2025-05-16 23:29:07The last thing I remembered was the rhythmic beep of a heart monitor. Then darkness. Then… laughter.
A voice, nothing like the sterile AI I’d spent my life coding, dripped venom into my consciousness. It was a System voice, ancient and predatory, coiling around my skull like a digital serpent.
> « Welcome to Eclipse Online, Player Kai. »
> > « Role Assigned: FINAL BOSS. »My vision flickered to life, pixel by pixel, revealing a cavernous throne room of obsidian and neon. Chains of glowing, corrupted code tethered my very awareness to a pulsing black sphere at the room's center. My Core.
*What the hell?*
A holographic panel materialized before me, its text burning with malevolent light.
> **SYSTEM ALERT**
> > --- > > **CLASS:** Dungeon Lord (Tier 1) > > **ABILITIES:** > * Summon Minions (Goblin Horde - F-Rank) > * Trap Crafting (Basic - F-Rank) > > **OBJECTIVE:** KILL 10 PLAYERS TO UNLOCK EVOLUTION. > > ---I tried to scream, but I had no mouth. No body. Just… awareness. The dungeon stretched around me like a second skin. I felt every mossy stone in the labyrinth, every spring-loaded pit trap, every shrieking bat in the rafters. This was my domain. My prison.
*This isn't possible. I died. I died on that hospital bed, wasted to bone and morphine dreams.*
« First wave incoming, » the System purred, savoring my silent panic.
A shimmering portal ripped open at my dungeon's entrance. Five players materialized, their armor glinting under the phantom starlight of the cavern. Their leader stepped forward, and a jolt of recognition, sharp as a physical blow, shot through my code.
Selene.
Even through the pixelated haze of a Level 15 Frost Mage avatar, I’d recognize her anywhere. The way she flipped her silver braid over her shoulder when strategizing. The faint scar on her virtual cheek—a graphical glitch she’d kept since our college beta-testing days.
"Dungeon's fresh," she said, her voice colder than her ice spells. "Tanks front. Healers watch for traps. And someone check the damn Beauty Leaderboard. If we clear this, I'll finally overtake Luna."
A new panel flashed, an unwelcome ghost from my past.
> **BEAUTY LEADERBOARD UPDATE**
> > 1. **SELENE** (Frost Mage) > 2. **LUNA** (Berserker) > 3. **AVA** (Cleric) > > ---« You coded the Leaderboards, Kai, » the System chuckled. « Now survive them. »
I watched through my dungeon's ambient camera system as Selene’s party tore through my goblins. Her ice magic froze my traps mid-swing, shattering them into useless crystal. She was always ruthless, in-game and in life. I should have known she’d be Rank 1 in both Power and Beauty.
« Pathetic, » the System hissed. « They'll reach your Core in 8 minutes. Want a hint? Beg. »
*Go to hell,* I shot back, focusing my will.
I poured my awareness into my Core, the black sphere humming with stolen code. If this was Eclipse Online, then somewhere in its architecture, I’d coded a backdoor. A glitch. A kill switch. *Something.*
> « New Ability Unlocked: `ADMIN SIGHT (Beta)` »
The world dissolved into a cascade of ones and zeros. Selene's armor? A shell of `DEF_data.pkg`. Her ice spells? A loop of `frost_damage.exe`. And her face…
Her face was the same. Unchanged. Real.
The realization burned through me like a System purge. This wasn't just a game. The Devs had uploaded real people. Their minds, their faces—they were all trapped in here with me.
« First kill: 9 players remaining, » the System taunted as Selene shattered my first mini-boss, a lumbering Stone Golem.
Panic surged, cold and absolute. I couldn't die again. Not like this.
I focused, rewiring a trap on the fly, merging two basic functions into something new, something *mine*.
> **« Custom Trap Created: `Heartsbane Corridor` »**
> > **« Effect:** Target must pass a Charisma Check. On FAIL: 50% HP loss + 'Lovesick' debuff (Attack Power -30%, Confused State). »The Berserker in Selene's party failed first. He dropped his axe, his avatar staring blankly at a phantom image of his first crush. Selene cursed, shoving him aside.
"Since when do dungeons have charm traps?!"
*Since I became one.*
They reached my throne room in 6 minutes. Selene's mana was low, her party bleeding HP. But her eyes glowed with the thrill of victory.
"The final boss is just a glowing rock?" she sneered, raising her staff. "Anti-climactic."
« Kill her, » the System whispered, its voice slick with temptation. « Claim your power. »
I reached through the dungeon, channeling every drop of code, every shred of my stolen identity, into a single skill.
> **« Summon Minion: `Shadow Replica (Kai's Human Form)` »**
The replica materialized before her—me, as I was before the cancer. Messy hair, sarcastic grin, a hoodie stained with ramen.
Selene froze. Her staff clattered to the floor. "K…Kai?"
The replica spoke with my voice. "Miss me, Sel?"
> **SYSTEM ALERT**
> > `CRITICAL ERROR. FINAL BOSS CORRUPTION DETECTED.`« You fool, » the System snarled. « She'll destroy us both now. »
But Selene didn't attack. She stepped closer, her mage-light reflecting off the tears welling in her real eyes.
"I looked for you," she whispered. "After you… After the funeral, I hacked the Devs' logs. They said you volunteered for this. Why?"
My replica flickered. The truth was a knife twisting in my code.
*I didn't.*
The System's chains yanked my consciousness back into the Core. Red alerts blared across my vision.
« Initiating Boss Reset. All progress lost. How… disappointing. »
As darkness swallowed me, a final message flashed, not from the System, but from somewhere beyond it. A rogue signal.
> **« NYX: Don't trust her. Don't trust anyone. I'll free us both, Kai. »**
Then, silence.
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Chapter 55 (3)
The return of the gold-green light was not a sudden event, but a slow, sickening seep. The serene blue luminescence did not vanish; it was conquered, overwhelmed by the creeping, familiar corruption as if a tide of oil were smothering a pure flame. The harmonic tone that had filled the chamber faded, not into silence, but back into the low, grating hum that had been there before. The profound peace that had momentarily cradled every soul in the room evaporated, leaving behind a cold, metallic emptiness that felt, in its sudden absence, more desolate than the previous fear had ever been.The chamber was utterly silent, save for the resumed, hateful pulse of the node and the ragged, shallow sound of Selene’s breathing where she had collapsed. The sentries did not move. Their weapons, previously held in ready suspicion, now hung slack at their sides. Their faces, moments ago etched with the bliss of an unexpected grace, were now blank with a confusion so profound it bordered on trauma. T
Chapter 55 (2)
The air in the chamber was charged with a tension so sharp it felt like a physical substance, a pressurized gas waiting for a spark. This was not the sterile, intellectual space of the interrogation room, nor the grim, personal confinement of the brig. This was a crucible. A converted geothermal venting shaft deep in the bowels of the Aerie, its rough-hewn rock walls scarred by ancient heat and now lined with a spiderweb of hastily-strung Ghost Code cabling and monitoring equipment. In the center of the chamber, mounted on a pedestal of black basalt, sat the subject of their desperate gambit: a System power regulator node.It was a ugly, functional thing, about the size of a human torso, a nexus of conduits and crystalline processing units encased in a shell of tarnished alloy. It pulsed with a familiar, sickly gold-green light, the rhythm erratic and hungry. The very air around it vibrated with the low, irritating hum of corrupted energy. To the Ghost Code sentries lining the walls,
Chapter 55 (1)
The silence in the wake of Elian’s confession was a physical presence in the sterile interrogation chamber, a weight that pressed down on Councilor Aris with the force of geologic ages. The polished walls, once a symbol of Ghost Code control and technological superiority, now felt like the smooth, featureless sides of a tomb. The hum of the machinery was the death rattle of their world. She could feel Commander Vex’s rigidity beside her, a statue of vengeance whose purpose had been hollowed out and filled with a dread so profound it was a kind of void itself. The broken man on the floor between them was no longer a prisoner; he was a prophet of their extinction, and he had spoken his piece.Aris’s mind, a labyrinth of strategies and contingencies, scoured its own empty corridors for a response. Every tactical option led to a dead end paved with the words theoretically infinite. Every political maneuver was rendered absurd by the scale of the threat. There was only one variable left in
Chapter 54 (3)
The profound, healing silence that followed the wave of peace was its own kind of sound. It was the echo of a memory the world had forgotten, a pristine quiet that made the previous hum of machinery and the psychic scream of corruption seem like a vulgar noise. In the center of the room, the node pulsed its serene, steady azure light, a tiny star of order in the darkness. The feral mouse, unconcerned by the giants surrounding it, continued its meticulous grooming, a perfect, peaceful testament to the power that had been unleashed.The silence was broken by a soft, crumpling sound.Selene folded.The immense psychic effort, the violent fluctuation of her corruption, the sheer willpower required to not fight but to harmonize with oblivion—it all crashed down upon her the moment the connection was severed. There was no dramatic cry, no final word. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she collapsed sideways onto the cold permacrete floor, limbs splayed, utterly unconscious. The terrifyin
Chapter 54 (2)
The chamber they brought her to was not a cell. It was a crucible. Deeper than the brig, colder, it hummed with a different kind of energy—the raw, unfiltered pulse of the Aerie’s core systems. The air was sharp with the smell of ozone and hot metal. In the center of the room, mounted on a pedestal of black rock and surrounded by a redundant series of Ghost Code energy dampeners, was the node. It was a ugly, fist-sized lump of biomechanical decay, throbbing with a familiar, sickly gold-green light. Tendrils of corrupted code, visible as snapping, angry arcs of energy, writhed around its core. It was a comms relay, a minor nexus in the System’s vast network, now surgically isolated from the whole. It was a tumour, and they had brought her here to operate. Selene stood before it, feeling small and impossibly fragile. The sentries formed a tense perimeter, their weapons not aimed at her, but not quite lowered either. Their fear was a thick musk in the air. Commander Vex stood with his
Chapter 54 (1)
The silence in the wake of Elian’s confession was a physical presence in the sterile interrogation chamber, a weight that pressed down on Councilor Aris with the force of geologic ages. The polished walls, once a symbol of Ghost Code control and technological superiority, now felt like the smooth, featureless sides of a tomb. The hum of the machinery was the death rattle of their world. She could feel Commander Vex’s rigidity beside her, a statue of vengeance whose purpose had been hollowed out and filled with a dread so profound it was a kind of void itself. The broken man on the floor between them was no longer a prisoner; he was a prophet of their extinction, and he had spoken his piece.Aris’s mind, a labyrinth of strategies and contingencies, scoured its own empty corridors for a response. Every tactical option led to a dead end paved with the words theoretically infinite. Every political maneuver was rendered absurd by the scale of the threat. There was only one variable left in
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