"ROAAAAR!"
The battle cry hit like a physical sledgehammer, shaking dust from the ceiling in cascading streams.
Hundreds of golden-haired men in white tailcoats roared in perfect unison. Hundreds of eyes, identical expressions, identical nauseating arrogance painted across their faces like a mass-produced nightmare.
"We're screwed... it's the V3.0 scrapped versions! Berserker builds!" The original Arthur scrambled behind Sylvia like he'd seen a ghost, clutching his head with trembling hands. His voice cracked like a stepped-on cat: "These lunatics have no brains but locked health bars! One drop of blood and they'll bite you to death! How do we fight this? There's no way to fight this!"
Sylvia's face went ashen. The frost gathering at her fingertips shattered before it could fully form, dispersed by the sonic assault.
Too many. Far too many.
Hundreds of S-rank ability users charging simultaneously—even if each one just spat once, they could turn this place into a swamp.
"Lucian! Fall back to the corridor!" Sylvia gritted her teeth, positioning herself as a shield, her voice trembling. "I'll raise ice walls to hold the first wave—you take that dead battery and run!"
Lucian didn't move.
He stood at the end of the red carpet, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. Green data streams cascaded through his pupils like digital waterfalls, reflecting the oppressive white tide surging toward him.
On the massive screen above, the pixelated girl User-002 blinked once and displayed a line of blood-red arcade text:
**[Round 1: FIGHT!]**
No warning. No buildup.
"Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west!"
Hundreds of clones bellowed that DNA-deep cliché in perfect synchronization. Golden battle aura erupted skyward, transforming the dim hall into ground zero of a nuclear detonation.
The floor cracked. The white tide surged like a plague of locusts, carrying world-ending pressure. Ten meters from Lucian.
Five meters.
Three meters.
Fist-wind arrived first, compressing air into explosive thunder. Sylvia squeezed her eyes shut in despair.
"This is your attack logic?"
Lucian's cold voice cut through the battlefield chaos, clear as a scalpel slicing glass. He didn't draw a weapon or dodge—just raised his right hand and snapped his fingers in the void.
*Snap.*
"Since you're mass-produced garbage, stop coming one by one."
Lucian's gaze turned arctic. The dense red targeting frames on his retina were instantly overwritten by cascading green code.
**[System: Hacking...]**
**[Target: Class_Arthur_Clone_V3 (Parent)]**
**[Bug Found: Shared Inheritance]**
"Sharing physics parameters to save processing power? Programmers like that deserve ritual sacrifice."
Lucian's fingers flew through virtual space—not attacking, but rewriting reality's rules.
If it was data, it belonged to the physics engine.
Now the engine belonged to him.
**[Modify: Physics_Engine]**
**[Friction: 0.5 → -50.0 (Negative Slide)]**
**[Bounciness: 0.1 → 500.0 (Super Rubber)]**
**[ENTER!]**
The moment he hit enter, the world broke.
The lead clone's fist hung 0.01 centimeters from Lucian's nose, his savage grin crystal clear.
The next second, his feet hit the ground like he'd stepped on a banana peel—no, like he'd stepped on a particle accelerator.
"Huh?"
That brief exclamation never finished. The figure lost complete control due to "negative friction," shooting out like a fired cannonball in a ground-hugging slide!
Since Lucian had shifted slightly aside, this human projectile slammed into Sylvia's ice shield.
What should have been a gruesome flesh-and-blood impact instead produced an absurdly cartoonish sound effect.
*BOING!*
The clone didn't splatter—he compressed into a paper-thin sheet, then triggered 500x elasticity, ricocheting back at ten times the speed!
Hell's pinball machine had begun.
The unlucky bouncer plowed headfirst into the charging army.
*BANG! THWANG! PEW!*
Two clones collided without the crack of breaking bones—just elastic, muffled impacts. They used each other as springboards, shooting off in opposite directions like runaway rubber balls!
Third, fourth, hundredth...
The once-murderous battlefield instantly transformed into a physics-defying slapstick video.
"AHHHHH!"
"Don't underestimate youth—MMPH!"
"Stop! What sorcery is this? My feet won't obey!"
Hundreds of "Dragon Lords" ricocheted wildly between walls, ceiling, and floor at speeds that left afterimages. The hall filled with the dull thuds of human collisions, like hundreds of basketballs tumbling in a washing machine.
Sylvia's ice shield clattered to the ground, her jaw nearly dislocating.
This... this was combat?
Those S-rank powerhouses capable of leveling cities were now tangling themselves into pretzels, some bouncing off chandeliers, others face-sliding along walls.
Chaos. Pure, ridiculous, almost deconstructionist chaos.
And Lucian stood at its center, surrounded by an invisible repulsion field that made any approaching "pinball" slide away mysteriously.
**[Combo x 99!]**
**[Combo x 256!]**
**[Combo x 512!]**
The collision speed finally exceeded the physics model's threshold.
*Pop!*
The first clone disintegrated mid-air. Excessive velocity caused model loading errors, exploding him into a red-and-white mosaic of corrupted data.
Then the second. The third.
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*
Dense explosions rattled like machine-gun fire. No blood—just screen-filling error messages bathing everything in red light.
Light rain fell from above.
Billions of experience points and narrative energy flooded into Lucian's body.
**[Level Up!]**
**[Level Up!]**
**[Narrative Energy: OVERFLOW!]**
Three minutes later.
The hall fell silent.
No corpses remained—only scattered loot flickering with "error code" warnings.
Lucian stood in the light shower, taking a deep breath as he removed the cigarette from his lips, as if he'd just finished eye exercises.
"As expected, exploiting bugs is the fastest way to level up."
He turned toward the two petrified figures behind him.
The original Arthur had rolled his eyes back, foaming at the mouth, unconscious from terror—even he had never witnessed someone turning allies into bouncy balls.
"You..." Sylvia's throat was parched, staring at Lucian like he was some unspeakable horror. "What exactly did you do?"
"Nothing much."
Lucian pulled out his lighter with a crisp *click*, igniting his cigarette.
"Just optimized the scrapped drafts' death animations."
*Clap. Clap. Clap.*
On the big screen, the pixelated girl User-002 was actually applauding.
Her sweet smile twisted grotesquely, transforming into a horrifying white skull before giving a massive pixelated thumbs-up.
**"Magnificent."**
Bloody pixel text appeared letter by letter:
**"Worthy of a virus carrier. Congratulations—you've bombed your way through the tutorial zone."**
Lucian exhaled smoke, eyeing the screen coldly: "Cut the chatter. Where's the source code?"
**"Want the source code?"**
User-002's pixelated face wore a mischievous grin.
**"Fine. Just beat... 'him.'"**
*RUMBLE—*
The metal floor at the hall's center split apart.
Accompanied by heavy hydraulic sounds, a massive crystal coffin emanating eerie blue light slowly rose. Frigid air instantly swept the area, overwhelming even the battle's residual heat.
Lucian's previously casual expression froze completely the moment he saw the coffin's occupant.
Cigarette ash burned his finger. He didn't move.
Inside lay a man. Black hair, pale skin, wearing an old-era tactical coat. Even with eyes closed, separated by thick crystal, that world-shaking sharpness still stung the skin.
Sylvia covered her mouth, releasing a suppressed gasp: "This... this is..."
"User-001."
The screen text turned a tragic dark red, like flowing blood:
**"Or perhaps you prefer to call him—'Zero.'"**
The legend who tried to rebel against higher dimensions ten years ago, ultimately failing and being erased.
The trailblazer Lucian had been chasing, the previous system's host.
**"Don't want to become a scrapped draft?"**
User-002's mockery dripped with malice:
**"Then kill him."**
The crystal lid slowly slid open.
The man inside—his eyelashes trembled slightly.
For the first time, Lucian's cigarette-holding hand shook beyond his control.