The city tried to act normal after that.
That's what it always did.
Within an hour, the streets were cleaned, broken glass removed, emergency barriers deactivated. Official reports would later say the breach had been "successfully neutralized by S-Rank Hunters."
No one mentioned the boy who walked up to it alone.
No one, except a few witnesses who couldn't really explain what they saw.
And even they started doubting themselves after a while.
That was how things worked in Neo-Hikaru City.
If something didn't fit the system's explanation… it simply got ignored.
Ren Kazuki was already gone.
He was sitting on the rooftop of an old building a few blocks away, legs hanging over the edge, holding the same half-finished drink from earlier.
The wind was quiet up here.
Quieter than the city below.
But his mind wasn't.
"…Still nothing," he muttered.
He leaned back slightly and stared at the sky.
The crack was gone now. Like it had never existed.
That was the problem.
Everything disappeared too easily around him.
Like the world corrected itself after he touched it.
Ren closed his eyes for a moment.
He wasn't thinking about the monster anymore.
He wasn't thinking about the Hunters either.
He was thinking about the feeling before it died.
Nothing.
No resistance.
No challenge.
Just… instant disappearance.
Like always.
He sighed.
"I guess I should've known."
A soft sound interrupted him.
Not from the street.
Not from the wind.
Inside his head.
…ting.
Ren opened his eyes.
He sat up slowly.
That sound was new.
It wasn't physical. It didn't come from the world around him.
It came from something deeper.
Like a notification that shouldn't exist.
"…What was that?" he whispered.
Silence answered.
Then—
TING.
This time louder.
A faint distortion appeared in the air in front of him. Not a portal. Not a crack.
Something like a transparent interface, flickering in and out of existence.
Ren stared at it.
His expression didn't change much, but his eyes narrowed slightly.
A system screen.
But not one he had ever seen before.
Words slowly formed:
ERROR DETECTED IN WORLD STRUCTURE
Ren blinked once.
"…Error?"
The screen flickered again.
ANOMALY IDENTIFIED ENTITY: REN KAZUKI STATUS: UNREGISTERED VARIABLE
He slowly lowered his drink.
Now he was paying attention.
Far above the city, beyond what anyone could physically see, something shifted.
Not in space.
Not in sky.
In data.
In structure.
A place that didn't belong to reality itself.
A massive system interface stretched across nothingness like a living network. Millions of glowing lines connected unknown worlds together.
And for the first time in a very long time…
Something turned red.
ALERT: CORE LIMIT BREAK DETECTED ALERT: IMPOSSIBLE GROWTH CURVE IDENTIFIED ALERT: SYSTEM INTEGRITY AT RISK
A voice echoed through the void.
Not human.
Not machine.
Something in between.
"…This should not exist."
Back in the city, Ren stood up slowly.
The screen in front of him flickered harder now, as if struggling to stay visible.
WARNING: YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE
Ren tilted his head slightly.
"That's funny," he said quietly.
Because he had never been told that before.
At least not directly.
The screen flickered again, almost violently now.
ADMIN RESPONSE REQUESTED PRIORITY: MAXIMUM
Ren frowned a little.
"…Admin?"
That word felt important.
But also distant.
Like something he was never meant to understand.
The interface suddenly stabilized.
And then one more line appeared.
YOU ARE A GLITCH
Silence.
Even the wind seemed to stop for a second.
Ren stared at it for a long moment.
Then he laughed softly.
Not because it was funny.
Because it wasn't.
"…A glitch," he repeated.
He looked down at his hand again.
The same hand that erased monsters without effort.
The same hand that never felt anything.
If he was a glitch…
Then what was everyone else?
Before he could think further—
The screen shattered.
Like glass breaking in reverse.
And disappeared.
Ren stood there in silence.
"…So it finally noticed me," he said under his breath.
Far away, alarms began sounding across invisible layers of reality.
And somewhere deep inside the system…
Something started moving toward him.