The battlefield was burning code.
Literal lines of code—screaming red, glitching white—fractured the reality in front of Cain as if the universe itself had just tried to rewrite him and failed. Again.
"System," Cain muttered, voice like steel wire coiled too tight, "activate... Combat Log Protocol."
> [Combat Log Protocol] Activated. Initiating kill-sequence record buffer... Playback integrity: 91%
Across the broken sky, the enemy charged—a spiraling figure in jagged plate, its crown made from fractal tendrils of electricity and hate.
Executor Valtheon.
A fallen Lord of a previous System.
One who remembered the glitch that erased his world.
"You are the cancer of the Source Code," Valtheon growled, his voice sounding like a god choking on his own data. "And I was made to delete you."
Cain's smile was cold. "Get in line."
The clash was not cinematic.
There was no graceful swordplay, no taunting speeches or noble struggle. The moment Cain moved, a paradox exploded in time. Frames rewound. Others fast-forwarded. Valtheon's weapon—an entropy hammer made of frozen seconds—collided with Cain's chest and then didn't.
> [ERROR: Cain.exe has desynced from causality.] [Rollback Anchor] Suggested.
Cain blinked. Blood dripped from his side.
For the first time in ten chapters... he was bleeding.
---
He activated the Rollback Anchor. The world stuttered, lagged, then replayed the last 10 seconds—this time from Valtheon's perspective.
Cain saw it now:
> Valtheon kneeling before the Architect. His world shattered. His glitch-log burned. His only daughter overwritten during the Glitchbirth.
He was given one last patch: a virus blade to stab into the root of the Cain anomaly.
When Cain snapped back, he didn't hesitate.
"Activate: Timeline Shard."
A vision struck him.
Valtheon… as a father. As a coder. Before he was a monster. Before he was "the next boss."
> [Boss File Unlocked: Valtheon the Last Compiler] Personality Tree downloaded. Emotional map accessible.]
Cain lowered his hand.
"Valtheon," he said. "Your daughter… was she called Evira?"
The Lord paused. His weapon dimmed.
And that was when Cain activated the Delay Patch v0.01.
The battlefield locked into real-time. No fast-forward. No rewind. No invincibility.
Only raw, brutal combat between two broken gods of code.
---
The fight lasted three full pages.
Cain bled. Valtheon screamed Evira's name. And when the final strike landed, Cain didn't vaporize him. He let the Glitchcraft system extract his data.
Valtheon's final words:
"Tell the next one... the Glitch feels pain too."
---
> [Boss File saved to Archive.] [Delay Patch ended.] [Memory Leak Token obtained.] [Optional: Use to explore memory of Evira's last recorded moment.]
Cain stared at his trembling hands.
Too OP? No.
Not anymore.
He looked up at the broken sky of this Reality Zone. The System Mall shimmered open behind him.
> 🛍️ NEW ITEMS UNLOCKED — CATEGORY: Redemption Threads
Cain exhaled.
For once, not because he won.
But because he didn't just erase another life.