All Chapters of My Wife Betrayed Me. The System Chose Me : Chapter 21
- Chapter 30
102 chapters
CHAPTER 21
Judex woke to silence.Not the kind that followed exhaustion or sleep, but an engineered quiet, clean, absolute, without background hum or distant motion. For a brief, disorienting moment, he thought he’d gone deaf.Then the world reassembled itself.Light returned first, bleeding in at the edges of his vision. Not blinding, not harsh—measured. His senses followed in sequence, each snapping into place with unnerving precision. Touch. Balance. Breath. The weight of his own body.He sat up slowly.The room was unfamiliar. Bare concrete walls. No windows. A single recessed strip of light overhead, white and unwavering. The floor was smooth beneath his palms, cool and faintly textured.“No restraints,” he murmured. “That’s new.”[SYSTEM RESPONSE]Physical immobilization unnecessary.Judex exhaled through his nose. “So this is cooperation now?”[SYSTEM RESPONSE]This is synchronization.The word settled uneasily in his chest.He pushed himself to his feet. His body responded immediately, n
CHAPTER 22
The directive did not arrive with ceremony.There was no trumpet call, no dramatic shift in atmosphere. One moment Judex stood in the dim, altered space, listening to the distant scrape of something unseen; the next, the interface reconfigured itself with clinical efficiency.Directive 001:Objective: Secure the asset.Time Limit: 00:57:12Failure Condition: Non-compliance, abandonment, or incapacitation.Penalty: Physiological degradation.Judex stared at the word asset.“That’s it?” he asked. “No explanation?”[SYSTEM RESPONSE]Excess information degrades decision speed.“So you want obedience,” he said. “Not understanding.”[SYSTEM RESPONSE]Understanding is optional. Completion is not.The timer resumed its quiet descent.00:56:58.The space around him resolved further, details sharpening as if reality itself were coming into focus. He stood at the mouth of a narrow service corridor, concrete walls stained with age, pipes running overhead, water dripping somewhere in the distance.
CHAPTER 23
Judex did not think.Thinking would have slowed him.The first hunter came fast, blade flashing from his sleeve with practiced ease. Judex pivoted instinctively, the motion smooth, almost elegant. The blade missed his ribs by inches and sliced air where he had been a fraction of a second earlier.That wasn’t me, he realized.[SYSTEM RESPONSE]Micro-adjustments applied.“Stop doing that,” Judex growled, even as his arm snapped up to block the second strike. Pain flared where steel kissed flesh, but it was shallow. Controlled.The hunter’s eyes widened.Judex didn’t give him time to recover.He drove his shoulder forward, smashing into the man’s chest. The impact reverberated through Judex’s bones, but the hunter flew backward, colliding with a crate and collapsing in a heap.The second hunter circled to the right, patient, testing distance. The third moved left, cutting off retreat.They’re herding me, Judex thought.[SYSTEM RESPONSE]Correct.“I didn’t ask,” Judex snapped.The wounded
CHAPTER 24
The corridor narrowed the deeper Judex moved.Not by design—there were no walls closing in, but by necessity. Every turn reduced his options. Every step forward erased the safety of retreat. The system did not announce this. It didn’t need to. Scarcity was not a mechanic to be explained. It was an environment to be endured.His breathing echoed faintly, dampened by layers of concrete and old steel. This place had once been an underground service route for emergency transit, evacuation access, forgotten by time and maintenance. Now it functioned as a filter. Only those with enough endurance, awareness, and restraint would pass through it intact.The system’s interface hovered at the edge of his vision, dimmer than before.[SYSTEM NOTICE: SUPPORT FUNCTIONS LIMITED]REASON: RESOURCE DEFICIT — LOCAL ENVIRONMENTJudex clenched his jaw.Limited. Again.Since the calibration, the system had grown economical. It no longer reacted instantly. It no longer softened impact. It allowed fatigue to
CHAPTER 25
They didn’t follow him out.Judex noticed it only after the light grew steady and the tunnel finally gave way to open air. The absence pressed harder than pursuit ever could have. No footsteps. No shouts. No system alerts warning of trailing threats. Just wind, cool, stale, carrying the scent of rust and wet concrete.He adjusted his grip on Lina and stepped onto the platform beyond the tunnel mouth.It was an abandoned transit hub, half-collapsed, built in layers like a carcass stripped down to bone. Broken signage hung from the ceiling, letters missing, destinations erased by time. Old turnstiles lay twisted on their sides. Somewhere above, water dripped in a patient, rhythmic pattern, as if the structure itself was counting seconds.Judex lowered Lina gently against a wall and knelt.She was shaking harder now. Shock catching up to pain. Her eyes kept darting to the tunnel behind them.“They won’t come,” Judex said, though he wasn’t entirely sure why he believed it. “Sit still.”Th
CHAPTER 26
The light outside the transit hub was harsher than Judex expected.Not bright, just unforgiving. A pale, overcast sky stretched above a fractured cityscape of low concrete buildings and skeletal towers, their upper levels swallowed by fog. Wind cut through open spaces with no regard for shelter or intention. This wasn’t freedom. It was exposure.Pain lingered longer than expected, not sharp but instructional. His body catalogued it, indexed the sensation, filed it away for later avoidance. He realized then that suffering wasn’t being minimized.It was being recorded.Judex paused at the top of the exit ramp, Lina’s weight leaning into his side.Behind them, the system remained silent. No safe-zone confirmation. No guidance. Just a low, constant awareness pressing against his senses like a held breath.They were on their own.The street ahead was wide and empty, littered with debris and abandoned vehicles locked in place by rust and decay. Farther down, movement flickered, shadows slip
CHAPTER 27
The silence afterward was worse than the gunfire.It clung to the space like residue, thick and heavy, refusing to disperse even as the wind swept through the broken storefront. Judex stood in the doorway for a long moment, staring at the street as if expecting it to accuse him aloud.Nothing did.The city simply absorbed what had happened and moved on.Lina sat on the curb where he’d left her, knees drawn up to her chest. She was shaking again, but her eyes followed him steadily now, tracking every movement as if anchoring herself to his presence.Judex wiped his hands on his trousers without thinking. The blood smeared darker instead of fading. The smell lingered, iron and cordite, sharp enough to cut through the cold air.The system flickered.POST-COMBAT PROTOCOL INITIATEDRECOVERY OPTIONS: LIMITEDLimited. Of course.Judex forced himself to move. He checked the street first, scanning rooftops, alleys, shattered windows. No immediate movement. No pursuit. Either the remaining atta
CHAPTER 28
The numbers did not care how he felt.They appeared without ceremony, sliding into Judex’s vision as he and Lina moved through the narrow side street. The world dimmed slightly, colors losing saturation as the system pulled his attention inward.[STATUS PANEL — ACTIVE]Judex stopped walking.Lina stumbled when his support vanished and grabbed his arm. “What—?”“Give me a second,” he said, voice tight.The system expanded.[SUBJECT: JUDEX][CLASSIFICATION: BORDERLINE]PHYSICAL– Strength: LOW– Endurance: LOW– Reflex: BELOW AVERAGE– Structural Integrity: COMPROMISEDCOGNITIVE– Threat Assessment: ADEQUATE– Tactical Adaptability: INCONSISTENT– Emotional Regulation: UNSTABLESYSTEM COMPATIBILITY– Synchronization Rate: 31%– Authority Acceptance: RESISTANT– Efficiency Index: DEFICIENTJudex stared.This was it. This was what all the pain, the fear, the blood had amounted to.Low. Below average. Deficient.He let out a slow breath through his nose.“So?” he muttered. “That’s the verd
CHAPTER 29
The clinic was a lie.That was the first thing Judex understood when they reached it. Before the system confirmed anything, before the gunfire drew closer, before Lina’s grip tightened around his arm.The building still bore the faded symbol of emergency care on its cracked façade, but the windows were boarded unevenly, and the front doors had been reinforced with welded scrap metal. Someone had claimed this place, not to heal, but to endure.Judex stopped across the street, studying angles and shadows. The system remained quiet, as if withholding judgment until it saw what he would do.Lina whispered, “This is where they brought us. When the selection started.”“Us?”She nodded. “Those of us who didn’t… qualify.”The word hung between them.The system chimed at last.[LOCATION VERIFIED: FORMER MEDICAL FACILITY][CURRENT STATUS: CONTESTED][SYSTEM INTEREST: LOW]Low interest meant low reward. Low oversight. Low mercy.Judex guided Lina toward a side entrance partially hidden by debris
CHAPTER 30
The first thing Judex felt was pressure.Not physical, no weight pressing down on his body—but something denser, more insistent, as if the space around him had thickened. The air in the clinic grew heavy, charged with a tension that made every breath feel deliberate.People sensed it too.Conversations died mid-sentence. Movement slowed. Even the distant gunfire outside seemed to fade, swallowed by an approaching silence that felt unnatural in its completeness.The system pulsed.Not a flicker this time.A sustained presence.[THRESHOLD EVENT INITIATED]Judex straightened instinctively, every muscle tensing. Lina’s fingers dug into his sleeve.“What’s happening?” she whispered.Judex didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The system had pulled his focus inward again, and this time it did not ask permission.The interface expanded beyond his vision, no longer a transparent overlay but a full imposition, data layering over reality, rewriting depth and distance. The walls of the clinic blurred, lin