The blinding white room had no corners. Commander Oliver stood on a perfectly smooth, mirror-like floor. He looked around. The giant white pillars did not go straight up. They stretched into the sky, then slowly curved backward, twisting like giant snakes until they connected to the floor directly behind his boots. Up was down. Left was right. Space was completely broken here. If a man threw a stone straight ahead in this room, the stone would hit him in the back of the head. It was a cosmic cage where the normal laws of physics did not exist. Oliver did not show fear. His gray human eye and his burning red alien eye stared straight ahead. He gripped his sharp titanium combat knife tightly in his left hand. His right arm, made entirely of pitch-black Wraithborn metal, hung quietly at his side. He looked at the man standing near the towering throne of white fire. The man wore a clean military uniform. He had a strong jaw and kind, gray eyes. It was Elias Oliver. His father. "Put t

The giant monster roared. The sound was a horrific mix of grinding rocks and hissing acid. In the center of the monster’s chest, a clear glass orb glowed softly. Inside the orb, Sergeant Miller, General Vega, Captain Iris, and Billy the hacker floated in a deep, magical sleep. They were trapped. "Strike the core, Oliver," the System Administrator boomed from the white throne high above. "Erase your weakness. Prove you are perfect."Commander Oliver did not move his combat knife. He stared at the sleeping faces of his friends. His cold, perfect mind processed the battlefield. He did not say the numbers out loud. He did not need to. His brain simply saw the lines of force and the weak points. He would not kill his squad. He would dismantle the monster piece by piece. The chimera lunged forward. It raised its massive stone leg to crush Oliver. But before the heavy foot could hit the glass floor, the entire universe folded in half. A deafening, terrible screech filled the void. The b

The giant angelic Iris stood twenty feet tall. Her silver armor gleamed brightly. She raised the spear of pure light high into the dark air. Commander Oliver lay on the glass floor. His body was completely frozen. The shard of white code burned inside his chest, tearing through his internal systems. He could not lift his arms. He could not move his boots. He did not feel fear. He did not feel panic. His mind was perfectly quiet. The crushing pressure had wiped away all his human emotions. He needed to move, and he searched for the most efficient way to do it.Deep inside his dark armor, the alien black coin pulsed. "Let me eat the light," the coin whispered in his mind. The voice was ancient and cold. "I will clear the poison. Let me in."Oliver did not hesitate. He gave the dark magic absolute permission. The pitch-black Wraithborn metal on his right arm flared with a sudden, violent purple light. The dark magic rushed into his chest. It crashed into the bright white code like a

The heavy black coin was gone. Commander Oliver crashed onto the cold glass floor. The terrible, crying ghost stood over him. The ghost held the alien coin in its hand. The dark magic dripped from the metal like thick, black blood. Oliver looked down at his own chest. There was a massive, empty hole where the coin had been. He could not breathe. His human heart stuttered. The pain was so bright and absolute that it felt like standing inside the sun. The ghost had ripped out his life support. He was supposed to die. Inside Oliver’s dark visor, the Traveler System screen flashed violently. [CRITICAL DAMAGE DETECTED.][LIFE SUPPORT FAILING.][HUMANITY STAT: 12%... 8%... 3%...]Oliver stared at the red numbers. A normal man would panic. A normal man would cry for his mother, or reach out to his friends. For one microsecond, Oliver felt the heavy, crushing sorrow of his past failures. He felt the fear of the dark void. But then, the red numbers hit zero. [HUMANITY STAT: 0%. EMOTIONA

The giant, glowing hand drove straight through Commander Oliver’s chest. Thick black blood dripped from the massive white fingers. The Overlord, hiding inside the body of the System Administrator, laughed. The deep, terrible sound shook the endless glass floor of the Arena. Behind the invisible barrier, Captain Iris screamed. She banged her good hand against the hard light, sobbing as she watched her Commander hanging helplessly in the air. Billy the hacker hid his face. General Vega dropped to her knees in pure despair. Oliver did not scream. He hung suspended in the bright white void. His human skin turned pale. The massive fingers inside his chest were crushing his lungs. His life was draining away into the dark magic. His cold, supercomputer brain processed the pain and instantly locked it away in a dark mental box. He did not waste energy on fear. He observed his enemy. The giant god held him easily. It was made of blinding white light and corrupted, bleeding purple veins.