All Chapters of My Wife Betrayed Me. The System Chose Me : Chapter 31
- Chapter 40
102 chapters
CHAPTER 31
The change did not announce itself.There was no flash of light, no surge of power racing through Caelan’s veins the way stories liked to pretend transformation happened. He took three steps down the alley before he realized something was wrong, before his body reminded him, sharply and without ceremony, that the contract he had accepted was no longer theoretical.His knees buckled.He caught himself against the brick wall, palm scraping skin, breath tearing out of his lungs as if the air had suddenly thickened. A wave of dizziness rolled through him, heavy and disorienting, followed by a deep, hollow ache that settled into his bones.Not pain exactly.Absence.It felt as though something essential had been scooped out of him.“What—” His voice came out hoarse. He swallowed and tried again. “What did you do?”The system answered immediately, as if it had been waiting for the question.[PHYSICAL PROTOCOLS: ACTIVE]Baseline human tolerances removed.Maintenance costs recalculated.Caela
CHAPTER 32
Caelan realized it when the ache in his stomach faded not because it was satisfied, but because his body had escalated past complaint. The sharp pangs dulled into a heavy, pervasive drag that wrapped around his thoughts, slowing them, weighing each one before allowing it to form.He crouched beneath the overhang of a closed laundromat, back against cold glass, counting his breaths again. His hands shook, not violently, but with a fine, persistent tremor that refused to go away.“How long,” he asked quietly, “until this kills me?”The system answered with infuriating calm.[RESOURCE STATUS]Glycogen depleted.Lipid reserves entering accelerated consumption phase.Estimated functional decline: 14 hours.Fourteen hours.“That’s generous,” he muttered. “Yesterday I could skip meals for days.”Baseline parameters no longer apply.Of course they didn’t.Caelan pushed himself upright, ignoring the way the world tilted briefly as he stood. His senses felt sharpened and dulled at the same time
CHAPTER 33
The body adapts faster than the mind.Caelan learned this on the third day.Hunger no longer arrived like an ambush. It announced itself early. His vision no longer dimmed. Instead, his senses sharpened gradually, as if his body was warming an engine rather than breaking down.That terrified him.He woke before dawn, not because of pain, but because his body decided sleep was inefficient. The concrete beneath him felt colder than it should have, but he registered it without discomfort. Temperature had become data, not distress.He sat up slowly, testing himself.No dizziness.No weakness.No nausea.Only hunger, steady, patient, deliberate.Baseline adaptation achieved.Caelan exhaled through his nose. “So now I’m… what? Stable?”Conditioned.The word lingered.He stood, stretching carefully. His muscles responded with unfamiliar precision. There was no surplus strength, no sudden power, just efficiency. Every movement felt intentional, stripped of waste.That was the problem.He walk
CHAPTER 34
Caelan stopped trusting the dark on the third cycle.At first, he welcomed it.The system had stripped away clocks, windows, and any reliable sense of time. Darkness meant rest. Stillness meant reprieve. His body, wrung dry by hunger and exertion, leaned toward unconsciousness like a starving man toward bread.Sleep came fast.Too fast.And then it stopped coming at all.The first time he woke, he thought he’d slept for hours.His muscles felt loose. His mind, fogged but functional. He sat up on the cold floor and waited for the familiar ache to settle back into his bones.It didn’t.Instead, the system chimed.[Sleep Cycle: Interrupted — 14 minutes elapsed]Fourteen minutes.Caelan frowned. His eyes burned as if sand had been rubbed beneath the lids. He lay back down, irritated but unconcerned.The second time, it was eleven minutes.The third: nine.By the fifth interruption, panic crept in.He stopped lying down after that.Sleep was no longer a refuge. It was a trigger.Whenever h
CHAPTER 35
Caelan woke to weight.Not pain, not at first. It pinned him to the floor before his eyes even opened, compressing breath from his lungs in slow, merciless increments. His first instinct was panic. His second was denial. His third, the only one that mattered, was control.He exhaled.Then he inhaled carefully, shallow and measured, ribs protesting as something unseen pressed down on his chest.The system chimed.[Load Bearing Trial Initiated][Objective: Maintain Structural Integrity Under Progressive Weight]“Of course,” Caelan muttered, voice already strained.Sleep deprivation had left his limbs heavy and unresponsive. Now the system was stacking weight on top of exhaustion, like a judge piling charges onto a man already condemned.The pressure increased.Not abruptly, deliberately.At first, it felt like someone kneeling on his torso.Then two someones.Then a crowd.The floor beneath him groaned faintly, metal vibrating as if resonating with the force pressing him down. His shou
CHAPTER 36
Caelan knew he was bleeding before he saw it.There was a strange warmth along his forearms and thighs, slick and unfamiliar, followed by a faint sulphuric scent that cut through the stale air. When he lifted his hand into view, his fingers were stained dark red.Not gushing.Not dramatic.Controlled.Which, he realized with a chill, was exactly the point.The system chimed.[Blood Economy Trial Initiated][Objective: Maintain Function Under Sustained Hemorrhage]Caelan closed his eyes.“So now we count,” he murmured.The bleeding didn’t come from one wound.It came from many.Tiny lacerations opened along his skin, arms, calves, ribs as if invisible blades were kissing him just deep enough to draw blood. Each cut was shallow, barely painful on its own.Together, they were devastating.Blood flowed steadily, dripping onto the floor in uneven patterns. Not enough to kill him quickly. Enough to weaken him slowly.Economically.[Blood Loss Rate: Acceptable][Current Reserve: 92%]The sys
CHAPTER 37
Caelan noticed the air thinning before the system said anything.Breathing became effort.Not because his lungs failed but because each inhale felt insufficient, like trying to drink through a cracked straw. His chest expanded fully, ribs stretching, yet the oxygen never quite reached where it needed to go.He stopped walking.Inhaled again.Still not enough.The system chimed.[Breath Threshold Trial Initiated][Objective: Maintain Cognitive Control Under Oxygen Restriction]Caelan swallowed.“You’re joking,” he rasped.The system, as always, did not joke.The corridor sealed.Panels slid shut at both ends with a heavy, final sound that echoed in his skull. Vents along the ceiling dimmed, airflow dropping to a whisper.The air wasn’t gone.It was rationed.[Oxygen Saturation: 89%]Caelan’s body reacted instantly.Heart rate spiked. Muscles tightened. A primitive alarm rang through his nervous system, screaming the same message over and over:Breathe. Breathe harder.He forced himself
CHAPTER 38
Caelan moved before he realized he had moved.His body jerked sideways, shoulder slamming into the wall as something sliced through the space where his head had been a heartbeat earlier. Metal shrieked against metal. Sparks burst in a brief, blinding spray.He froze.Breathing shallow. Heart hammering.“What—” he started.Another blade swept past his chest.This time he saw it.The corridor had changed.Panels along the walls slid open and shut in irregular patterns, revealing mechanical limbs fitted with narrow cutting edges. They didn’t move randomly. They anticipated.The system chimed.[Reflex Rewrite Trial Initiated][Objective: Override Instinctive Response Patterns]Caelan’s stomach dropped.“You’re not serious.”The blade struck again.He dodged on instinct, ducking low, twisting his torso, movements raw and unrefined. The blade grazed his arm, opening a shallow cut that burned immediately.Blood again.Not enough to kill him.Enough to remind him that hesitation was expensive
CHAPTER 39
The failure didn’t announce itself.There was no sudden collapse, no dramatic rupture. Just a quiet, sickening shift inside Caelan’s body, a subtle misalignment that made everything afterward feel wrong.He took one step forward.His left knee buckled.Pain flared sharp and immediate, a white-hot spike that tore a grunt from his throat as he caught himself against the wall. The joint screamed in protest, tendons straining under weight they could no longer bear cleanly.Caelan froze.Slowly, carefully, he tested his balance again.Something was off.The system chimed.[Structural Failure Trial Initiated][Objective: Maintain Mobility Under Compounded Damage]Caelan let out a humorless sound.“So this is the bill,” he said hoarsely.Hunger.Sleep deprivation.Load bearing.Blood loss.Oxygen restriction.Reflex suppression.None of it had been repaired.It had all been stored.He shifted his weight experimentally.Pain radiated up his leg, spreading through his hip and lower spine like
CHAPTER 40
The chamber did not reset.That was the first indication something fundamental had changed.No cleansing pulse washed over the floor. No restorative warmth seeped into Caelan’s torn muscles. The blood remained where it had fallen, dark and drying, clinging to the grooves carved into the stone.The system wanted him to feel the aftermath.TRIAL OF FLESH: CONCLUSION PHASE INITIATEDThe message appeared without sound, hovering just above his vision. Caelan didn’t look at it immediately. He was too focused on the way his body felt not the pain, but the difference beneath it.His limbs were heavier and denser…When he shifted his weight, the movement carried momentum it hadn’t before, as though his muscles now understood leverage in a way his mind was only beginning to grasp. The ache in his knee remained, but it was… organized. Structured. The instability he’d felt earlier had resolved into a tight, braced resistance, like bone and tendon had quietly renegotiated their relationship.He fl