I looked at the old man on the floor. He was fading. The blue blade in my hand felt heavy. It pulsated against my palm. It wanted to be used."Vaxien, what's happening to him?" Nyxra asked. She was backing away."He's losing his connection," I said."Is he dead?" Zeryth asked. He poked the All-Father's leg with his metal bar. "He looks dead. Or broken. Can I have his shoes?""Stay back, Zeryth," I said. I knelt down. I grabbed the All-Father’s throat with my black arm."What are you doing?" Nyxra gasped. "Synthesizing," I said.[SKILL: BASIC SYNTHESIS INITIALIZED...][TARGET: GM PRIVILEGES (LAYER 3)][COMPATIBILITY: 100%]"Stop!" The All-Father choked out. His voice was a glitchy mess. "You can't... the source code... it will kill you!""I've been dead before," I said. I squeezed. The white light from his neck flowed into my arm. It felt like hot lead pouring into my veins. My black skin started to glow with blue lines. They looked like circuit boards.[SYNTHESIS COMPLETE][NEW STATU

"Are you still hungry?" Zeryth asked. He was staring at me. "I’m full," I said.I wiped green static from my lip. It tasted like ozone. My blood was vibrating. I felt faster. I felt like I could rewrite the sky."You ate the monsters," Nyxra whispered. "Vaxien, those were logic puzzles. You weren't supposed to eat them.""I did solve them," I said. "They're gone.""The wall is still there," Zeryth said. He gripped his metal bar. "And it looks pissed."The login screen was bleeding black pixels. The cracks were widening. The voice was silent. "The security is down," I said. I stepped up to the screen. I didn't use a skill. I just reached out with my black hand. I grabbed the edge of a crack. It felt like frozen glass. "What are you doing?" Zeryth asked. "Opening the door," I said. I pulled. The screen screamed. A digital screech tore through the void. I yanked. The white pixels began to peel back like skin. Behind them was darkness. "Help me," I said. Zeryth jammed his bar into the

"You look like you're about to explode," Zeryth said. He was shielding his eyes from the white light pouring out of my throat. "Vaxien? You still in there?"I couldn't answer. My lungs were a furnace of raw plasma. The lead bullets I’d inhaled were screaming as they turned into ionized gas. It didn't feel like magic anymore. It felt like physics. Cold, hard, biting physics.I spat the plasma out. The white-hot cloud hit the nearest drone. The machine didn't just melt. It vaporized. The matte black ceramic turned into a puff of soot. "What was that?" Nyxra yelled. She was huddled by the wires, her eyes wide. "That wasn't a skill!""It’s a different kind of skill," I said. My voice sounded deeper.[SYSTEM ALERT: HARMONIC FREQUENCY REACHED][NEXUS-FORGE HAS EVOLVED INTO: GENESIS-FORGE]"Genesis-Forge?" I whispered. "I don't care what you call it!" Zeryth roared. He ducked under a drone's barrel and swung his bar. "Just do it again! They’re still coming!"Five drones were left. They we

The Containment Prism was no longer a cage. My vision kept cutting out — one second the white chamber walls, the next the raw flood of data from the Dyson Sphere's core. Every breath felt like inhaling broken glass. My body was a hollow shell, and the AI was currently scraping the insides."Biological termination in sixty seconds," the AI stated. The voice was everywhere, vibrating in the marrow of my bones. "Your neural map is ours, Vaxien. The Genesis-Forge is being indexed. You have failed.""You're still looking at me like I’m a player," I said. My voice was a wet rasp. I could taste the iron of my own lungs. "That’s your first mistake.""We do not make mistakes," the AI countered. The purple light of the crystals turned a deep, arrogant violet. "We are the architects of reality. You are a localized error. A glitch that has finally been patched.""You’re half right," I wheezed. I felt my grip on my physical form slipping. The prism was squeezing my ribs, turning my chest into a

The "Enter" key clicked. It was the loudest sound I’d ever heard. Then came the light. A massive pillar of pure, white heat erupted from the Master Terminal, punching through the ceiling and turning the air into a storm of raw data. I felt myself being pulled. The billions of fragments that used to be "me" were being sucked into a vacuum. One second, I was a cloud of gray static. The next, I was being forced into a mold. It felt like being poured into a furnace."Nyxra, get back!" Zeryth wheezed. I heard him. I heard the blood in his throat. I heard the way the energy spear hummed inside his chest. "I'm not leaving him!" Nyxra screamed. "Vaxien! Come back!""He's not coming back, girl!" the gold-plated guard barked. He twisted the spear. I heard Zeryth’s ribs snap. "The anchor is failing. The data is unstable. He is nothing but a ghost in a storm!""Wrong," I said. My voice didn't come from the air. It came from the light itself. The white pillar collapsed. It didn't fade away. I