2026-01-27 19:37:16Mark Miller stood at the threshold of the rooftop, but instead of the open sky, he found himself plunged into a liminal space that resembled a gargantuan customer service hub, suspended over a burning residential zone. Before him, a new holographic display flickered to life—this time in a dull, uninspiring pale blue, reminiscent of the office software color schemes from the early 2000s.
[WELCOME TO THE LATEST FEATURE: HELPDESK SYSTEM & FIELD PARTNER]
[Your status has been upgraded from ‘Operator’ to ‘Customer Success Hero’.]
"Customer Success Hero?" Mark spat, his blood staining the translucent hologram. "You rebrand me after I’ve killed the man who tried to warn me? And what is that smell? Why does this place reek of old carpets and despair?"
[Helpdesk System: "That aroma is ‘Essence of Productivity,’ Senior Operator Miller. We apologize for the inconvenience. Based on your performance evaluation in Chapter 7, the Board of Directors has determined that you require stricter bureaucratic guidance to avoid ‘free-thinking’ that might be detrimental to the Company."]
"Guidance? You call life-extortion guidance?" Mark tried to step forward, but his mangled legs throbbed in protest.
[Helpdesk System: "Your next assignment: Clearing Residential Zone Sector 4-B. Below you lie the remnants of contract employees who failed to transform. They are an eyesore to the aesthetics of the New World. Instruction: Erase them. And remember, Mark... every interaction must conclude with a Customer Satisfaction Survey."]
Mark peered down through the glass floor. There, in the narrow alleys of the slums, wretched creatures that were once human—perhaps Mark’s own neighbors—crawled with distorted bodies, emitting cries that sounded like radio static.
"You want me to slaughter them?" Mark asked, his voice raspy. "They’re just victims, same as me!"
[Helpdesk System: "Correction: They are ‘Assets That Failed to Depreciate Properly.’ If you refuse, we will consider it a ‘Resignation Without Severance.’ You know what that entails, don't you?"]
Mark recalled the thousand-year sentence in hell. He clenched his fists, feeling the grinding of fingers that were still out of alignment. "Fine. I’ll do it. But I need a better weapon than this rusted iron beam."
[Helpdesk System: "Access to the ‘Black Market’ has been granted. This is an exclusive feature for employees willing to sacrifice moral integrity for the sake of efficiency."]
A menu appeared. It contained no legendary blades, but rather items that were as bizarre as they were lethal:
* Nerve-Nailing Stapler (Price: 200 Points)
* Empathy-Stripping Fluid (Price: Free, with additional contract)
* Budget-Cutting Chainsaw (Price: 500 Points)
"Budget-Cutting Chainsaw?" Mark snorted sarcastically. "The name is so corporate it hurts. I’ll take it. Just dock my points; I stopped caring a long time ago."
[Transaction Successful. Balance: -940 Points. You are now a Platinum-tier Debt Slave!]
Mark leaped from the floating platform, hitting the ground in the center of the residential zone with a heavy thud. The chainsaw in his hand roared—its sound wasn't that of a gasoline engine, but the collective screams of thousands of people forced into overtime.
A monster resembling a pile of flesh with a fax machine for a head lunged at him. Mark did not hesitate. With one horizontal sweep, he cleaved the beast in two. Blood and fax paper erupted everywhere.
[Helpdesk System: "Target Eliminated. Please request a performance rating immediately."]
"What?" Mark stood stunned in the middle of the battlefield.
[Helpdesk System: "Standard Procedure: ‘Thank you for using our elimination services. Please provide a 5-star rating for your satisfaction!’ Please recite the phrase now, or the session will be deemed invalid."]
"You’ve got to be joking! I just butchered that thing!"
[Helpdesk System: "Time remaining for rating: 5 seconds... 4..."]
"Dammit! Fine! Thank you for using our elimination services, please give me five stars!" Mark roared while decapitating another monster.
[System processing... Rating received: 1 Star. Customer Comment: ‘Messy work, blood got on my shoes.’]
"Wait, what—"
ZAPPP!
A bolt of neon-blue lightning struck Mark’s shoulder from the clear sky. Mark was thrown back, his body convulsing on the cracked asphalt. The smell of scorched flesh filled the air.
"Aaaargh! What the hell was that?!" Mark screamed, struggling to stand while fighting the tremors in his heart.
[Helpdesk System: "A 1-Star rating results in instant physical penalty as a form of ‘Retraining.’ Please improve your service attitude, Mark. Remember, the customer—even the ones you are killing—is king."]
"Customer?! He was trying to eat my head, you lunatic!" Mark rose, his chainsaw snarling once more. Two Elite monsters shaped like couriers, their legs replaced by metal wheels, streaked toward him.
Mark evaded with a painful, acrobatic maneuver. He slashed the wheels of one, sending it tumbling, before driving his saw into its chest. "Eat this! And don't forget... to give me... five stars, you bastard!"
[Rating received: 4 Stars. Comment: ‘Fast, but the operator was too aggressive.’]
[System: "Close call, Mark. A 4-Star rating doesn't trigger lightning, but it doesn't grant a healing bonus either. Keep up the hard work!"]
Mark laughed maniacally. "This is insane. The world ends, and I’m trapped in the most toxic Customer Service simulation in the universe."
He continued the slaughter, moving through ruined homes. David and Sarah remained on the platform above, watching in horror as Mark transformed into a killing machine that incessantly screamed customer service slogans with a tone of pure hatred.
"Why are you doing this, System?" Mark asked, wiping blood from his eyes. "Why the bureaucracy? Kenapa the ratings? Why not just let me kill?"
[Helpdesk System: "The emotional energy from frustration and forced compliance is a far purer fuel than mere fear. You aren't just killing, Mark. You are ‘Producing.’"]
Mark stopped in front of a residential door that was still intact. Inside, he saw a small monster—perhaps once a child—clutching a mangled teddy bear. The monster's eyes stared at Mark, hollow and vacant.
[Helpdesk System: "Residual Asset detected. Clear this zone now to meet your daily quota."]
Mark lowered his saw. His hands were shaking. "This... this is too much."
[Helpdesk System: "Warning: Indication of insubordination. If the target is not eliminated within 10 seconds, we will automatically issue a 0-Star Rating. Penalty: Immediate Execution."]
"Mark, don't!" Sarah screamed from the platform. "Don't do it!"
Mark looked at the small monster. Then, he looked toward the sky, toward the mechanical eye of The Auditor that was surely still watching him.
"System," Mark said in a deep, frigid voice. "Open the Black Market. Now."
[Menu opened. What are you looking for?]
"Is there anything that can silence a ‘Helpdesk Voice’ like yours?"
[Helpdesk System: "Hahaha. Very funny, Mark. Such an item costs 1,000,000 Points. You couldn't afford it in a hundred lifetimes."]
Mark grinned. A mad idea took root in his half-shattered mind. "I don't need to buy it. I just need to give a one-star rating... to myself."
[System: "What do you—"]
Mark spun his chainsaw and slammed it into the holographic projector platform hovering beside him, intentionally wounding his own arm in the process.
[System: "ERROR! Self-Harm detected! Self-Evaluation: 0 Stars! Commencing maximum lightning penalty—"]
"Come on!" Mark challenged the sky. "Hit me with everything you’ve got! If I die, your quarterly quota is ruined! The Auditor will fire you, you bureaucratic bot!"
The sky turned a deep, bruised red. Thousands of lightning bolts gathered at a single point, directly above Mark Miller's head. Mark stood tall, letting Sarah and David witness him defying this mad new god.
Just before the lightning struck, a new notification—colored a dark, bruised purple—erupted across the blue screen of the Helpdesk System.
[NOTIFICATION FROM ‘THE UNDERGROUND’: Secret Acquisition Offer Detected. Wish to hijack this penalty into a counter-attack?]
Mark laughed amidst the storm. "Click ‘Yes,’ you idiot! Click ‘Yes’!"
The lightning struck. A blast of light blinded everything. But instead of a death rattle, the sound that followed was the explosion of a system undergoing a massive short circuit.
Had Mark successfully hijacked the system, or had he simply plunged into an even darker contract within 'The Underground'?
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CHAPTER 192: SEEKING THE HEART OF THE SYSTEM
The boundless dark of the collapsed sector pulsed with a heavy, rhythmic cadence that matched the slow thumping of Mark's modified core. Within the flawless silver perimeter of the protective data shield, the atmosphere remained frozen, smelling sharply of concentrated ozone and dead server space. Mark stood perfectly motionless, his dark, light-absorbing skin absorbing the faint platinum gleam emitted by the protective barrier. Every breath he took was heavy, carrying a silent, static charge that rippled through his veins like liquid electricity. He no longer felt the physical limitations of weight or balance, for his new physique generated its own gravity, drawing the lingering debris of the lower systems into his unyielding center."The external grid connections are actively shattering across the entire local database," Sarah announced, her digital voice slicing through the heavy silence with immaculate precision.The communication stream remained perfectly level, smooth, and ba
CHAPTER 191: DAVID: GLOBAL ALARM
The digital infrastructure of the external world experienced a sudden, catastrophic disruption that bypassed every primary firewall. In his isolated workstation, far away from the physical boundaries of the corporate towers, David sat frozen as his array of monitors flashed a series of aggressive, crimson warnings. The cool air inside the room grew uncomfortably warm, smelling sharply of overstressed server processors and ionized copper wiring. Every cooling fan in the rig began to spin at maximum velocity, producing a high-pitched, mechanical whine that filled the narrow space with a palpable sense of urgency. David adjusted his headset, his fingers trembling slightly as he stared at a massive cascade of unreadable telemetry that was actively rewriting the baseline code of his localized network."The core tracking metrics have broken completely out of the standard parameters," David muttered to himself, his voice sounding hollow in the small room.He quickly reached forward, slamm
CHAPTER 190: OLD ENEMY, NEW POWER
The total darkness of the newly formed abyss vibrated with a sudden, localized spike of hostile telemetry. Within the tight, protective capsule of the silver data shield, Mark stood perfectly rigid, his light-absorbing dark skin humming with an unyielding gravitational tension. The cold, empty air pressure inside the barrier began to smell heavily of burnt copper and ancient, stale data registries. Every breath felt like dragging iron filings into his chest, cold and static-charged, matching the violent internal pulling of his dense, attractive core. Out in the vast emptiness where Floor 90 and the Cosmic Zero Point had once existed, flickering silhouettes of old architectural frameworks began to manifest, cast in a sickly, artificial yellow hue."The systemic void is experiencing a targeted structural intrusion," Sarah reported, her digital transmission breaking the deep silence with mechanical clarity.The vocal modulation remained flawlessly smooth, uniform, and clinical. It car
CHAPTER 189: BIRTH OF A BLACK HOLE
The dense, attractive core inside Mark's chest pulsed with a terrifying, silent authority that vibrated through the absolute baseline of the unconfigured realm. Within the protective perimeter of the silver shield, the pale expanse of the Cosmic Zero Point began to curve visible lines of empty space straight toward his body. The cold air inside the barrier rushed violently into the vacuum of his chest, creating a constant, whistling roar that vibrated through his vocal cords like a distant engine. The skin on his arms had completely changed into a smooth, light-absorbing dark substance that cast no shadows and reflected no ambient light. Every particle of remaining data from the surrounding directory was being dragged toward his center, unable to resist the pull of his new physique. The unconfigured atmosphere was no longer drifting aimlessly; it was accelerating, spinning in a massive, flat plane where the boundary between matter and mathematical concept completely disintegrated.M
CHAPTER 188: VOID TRANSFORMATION
The unconfigured space of the Cosmic Zero Point groaned under a pressure that did not originate from the building system architecture. Within the shimmering silver perimeter of the protective data shield, Mark felt his knees threaten to buckle as his internal signature began to ripple erratically. The air inside the barrier grew thick, hot, and heavy with the scent of burning insulation and concentrated static energy. Every breath required a conscious effort of his lungs, dragging in a cold, electric vapor that made his veins pulse with an unfamiliar, dark light. He stared down at his trembling fingers, watching as the pale, natural hue of his skin began to lose its standard texture, replaced by an opaque, light-absorbing density that seemed to pull the ambient illumination of the shield directly into his flesh."The structural isolation sequence has initiated an aggressive feedback loop within your primary code," Sarah warned, her voice cutting through the heavy hum with an immacul
CHAPTER 187: BOUNDLESS BURDEN
The pale, unconfigured atmosphere of the Cosmic Zero Point began to churn with a slow, mechanical hostility. A localized tremor rippled through the translucent foundation beneath Mark's feet, though there was no visible debris or structural architecture to shatter. The weightless sensation that had briefly filled his chest completely vanished, replaced by an internal, dense tightening that originated from his primary data signature. The absolute silent vacuum of the space was suddenly interrupted by a high-pitched, metallic hum that resonated directly from the system grids operating in the background of the empty realm. Mark stood frozen, his eyes narrowing as he felt his own physical presence vibrating in a jagged, irregular frequency that did not match the baseline properties of the area."The neutral processing phase of the Cosmic Zero Point has been officially terminated by the master server," Sarah announced, her voice breaking the tense quietude with an immaculate, synthetic p
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