The air buzzed with unnatural pressure.
Jay’s system screen flickered—not in malfunction, but in anticipation. Lines of binary danced across the glowing HUD before stabilizing.
> [WARNING: Core System Conflict Imminent.]
[Opponent: Executioner Venn, Codename "Breaker of Patterns"]
[Class: S-Rank System Hunter | Authority Level: Redacted]
The figure stood tall beneath the archway of the tower, clad in obsidian robes with silver glyphs stitched across the sleeves—symbols of the old System Wars. A cold blue eye glowed through a crack in the Executioner’s bone-like mask.
"Your very existence is a violation," Venn spoke in a voice smooth as silk, yet devoid of warmth. "Prototype 03-999 was not designed for long-term synchronization. Yet here you are. Laughing. Sleeping. Living."
Jay raised a hand to scratch his head. "So... you’re like an antivirus program?"
"No," Venn replied. "I’m the uninstall button."
Alicia stepped in front of Jay, sword braced. "You’ll have to go through me."
"That was always the plan," Venn said, and in a blur, he moved.
He didn’t cast spells. He didn’t raise his voice.
He simply stepped—and reality glitched.
Alicia’s sword shattered in her grip, the ground beneath her feet distorted like a broken mirror, and time rippled as her body froze in stasis mid-motion.
> [ALERT: Temporal Lock Detected.]
[System Engaging Fail-Safe... Searching For Host Reaction...]
Jay didn’t panic. He didn’t run. Instead, he took a long, deep breath and sat back down on the bench behind him.
"You’re threatening my nap," he muttered. "Big mistake."
> [System Resonance Detected.]
[Emotion: Mild Annoyance.]
[New Skill Unlocked: System Overclock – Passive Surge Mode Activated.]
The glow from Jay’s HUD intensified, the numbers multiplying absurdly fast.
Reaction Speed: +999x
Sloth Level: Transcendent
Jay opened his eyes fully—sharp, focused, and infinitely calm.
"You came looking for Subject 03-999," he said, voice low. "But the files must be old."
He stood up, brushing off his blazer with deliberate slowness.
"That subject was terminated a long time ago. What you’ve got now... is the glitch that survived."
Then everything broke.
The system grids above the academy warped into a hurricane of data.
Jay Sama, sleepy genius of zero ambition, took one step forward—and warped reality with him.