The ragged sound of running footsteps pulled Aaron's attention from the carnage at the cathedral entrance. Two figures burst from a narrow side alley, their shadows stretching long and distorted across broken pavement in the ambient glow of error messages still cascading across his Null Phone's interface.
"—just vanished, like it was glitching through walls!" The taller survivor's voice cracked, hands trembling as they gripped their companion's sleeve. "One second by the altar, next second right behind Marcus—"
"Those weren't normal teleports." The shorter one shook their head violently, blood trickling from a shallow cut above their eye. "Did you see how it stuttered? Like... like bad lag in an old game, but with stone and death instead of pixels."
Aaron's fingers tightened around his phone. Their terror-addled descriptions were exactly what he needed—raw witness data, unfiltered by combat focus or tactical planning. He activated Read Stack Trace, and ghostly lines of diagnostic text overlaid his vision, analyzing their words in real-time.
The error logs materialized like frost patterns in the air. Each terrified observation crystallized into system coordinates, forming a three-dimensional map of the golem's movement patterns. Aaron's eyes narrowed as he traced the numerical cascade.
X: 247.8, Y: 35.2, Z: -891.3 ERROR: Null reference exception in PathNode[]. Attempting position recalculation... X: 247.8, Y: 35.2, Z: -891.3 CRITICAL: Stack overflow in navigation mesh. Emergency teleport protocol initiated. X: ERROR, Y: ERROR, Z: ERROR
There it is. The golem's pathfinding AI was caught in an infinite loop, repeatedly failing to calculate valid movement coordinates. Instead of gracefully handling the error, the system was defaulting to emergency teleportation—with corrupted destination data.
"—and then it just appeared in the ceiling!" The taller survivor's voice wavered. "Started phasing through the stonework like—"
Another error cascade bloomed in Aaron's vision as their description triggered a fresh diagnostic:
WARNING: Invalid collision mesh detected CRITICAL: Physics engine exception Attempting emergency bounds correction... Stack trace: at Dungeon.Boss.Movement.Calculate() at Entity.Position.Update() at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
The survivors' footsteps faded as they fled deeper into the city, but Aaron barely noticed. His mind raced through the implications. The golem wasn't just teleporting randomly—it was caught in a recursive error loop, each failed movement calculation triggering another emergency teleport with increasingly corrupted coordinate data.
Classic overflow cascade. The system's trying to brute-force its way through invalid pathfinding calculations instead of properly handling the error state.
He could almost see the shape of the solution forming. If he could use Input Override to inject valid coordinate data during one of those emergency teleports, it would force the system to properly resolve the location conflict instead of defaulting to its broken error handling...
Aaron deactivated Read Stack Trace, the diagnostic text fading from his vision like morning mist. The plan was clear now—he just needed the right moment to execute it.
The error logs cascading across his phone's display clicked into a pattern, each data point connecting like constellations in his mind. Aaron's fingers traced the ghostly interface, following the stack trace's breadcrumbs backward through the golem's behavioral routines.
Not random teleports. Sequential overflow errors.
He zoomed in on a particular error cluster, the blue glow of his interface reflecting off his hazel eyes. The golem's coordinate system was caught in a recursive loop, each attempted movement generating increasingly corrupted position data. When the values exceeded acceptable parameters, the entity's emergency protocols triggered a forced teleport—but with garbage coordinates.
"Basic debugging," Aaron muttered, his voice barely a whisper in the darkness of his perch. "Input validation failure leading to buffer overflow. Amateur hour."
He minimized the error log and pulled up his skill interface, focusing on Input Override. The ability wasn't meant for direct combat, but that wasn't his plan. If he could inject clean coordinate data during the split-second when the golem initiated its emergency teleport...
The system will try to resolve two conflicting states simultaneously. Valid coordinates versus corrupted routine.
His fingers drummed against the concrete floor as he ran the scenario. The golem's code would attempt to process both sets of data, creating an irreconcilable logical conflict. And when a system entity couldn't resolve its own state...
A crash. A complete shutdown of the boss entity's runtime environment.
The corner of Aaron's mouth twitched upward. The System would have to handle a critical error in a dungeon boss's core routines. The debug point payout would be astronomical.
He checked his current balance: 0 DP. Time to change that.
The copper pipe felt cool against his palm as he retrieved it from beside him. A pointless weapon against a stone golem, but it would make him look like just another desperate survivor if anyone was watching. The less attention his true capabilities drew, the better.
Aaron rose from his observation post, joints stiff from maintaining his crouch for so long. The Overgrown Sanctum's entrance loomed across the street, its cathedral architecture half-consumed by thorned vines that pulsed with an unnatural green luminescence. The previous party's footprints were still visible in the dust, leading to and then frantically away from the threshold.
They didn't understand what they were dealing with. But I do. Systems can be debugged. Reality can be patched.
He descended the office building's crumbling stairs, each step carefully placed to minimize noise. The street level felt exposed after his elevated vantage point, but he forced himself to maintain a casual pace. Running would only draw attention.
The sanctum's entrance grew larger with each step, its vine-choked archway stretching up into the night sky. The thorns seemed to track his movement, twisting ever so slightly to follow his approach. Aaron's analytical mind immediately began cataloging the behavior. Possible peripheral defense routine. Motion tracking. Low threat level.
His smart watch remained dead on his wrist, its surface now completely consumed by crystalline patterns that resembled circuit boards traced in frost. He'd document that particular glitch later. Right now, he needed to focus on the task at hand: finding the sweet spot where the golem's teleport routine would be most vulnerable to his intervention.
The cathedral doors hung open, their ancient wood splintered from countless previous encounters. Beyond them, darkness waited, broken only by the occasional pulse of green light from the invasive vines. Aaron adjusted his grip on the copper pipe, more for the familiar weight than any practical purpose.
Time to debug this boss.
He stepped through the vine-choked doorway, crossing the threshold into the Overgrown Sanctum's gloom.