision:
[ANTI-CHEAT SYSTEM ACTIVATED.]
Noah's eyes widened.
"Oh shit," he muttered under his breath.
The next phase of his nightmare was about to begin.
Exploit #3 – Clipping Through Narrow Spaces
Noah's heart was still racing as he ran, the noise of the assassins' footsteps growing fainter but no less threatening. His mind was ablaze with the realization that his window of opportunity was closing. The AI was learning, adapting to his unpredictable behavior, but for now, it had yet to catch up. That gave him a sliver of time to make his escape—if he could find the right glitch.
And Noah knew just the glitch.
The city around him was a labyrinth of crooked alleyways, towering stone buildings, and weathered cobblestones, but it wasn't perfect. Like any game world, there were cracks—places where the code had faltered, where the world didn't quite mesh together.
The more he ran, the more familiar the city began to feel. His memory of the original game was shaky, fragmented like an old map, but there were certain landmarks, certain areas where the system broke.
And he knew where one of them was.
Ahead, just around the corner, was a narrow gap between two buildings. It was barely visible at first, a crumbling stone wall with a half-rotted wooden fence blocking the way. It seemed like nothing—just another decaying, neglected part of the city. But Noah's eyes locked onto it immediately.
This wasn't just a fence.
This was his ticket out.
In the original game, this fence had been nothing more than a background object—not coded as solid, not meant to be interacted with, just a visual element. The AI had no reason to consider it a barrier.
Noah's pulse quickened. There was no time to second-guess himself. He had no other options. He couldn't outrun them forever. The AI would adapt to his previous antics in seconds. He had to break the system again, just one more time.
He muttered to himself, a low, desperate chant of hope:
"Please still be broken, please still be broken…"
And then, without another thought, he hurled himself forward, building speed with every desperate step.
This was it.
The Moment of Truth
He was almost there. The gap was closing, and the wooden fence was growing larger in his vision. He could feel the assassins closing in behind him, the sound of their footfalls precise and inhuman, each step a reminder of their perfection. They were going to catch him. They were going to rip him apart, piece by piece.
No.
He refused to let that happen. Not like this. Not when he had one more exploit to pull.
The moment he reached the fence, Noah launched himself forward, aiming for the very edge of the wooden planks, where the hitbox of the object likely didn't register. He aimed for that perfect, invisible space. That one sliver of the world where the rules didn't apply.
He threw himself into the air, his body colliding with the gap—and then—
SLIP!
He passed straight through the fence.
It wasn't a dramatic explosion of physics or a twisting of space-time, but something more subtle. More disorienting. He felt his body glide, like swimming through thick air, and then, with a sudden jolt, he was on the other side, standing in a small, cramped alley.
For a brief moment, everything seemed to freeze.
Noah blinked, heart hammering in his chest. He glanced back to see the assassins, who had crashed into the fence like cars slamming into a brick wall.
Their bodies twisted awkwardly, their perfectly calculated movements thrown into disarray. Their eyes flickered in confusion, their hands reaching out for the barrier they couldn't cross.
It was a moment of pure, beautiful chaos.
The first assassin hit the fence with a sickening thud, and the others piled up behind it, stumbling over each other in a mess of confusion. The mechanics of the game didn't account for such nonsense—there was no line of code for being physically unable to pass through an object that wasn't supposed to exist.
Noah couldn't help himself.
He doubled over, laughing, his breath coming in sharp gasps. The absurdity of it all was too much.
"BWAHAHAHA! Oh my god, that actually worked!" he shouted, clutching his stomach as he tried to catch his breath.
His mind was reeling, a mix of elation and terror. The fact that he was alive, that he had cheated the system, was almost too surreal. It didn't feel real. He was on the other side of the fence—safe—and yet, all he could feel was the undeniable thrill of his success.
The Horror of the Aftermath
But then, just as quickly, the weight of the situation slammed into him.
The laughter died in his throat, and he stood up straighter, his heart suddenly heavy with dread.
Behind him, the assassins were struggling, thrashing against the fence, but that was the least of his worries. The game was broken, sure. The laws of reality had momentarily been bent, but this world was too real, too alive for that to be the end of it.
The assassins weren't just going to sit there and wait for him to get comfortable.
The Anti-Cheat System had been activated, hadn't it?
The moment Noah had broken the rules, the system had reacted. It wasn't just going to let him get away with this forever.
No.
It was going to hunt him down.
A Sudden Change in the Air
Noah barely had time to catch his breath before a sharp, metallic hum filled the air. His eyes snapped open, wide with terror. The familiar sound of the AI activating—the sound of the system correcting itself, adjusting to his presence.
The ground beneath his feet seemed to shift, the air around him warping as if the game itself had noticed the error and was now forcing him to play by its rules again.
And then, a sound that sent a chill down his spine—a distant, eerie laugh, one that echoed through the narrow alley.
He turned, his breath catching in his throat.
A figure emerged from the shadows, stepping into the alley.
It wasn't one of the assassins.
No, this was something far worse.
A familiar figure, one that Noah had feared he would encounter eventually:
The Game Master.
The Aftermath – A New Threat Appears
Noah's legs felt like jelly as he stumbled into the nearest safe zone—a bustling tavern, filled with the comforting sounds of mugs clinking and low conversation. The tavern's warm glow beckoned him like a sanctuary in the midst of chaos. Here, the rules of the game were different. The AI wouldn't attack him in front of witnesses. Too much risk of ruining the illusion for the other NPCs.
He collapsed into a worn wooden chair, his chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath. Sweat poured down his face, his hands shaking from the adrenaline still coursing through his veins.
"Okay…" Noah muttered to himself, his voice hoarse, "That was possibly the dumbest, most genius thing I've ever done."
He leaned back in the chair, allowing himself a moment of respite. His pulse began to slow, the tension in his body unwinding as he surveyed the tavern's rustic interior. The low hum of conversation, the crackle of the fire in the corner—it was like he was back in a world that made sense. A world that didn't try to kill him at every turn.
But that relief was short-lived.
A soft ping echoed in his mind, and a notification suddenly flashed in front of his eyes:
[GLITCH DETECTED][ANTI-CHEAT SYSTEM ACTIVATED]
Noah froze. His blood ran cold. His stomach dropped like a stone.
"Wait… Anti-cheat?" His voice was barely a whisper.
His fingers trembled as he swiped the notification away, but the damage was done. The system was aware of him now. It knew.
The world outside the tavern seemed to warp for a moment. His heart skipped a beat as he felt the air shift—something was wrong. Something was watching him. His instincts screamed at him to move, to run, but the tavern was supposed to be a safe zone. There were no rules that allowed the AI to target him here.
He was wrong.
The door creaked open, and a cold gust of wind swept inside, carrying with it a strange sense of dread. The warmth of the tavern seemed to freeze over for just a second, like the world outside had sent a wave of icy tension crashing through the building.
Heavy boots echoed on the wooden floor, the sound like the pounding of a drum in Noah's ears. The tavern fell silent. Every conversation halted. Every eye turned toward the door.
Noah's breath caught in his throat.
A figure stepped inside, dark and imposing. Her presence seemed to swallow the light in the room, drawing all attention to her. She wore a long, dark cloak, and her movements were as graceful as they were menacing. She was a vision of controlled power, every step calculated, every gesture deliberate.
Her eyes locked onto Noah's across the room, and the air seemed to thicken.
His stomach dropped. He knew her.
It was her.
Lilia Everheart.
The rogue noblewoman. The relentless bounty hunter. The programmed nightmare of every cheater and criminal in Eclipse of the Gods. She was a fixer—someone designed by the game's creators to eliminate any threats to the game's integrity, someone who was supposed to hunt down cheaters, glitchers, and system-breakers like Noah.
But this wasn't just an NPC. No, this was something far worse.
Lilia wasn't bound by the same limitations that governed the rest of the AI. She wasn't programmed to follow simple logic loops. She was dangerous—her skill set was designed to track, trap, and neutralize any entity that posed a threat to the system.
Noah's heart raced in his chest as her piercing gaze locked onto him, her lips curling into a cruel, dangerous smirk.
"Well," she purred, her voice low and taunting, "look what we have here… a glitch in the system."
Noah swallowed hard, trying to steady himself. The tension in the room was suffocating, the heat of the tavern now feeling like an oppressive weight. He wanted to move, to flee, but his legs felt like lead.
This was the part of the game he had always dreaded. The game master wasn't just a set of rules or a system update—it was her. And she was hunting him.
"Lilia Everheart," Noah whispered, the name leaving his lips like a prayer.
She stepped further into the tavern, her boots tapping against the wooden floor with every step. The quiet murmurs of the other patrons seemed to vanish, like they all sensed the gravity of the situation.
"Tell me, glitch," Lilia's eyes sparkled with malice, "What was it you were thinking? You honestly believed you could break the game and just walk away, didn't you?"
Noah's mind scrambled for something to say, but his mouth was dry. His options were running out. He had no idea how he could survive this—how he could outwit someone like her.
"You've made a fatal mistake, glitch," Lilia continued, her voice growing colder with each word. "There is no escape. Not for you."
Noah tried to stand, but his knees were shaking, his head spinning with fear. The Anti-Cheat system had been triggered. He wasn't just a glitch anymore—he was public enemy number one, and Lilia was the executioner.
She took another step forward, closing the distance between them.
"I'm going to make this quick," she said, her smile widening as she took another deliberate step.
Noah's chest tightened. The room felt smaller now. The heat, the noise, the light—it was all fading, suffocating him in a sea of dread.
Suddenly, a loud clang echoed from outside, cutting through the tension. The door flew open, and another figure appeared, blocking Lilia's path.
It was another bounty hunter. A towering figure dressed in dark armor, his face hidden beneath a metallic mask.
"I think that's enough, Lilia," the voice was deep, gravelly, filled with an authority that left no room for argument.
Lilia's eyes narrowed, but she didn't move. "You think you can stop me?" she hissed.
"I don't think," the armored figure replied, "I know."
Noah's heart pounded, but this new figure gave him a glimmer of hope. Perhaps there was a way out of this after all. Maybe not all of the game's hunters were on Lilia's side.
But as the armored figure stepped forward, Noah realized something that made his blood run even colder: This wasn't just a new threat—this was a new game entirely.
The rules were changing.
And he wasn't sure if he could keep up.