The road to the Last City wasn't a road at all.
It was a mess of shattered landscape, flickering in and out of existence.
One step might be solid ground — the next, a drop into endless void.
Elara and I picked our way carefully through the glitch fields, guided only by the floating red error beacon in the sky.
"You should have died," she said suddenly.
I flinched. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."
She gave me a sideways look — half teasing, half serious.
"I mean it. New arrivals aren't supposed to survive a Reaper. You patched it. That shouldn't be possible."
"I had a debug menu," I said, shrugging. "Clicked a bunch of stuff. Got lucky."
Elara shook her head.
"You're not just lucky," she said quietly. "You're a Patchbearer."
I stopped walking. "You've said that word twice now. What the hell is a Patchbearer?"
Elara hesitated. Her form flickered for a moment, half-transparent, before stabilizing again.
"In the beginning," she said slowly, "the World Code was perfect. Every program, every creature, every blade of grass followed precise rules. There were no errors. No glitches."
She paused, as if picking her words carefully.
"But when the Core fractured... when the Overseers vanished... corruption spread. The Admins tried to fix it. Failed. Eventually, the system began creating Patchbearers — beings capable of rewriting broken code manually, stabilizing reality where automated processes failed."
I stared at her. "You're telling me... I'm like some kind of walking system update?"
She smiled faintly.
"In a way. You are the last defense against collapse."
"Great," I muttered. "World's ending, and the best they can send is a guy who barely passed high school programming."
Ahead, the ruined skyline of the Last City loomed larger.
Massive skyscrapers floated mid-air, tethered by glitchy chains of light.
Billboards flickered ancient advertisements: "LIVE THE DREAM! ERROR #7282!"
Broken roads spiraled upward into the sky like crazy rollercoasters.
And ringing the city perimeter were giant, floating cubes of corrupted code — rotating slowly, leaking static.
Elara stopped at the city's edge.
"This is as far as I go," she said softly.
"What? Why?"
I turned to her, panicking slightly.
"You carry the Patch," she said. "The city will recognize you.
Me..."
She looked down at her glitching hands.
"I am too corrupted. If I enter, the system will attack me."
I clenched my fists. "There has to be a way—"
"Find the Nexus Core," she interrupted gently.
"Stabilize it.
Only then can the world resist the Reset."
Reset.
That word again.
Before I could argue more, the error beacon above the city flashed bright red.
A booming voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere:
> [ATTENTION: PATCHBEARER IDENTIFIED.]
[AUTHORIZATION: CONDITIONAL.]
[WARNING: CITY STABILITY: 11%.]
[PROCEED IMMEDIATELY TO NEXUS CORE.]
Elara gave me a small, sad smile.
"Go, Hikaru," she whispered.
"I'll find you again... if this world holds together long enough."
I stepped forward onto the glitching bridge leading into the Last City.
Behind me, Elara faded into the mist, her form glitching out completely.
I wanted to turn back.
But the city groaned — skyscrapers warping, sky tearing open — and I realized:
If I didn't move fast, there'd be nothing left to save.
No world.
No Elara.
No me.
I squared my shoulders and ran toward the crumbling skyline, debug commands flickering in my vision like half-remembered prayers.
Patchbearer.
Stabilizer.
Hikaru.
I didn't know what was coming next.
But for the first time,
I wasn't running away.
I was running toward something.