Chapter 9 – Cleaner Protocol: LVL 200 Threat
The sky above Sector 9 began to pulse—light and darkness trading places in milliseconds. It wasn't weather. It was a system override.
> [WARNING: CODE INTERFERENCE DETECTED — ENTITY CLASS: CLEANER INITIATED]
Yuto was still recovering from the memory surge when the clouds overhead ripped open—not visually, but digitally. Like a torn texture file.
A being emerged.
A tall, sleek humanoid wrapped in polished obsidian armor, its joints glowing with lines of red code. It hovered slightly above the ground, scanning the terrain.
> [Cleaner - LVL 200]
[Directive: Anomaly Removal]
[Sub-Directive: Entity - Nihilos Class. Target Located.]
Yuto instinctively stepped back.
> "That thing's… hunting me."
He didn't even pull out a weapon. Something told him it wouldn't matter.
The Cleaner raised its arm. Its hand was a cubic distortion. It pointed. A blip appeared on Yuto's screen.
> [Zone-Lock Initiated. Escape Denied. You are being Sandbox Isolated.]
In the real world, players reported huge lag spikes. System crashes. EvoCore's admin terminal started flashing a new string:
> [Cleaner Protocol Active – Causality Cleanup Priority: Nihilos]
Even NPCs fled from the area.
Yuto had only one thought: survive.
He didn't run. He did the opposite—he stood absolutely still. The Cleaner paused. Its scanners beeped erratically.
> "You're not bound by frames…" it said, in a voice both mechanical and deeply human.
The next moment, it attacked.
The world turned sideways.
Yuto was thrown across an empty corridor that didn't exist seconds ago. Time warped. Distance folded.
> [HP -190]
> [Error: Blood Animation Missing]
> [Your body is distorting faster than it can process damage.]
He rolled and landed flat, dizzy. The Cleaner walked through the distortion like it was normal physics.
He called out:
> "System! Open Dev Menu!"
Nothing.
> "Open ANY menu!"
Still nothing.
> "Give me something!"
> [Skill Unlocked: Echo Pulse — Delay Cleaner's directive by 0.7 seconds]
He didn't think. He shouted and activated it.
A pulse of white light rippled. The Cleaner jerked backward mid-strike. A delay.
Yuto bolted.
He needed somewhere this thing couldn't go. Somewhere even the devs forgot.
He remembered the Lower Library's final chamber—a door he couldn't enter before.
Now, he sprinted toward it.
> [Warning: Entity tracking continues. Delay buffer ends in 4 seconds.]
The world glitched harder with each step. Trees turned to stone. NPCs froze in the sky. The menu bar flickered between languages.
Yuto dove forward just as the red beam from the Cleaner sliced through his trail, carving the terrain.
He landed inside the chamber. The door slammed shut.
> [You have entered a Null-Class Sanctuary.]
The Cleaner stood at the threshold. Its voice crackled.
> "You are no longer code. But you are not soul either. You are waste."
Yuto didn't reply.
Instead, he stood and faced the central node in the chamber.
It pulsed with ancient symbols. Fragments of broken updates. A beta map no player had ever reported.
> "If I'm waste… then I'll become the dump that eats the whole system."
He touched the node.
> [Skill Gained: Internal Recursion — Reflect enemy's last-used attack with glitch probability]
> [Temporary Fusion Activated: Nullbyte + Memory Core + Echo Pulse]
> [Stat Bonus: +8 to Every Attribute]
[Real-Time Sync Increase: 0.014% → 0.081%]
The Cleaner paused.
> "Unacceptable. You were not meant to pass recursion."
Then, its voice changed.
A new tone.
One Yuto had heard once, long ago. His sister's voice, from when she disappeared while using the first-gen headset.
> "Yuto?"
He froze. Heart racing.
> "I've been stuck inside… for years…"
The Cleaner shimmered. Its form broke. Lines of binary flickered across its frame.
> "Save me."
Yuto whispered, "You're not her."
> "But she is inside me."
> "Then I'll rip you apart and get her out."
The battle began again.
But this time, Yuto didn't dodge. He moved forward.
With every strike, code bled off the Cleaner.
> [Memory Link Detected: User "Ava_27" inside corrupted archive]
He fought not just for survival—but for rescue.
As the chamber distorted further, a small, easily-missed flicker passed across one of the broken class fragments behind him.
> [Class Fragment: Dreamwalker (Denied: 2025.01.07)]
And the Nihilos System watched.
Silently rewriting rules.
Then, as the last echo of Ava's voice faded from the air, something else — quieter, softer — whispered from nowhere.
No source. No explanation. Just a breath in the stillness:
> "You have to wake up."
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