A River Goddess (Rank 6) stood up first. Her skin was made of flowing water, and she looked terrified.

“It started three weeks ago,” she said, her voice like a babbling brook. “My northern tributaries… they just stop. The water flows into a white wall of static. No sound or splash. It just… deletes.”

“It is a texture error,” a Golem God (Rank 8) grumbled, his voice like grinding stones. “The Admins are lazy. They will patch it eventually.”

“There are no Admins!” a Wind Spirit (Rank 3) shouted. “We haven’t heard from the Devs in centuries! The server is abandoned!”

Panic rippled through the Low Floor. “Abandoned?” “Are we going to crash?” “My followers are glitching into trees!”

Red watched them. He didn’t know what a “Dev” was in this context, or if this was truly a server or a reality. But he knew panic was bad for business.

“Quiet,” Red ordered. The amplification carried his voice over the noise.

“Panic solves nothing,” Red said smoothly. “If the North is deleting itself, then the Low Ranks are the first to go. Your territories are the buffer zone.”

He looked down at the sulking figure of Aurelius on the Low Floor.

“This is a structural issue,” Red stated. “Low Ranks lack the DP to fix a server-level glitch. This requires High Rank intervention.”

He looked up at the High Balcony, where only Sylara sat, and then at the empty seats where the other Rank 20+ gods should have been.

“The High Gods need to form a task force,” Red proposed. “A coalition to stabilize the boundary.”

“Ha!”

Aurelius laughed. He pushed his way to the front of the Low Floor crowd.

“Listen to him!” Aurelius mocked, pointing a trembling finger at Red. ” The ‘Admin’ wants a handout!”

Aurelius looked around at the other gods, his eyes burning with spite.

“Why should High Rankers care?” Aurelius spat. “My Sun Spire is in the Center of the Map. By the time the Glitch reaches me, you lot will be deleted. And good riddance!”

He crossed his arms, his golden armor clinking.

“We are not a charity, Rubedo. We do not run a ‘Save the Noobs’ fund. If the North is glitching, it’s because the gods there are weak. Survival of the fittest. That is the game.”

“And when the glitch eats the weak?” Red asked, his voice deadly calm. “What then, Aurelius? Do you think the static stops because you have a shiny tower?”

Red stood up from the throne. He walked to the edge of the dais.

“Corruption spreads,” Red said. “It eats the edges first. Then the middle. If you think your ‘Center of the Map’ makes you safe, you’re deluded. If the server crashes, we all disconnect. Rank 9 or Rank 90.”

“He’s right!” The River Goddess cried out. “The water cycle is broken! If my river dies, your grain fields dry up, Aurelius!”

“Irrelevant details!” Aurelius waved his hand. “I have reservoirs!”

The argument devolved into shouting. Red realized they were going in circles. No one knew what the Glitch was.

He needed a baseline.

“Stop,” Red commanded.

The room quieted again.

“Let’s check the logs,” Red said, improvising a term. “Does anyone remember what was in the North before the Glitch? Before we were summoned?”

He looked at the Rotting Druid. “Druid. You’ve been here fifty years. What was North of the mountains?”

The Druid blinked. His leafy face scrunched up in concentration. “The… The Frost Giants,” the Druid said slowly. “Yes. A Level 60 Zone. The Winter Steps.”

“No,” Gorr interrupted from the bar. “That’s wrong. The North was the Ocean of Silence. I remember mining the coastal cliffs. It was water.”

“You’re both crazy,” a Storm God floated up. “The North was the Dragon’s Spine. A volcanic range. I used to farm Wyverns there in the Beta.”

Red frowned. “Frost Giants? Ocean? Volcanoes?”

He looked at Aurelius. “What do you remember, Golden Boy?”

Aurelius scoffed. “It was the Floating Isles of Aether. Obviously. That’s where the best mana crystals spawned.”

Red sat back on the throne. A chill went down his spine that had nothing to do with the air conditioning.

“Four different answers,” Red whispered.

“They all remember something different,” Iron-Scale whispered from beside the throne. “Like… the map changes for everyone?”

“Or,” Red realized, his mind racing back to his Earth knowledge of game design. “Or the map wasn’t generated yet.”

“Procedural generation,” Red muttered to himself. “Or inconsistent lore patches.”

He looked at the squabbling gods. They were arguing over a history that didn’t match.

“The Glitch isn’t just eating land,” Red realized. “It’s eating Memory. It’s retconning the world.”

“This is pointless!” Aurelius shouted. “None of you know anything! The North is gone. Fine. We build a wall. I will build it. And you will pay me to stand behind it!”

“We will not pay you!” The Pebble God threw a wet stone at him. It bounced harmlessly off the Truce Shield.

“Then perish!” Aurelius screamed.

Red watched the chaos. No consensus. No solution. Just a room full of frightened, powerful children fighting over who had to clean up the mess.

“Order!” Red slammed his hand on the armrest.

“Since you cannot agree on history,” Red announced, “we cannot agree on a fix.”

He looked at the holographic map. The white static pulsed in the North.

“The Glitch remains a Level 10 Threat,” Red declared, using official-sounding jargon. “Until we have verified intel, no joint action will be taken.”

“Meeting Adjourned,” Red said, feeling a headache coming on. “Go home. Check your borders. And pray the static doesn’t like the taste of your mana.”

As the gods began to teleport away, grumbling and terrified, Red stayed on the throne.

He looked at the empty seats of the High Rankers. ‘Why aren’t they here?’ Red wondered. ‘Rank 15 gods. Rank 20 gods. If the world is ending, why is the room empty?’

‘To be honest… If I was rank 50, and I was invited to a meeting like this, I wouldn’t attend it either. Because I wouldn’t gain or lose anything.’

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep