The kiss felt like swallowing a neutron star.As Je and Rara's lips touched, the physical world around them melted away. No more cold stone floor, no more smell of blood, no more pain from shattered bones.There was only White.Je felt himself being pulled into a tunnel of blinding light. There, he wasn't alone. Rara was there, naked, her skin glowing like pearl, floating in front of him."Accept me, Je," Rara whispered. Her voice echoed not from a mouth, but from every particle of that light. "My blood is your blood. My hunger is your hunger."In the real world, Sinta and Guntur backed away in fear while shielding their eyes.The sight before them was too sacred yet too terrifying for mortal eyes to behold.Rara and Je's bodies were wrapped in a cocoon of pulsating golden light. From Rara's open chest, roots of light snaked out, piercing Je's destroyed chest. The roots stitched Je's broken ribs, knitted back the torn heart muscles, and replaced Je's spilled red blood with thick golde

Traveling inside the dimensional rift didn't feel like flying. It felt like being unravelled.Je saw his own hand turning into strings of green binary numbers, then back to flesh, then to rough pencil sketches, and back to flesh again."Je... I'm scared..." Rara hugged Je's waist tightly. Her zombie body flickered like a broken neon light. "They are trying to delete me. They say I'm junk files.""Hold onto me," Je gripped Rara's shoulder, channeling the golden-black Mana from his new heart. "You are not junk. You are a virus. And a virus is king inside a computer."BOOOOM!The monolith they were riding landed hard. Not on ground, but on a slick, transparent surface like glass stretching infinitely.Je opened his eyes.They had arrived.[Current Location: CENTRAL SERVER - SECTOR 4 (JAVA_SIMULATION)][Environment Status: Sterile]The view before them made the grandeur of Borobudur and the horror of Magelang look like children's toys.They were in a gigantic city made of white light and

[COUNTDOWN: 00:09]The white sky of the server city didn't turn dark; it turned into Noise.Eye-straining neon colors flashed hysterically. Data skyscrapers began to melt like burning wax, dripping hot binary code onto the glass streets."You... you destroyed us all!" Dewi crawled backward, her severed arm leaking messy blue pixels. Her beautiful face began to distort, her left eye enlarging three times its size, her mouth moving to her cheek.The server Glitch began to eat its own admin."We didn't destroy," Je walked closer, his steps calm amidst the digital apocalypse. He kicked Dewi's shattered tablet. "We performed a Hard Reset."[00:07]The sky above them tore completely open. No longer a small dimensional rift, but a gaping hole revealing Giant Eyes.They were the Audience.Eyes the size of football stadiums, staring down in panic. They were not human. Their pupils were square, their irises rotating like camera lenses. They screamed, their voices sounding like metal grinding in

The howling stopped abruptly, replaced by the rapid click-click-click of metal claws striking rusty iron.They were coming."Formation!" Je yelled, pulling Guntur and Sinta to the center, while he and Rara stood on the outside as living shields.From the sulfur fog, six shadows darted out.They were Chrome Hounds.They resembled Greyhounds (racing dogs), but their skin had been completely peeled off and replaced with shiny chrome plating. Their ribs were clearly visible, made of titanium protecting blue-glowing organ sacs inside.And they had no eyes. Their faces were just long snouts filled with heat sensors and jaws that could shear through steel.SHING!The first dog lunged at Je. Its speed was equal to a bullet.Je didn't dodge. He caught the dog's upper and lower jaws with both hands.CRACK!Je's Dhampir muscles tensed. He held the momentum of the 200-kilogram charging dog. Je's feet dragged backward, digging trenches in the clay soil."You're heavy, Dog!"The dog growled, a mech

"HOLD ON!"Je's scream was swallowed by the roar of the giant vacuum engine.Je and Rara didn't jump to the ground. They jumped up. Right toward the mechanical claw descending to harvest humans.CLANG!Je's hand gripped the cold iron of the claw. His Dhampir muscles tensed, fighting the pull of gravity as the steel cable was retracted back into the belly of the black saucer in the sky."We're taking the express elevator!" Je yelled, his legs swinging in empty air. Below him, the Rustbucket camp looked smaller and smaller, the screams of the kidnapped scavengers sounding faint."Je," Rara hung beside him with one hand, her torn dress flapping wildly in the strong wind. "Up there... it smells fishy. Lots of blood.""That means we're heading to the right place."They were pulled through the hatch door under the belly of the aircraft.WHAM!The hatch closed. Darkness seized for a moment, before red emergency rotating lights turned on.They were in the cargo hold of the Tax Collector ship.