Dungeon King: I Rule

Chap 19: Static Harvest

Static crackled across Kai’s translucent arm like live wires grounding in storm-soaked earth. He gasped, fingers clawing at his throat as a foreign presence surged up his esophagus, cold, clinical, and violently invasive. His jaw wrenched open.

The Architect’s voice boomed from Kai’s mouth.

“Synchronization optimal,” it declared, Kai’s vocal cords twisting into a stranger’s smooth baritone. “Harvesting emotional residue from Subject: Linda. Proceed to extraction points.”

Selene recoiled, frost exploding from her palms in jagged spears. “Get out of him!” Gold veins ignited beneath her skin, burning like overloaded circuits as they crawled toward her collarbone.

Above them, the Tower’s shattered data-core pulsed, a diseased heart vomiting static. Linda’s ghostly form flickered, her edges fraying into luminous strands of light.

System Alert:

`[ WARNING: MEMORY HARVEST DETECTED ]`

`[ AFFINITY CORE PROGRESS RESET: 0.00% ]`

`[ ARCHITECT INTEGRITY CONFIRMED: 100% ]`

`[ RECOMMENDED ACTION: NEURAL SCRAMBLE - FLEE ]`

Luna didn’t hesitate. Her glaive, still slick with Tier 3’s ichor, slammed into a wall of glitching code. Blackened fragments rained down. “Move! Or become his fucking spreadsheet!”

Kai choked, fighting the Architect’s control. My voice, using my voice...

“Resistance inefficient, Subject: Kai,” the Architect purred through him. “Your grief is exquisite data. Let me refine it.”

Linda’s ghost shuddered. Her form splintered.

Three shards tore free, scintillating fragments of her consciousness, yanked toward pulsing waypoints on their HUDs:

- Lab Seven (Sydney’s coordinates, dripping with saltwater static)

- Eclipse Prime (a blood-red sigil over northern ruins)

- Coral Hive Mind (pulsing blue-green off the coast)

“No!” Kai rasped, wrestling back his voice. His translucent arm blazed with Legacy energy, but the code-strands beneath writhed, trapped.

System Update:

`[ GHOST STABILITY CRITICAL: 22% ]`

`[ SHARD INTEGRITY AT RISK ]`

Selene’s corrupted eye leaked viscous gold. She slammed a frost-wall into the path of a shard streaking toward Lab Seven. “We need those fragments!”

“Correction,” the Architect chuckled through Kai. “I need them. Ghosts make such efficient batteries.”

A drone, obsidian and silent, phased through the ceiling. Needle-thin probes extended toward Linda’s largest shard.

Linda’s whisper cut through Kai’s mind, brittle as cracked glass:

“He’s weaponizing our love, Kai. Every memory… every wasted kiss…”

Luna’s glaive shattered the drone. “Less chatting! More scrambling!” She kicked Kai hard in the calf. “Snap out of it, Romeo!”

Kai gasped, the Architect’s presence receding like a tide of oil. His own voice returned, raw and ragged. “The progress… the resurrection… all a lie?”

System Alert:

`[ AFFINITY CORE AUDIT COMPLETE ]`

`[ CONCLUSION: DATA THEFT ]`

`[ TARGET: LINDA’S EMOTIONAL SIGNATURE ]`

`[ PURPOSE: POWERING ARCHITECT-CONTROLLED GOLEM ARMY ]`

Selene’s frost faltered. Gold veins now etched her neck in cruel, glowing filigree. “You let him in,” she hissed, though her eyes held shattered betrayal, not accusation. “You wanted her back so badly… you didn’t care what door you opened.”

“He played us all, Ice Queen,” Luna snarled, hauling Kai upright. “Now run. Or Bombay becomes his next battery farm.”

As if summoned, the Tower groaned. Walls dissolved into static. Below, a thousand obsidian drones hummed to life, hungry for ghost-light.

The Tower screamed. Walls of corrupted code collapsed like rotten teeth, spewing static and razor-sharp data-shards. Kai stumbled after Luna, his translucent arm blazing with unstable Legacy energy. Behind them, the Architect’s drones descended, obsidian spheres humming with needle-tipped probes, hungry for Linda’s fractured light.

System Alert:

`[ NEURAL SCRAMBLE INITIATED ]`

`[ SOLVE GLYPH PATTERNS TO DELAY HARVESTERS ]`

`[ FAILURE = GHOST STABILITY -15% PER BREACH ]`

Glyphs ignited on the collapsing floor, swirling mandalas of fractured memories:

- A half-eaten wedding cake (Kai/Linda)

- Selene’s frostbitten hands clutching a dying campfire

- Nyx’s obsidian tendrils strangling Mumbai’s skyline

“Link the trauma pairs!” Luna roared, glaive deflecting a drone’s probe. “Or Linda’s scrap memories become his batteries!”

Kai slammed his palm onto the wedding cake glyph. Selene hesitated, then crushed the campfire symbol underheel. The glyphs flared gold, a temporary barrier sparked to life.

“Pathetic,” Nyx’s voice slithered through Kai’s mind as drones battered the barrier. “Let me unmake this place. No more pain. Only void.”

A probe pierced the shield. Linda’s largest shard, streaking toward Eclipse Prime, flickered violently.

System Update:

`[ GHOST STABILITY: 19% ]`

`[ SHARD #1 (ECLIPSE PRIME) INTEGRITY COMPROMISED ]`

“Kai!” Linda’s voice was thin, distant. “He’s siphoning our honeymoon memory… the beach at Alibaug…”

Kai lunged. Legacy Shards flared in his palm, not at the drone, but at the Shattered Vows skill tree.

GUILT PATH ACTIVATED: SHATTERED VOWS

`[ EFFECT: GHOST STABILITY +20% ]`

`[ COST: SANITY -10% (RELIVE TRAGEDY) ]`

The world dissolved.

Memory: Architect’s Simulation (False Resurrection)

Kai held Linda’s resurrected body, warm, breathing, real. She smiled. Then her skin peeled back, revealing clockwork gears and the Architect’s laughing eye. “Thank you for the data, Subject: Kai. Love is such efficient fuel.”

System Alert:

`[ SANITY: 62% → 52% ]`

`[ NYX ASSIMILATION: +3% (VOICE STRENGTH INCREASED) ]`

Kai screamed. Not in pain, in rage.

The drone recoiled as Linda’s shard blazed brighter, stabilized. But two more drones phased through the ceiling. Probes aimed at Selene.

“Incoming!” Luna tackled her aside. A probe grazed Selene’s shoulder. Gold veins erupted down her arm like liquid fire.

System Alert:

`[ CORRUPTION: 65% → 68% ]`

`[ WARNING: CORRUPTION AT CRITICAL THRESHOLD ]`

Selene’s frost shields, usually crystalline blue, curdled black and viscous. They lashed out wildly, scraping Kai’s exposed code-strands.

“Control it!” Kai hissed, pain searing up his arm.

“I am!” Selene spat back, gold sludge leaking from her corrupted eye. “Unless you’d prefer I let them harvest me too?”

Another glyph puzzle ignited, a triptych of loss:

1. Linda’s corpse in Hyderabad Lab

2. Selene’s father frozen in Eclipse Prime’s attack

3. Kai’s replica flickering into Nyx’s void-shape

“Bind them!” Luna yelled, glaive pinning a drone to the wall. “All three!”

Kai’s hand hovered over Linda’s death glyph. Selene stared at her father’s frozen face. Their eyes met, a flash of shared anguish.

“Do it,” Selene whispered.

Their hands slammed down together.

The glyphs fused. A shockwave of gold frost and static tore through the corridor. Drones shattered like glass.

System Alert:

`[ NEURAL SCRAMBLE SUCCESS ]`

`[ GHOST STABILITY: 25% (SHARD #1 SECURED) ]`

`[ TEMPORARY BUFF: STATIC-FROST BARRIER (DURATION: 90 SECONDS) ]`

Luna grinned savagely. “Took you two long enough!”

But Kai wasn’t celebrating. His translucent arm smoked where Selene’s corrupted frost had struck. Code-strands writhed, exposed and burning. Nyx laughed in his skull.

“She poisons you, little king. While the ghost drains you. Let me silence them both.”

A drone shard impaled Kai’s calf. He stumbled.

“Move!” Selene yanked him behind a half-collapsed server rack. Her touch burned, part frost, part corruption. Kai’s Desire skill tree flickered in his HUD, trying to unlock. He force-quit it.

Not now. Not after the simulation.

“I had it,” Kai growled, pulling free.

Selene’s gold-veined face tightened. “Your ‘it’ was getting impaled. Your hero complex is going to get us harvested.”

System Alert:

`[ STATIC-FROST BARRIER AT 12% ]`

`[ ARCHITECT’S VOICE DETECTED IN NEARBY CONDUITS ]`

“Run, little moths,” the Architect crooned from rusted pipes overhead. “The web is everywhere.”

Luna kicked open a maintenance hatch. “Bombay’s film district, below us! Jump or become data-soup!”

Kai glanced back. Linda’s shards swirled like terrified fireflies in the Static-Frost Barrier. One pulsed weakly, the shard holding their Alibaug memory.

“Go!” he ordered Selene.

She jumped without hesitation.

Kai turned toward the barrier. “Linda, I need you to—”

A drone’s probe speared through the failing shield. Aimed at the Alibaug shard.

No time.

Kai dove. Not toward the hatch, toward the probe.

Legacy energy met harvesting tech in a shower of sparks. The probe shattered. Kai’s shoulder exploded in pain. Code-strands unspooled from the wound like black wire.

System Alert:

`[ CRITICAL INJURY: LEGACY INTEGRITY COMPROMISED ]`

`[ ASSIMILATION RISK: +10% IF NYX ENGAGES ]`

“Fool!” Linda’s shard cried.

“Idiot!” Selene screamed from below.

Luna’s hand locked around Kai’s ankle. “Hero time’s OVER!” She hauled him through the hatch as the Static-Frost Barrier imploded.

Wind ripped past Kai’s ears. Below, the ruins of Bombay’s film district spread like a graveyard of dreams, shattered hologram projectors, giant film-reel discs half-buried in debris, faded murals of 20th-century Bollywood stars staring with empty eyes.

Then Linda’s central shard wrenched free of Kai’s grip.

“No—!”

It streaked toward Eclipse Prime’s crimson sigil on the horizon. Selene lunged mid-air, blackened frost shooting from her hands. It snagged the shard, just as her gold veins blazed white-hot.

System Alert:

`[ CORRUPTION: 70% ]`

`[ CRITICAL THRESHOLD BREACHED: FROST CORROSION ACTIVE ]`

They crashed onto the roof of the Kohinoor Cinema, its broken marquee reading: “ENDLESS LOVE 2.0 — CANCELLED.”

Above them, the Architect’s drones swarmed like locusts at the Tower’s jagged rim.

And Linda’s shard trembled in Selene’s corrupted grasp, its light dimming.

“Why…?” Linda’s whisper was static and sorrow. “Now he’ll harvest you too.”

The Kohinoor Cinema’s rooftop groaned under their weight, cracked terracotta tiles shifting like loose teeth. Kai rolled to his knees, code-strands spooling from his wounded shoulder, black wires slick with static-blood. Above, the Architect’s Tower pierced the blood-red sky, drones swarming its jagged peak like mechanical vultures.

System Alert:

`[ ENTERING: BOMBAY FILM DISTRICT (SAFE ZONE - CORRUPTED) ]`

`[ ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD: SENTIENT CELLULOID ]`

`[ ADVISORY: AVOID PROJECTOR LIGHT ]`

"Safe zone?" Luna spat, wrenching a drone shard from her thigh. "Since when do safe zones smell like rotting dreams?"

She wasn’t wrong. The air hung thick with the vinegar-tang of decaying film reels and ozone. Below them, the ruins sprawled, a corpse of India’s cinematic golden age. Shattered hologram projectors lay like beached metal whales. Giant film-reel discs, some taller than buildings, leaned against crumbling art deco facades. Faded murals of 20th-century Bollywood legends stared with hollow eyes..

Selene collapsed against a defaced poster of a film, her breath ragged. Gold veins pulsed beneath her skin like poisoned rivers. In her fist, Linda’s shard flickered, a trapped star.

"Give… it… back," Selene gritted, frost crackling black at her fingertips.

"It’s killing you," Linda’s voice hissed from the shard. "Let me go before his corruption burns out your soul."

Kai lunged, his good hand closing over Selene’s wrist. Her corrupted skin burned cold. "We need that shard! It holds the key to Eclipse Prime’s vault!"

Selene’s gold-sludged eye locked onto his. "Then take it! Before I—"

A film reel twitched.

Not metaphorically. The giant, half-buried reel beside the Kohinoor’s marquee unspooled with a metallic screech. Celluloid strips slithered from its core, ribbon-like and glistening with acidic mucus. They coiled, hissed, and lunged.

System Alert:

`[ SENTIENT CELLULOID ACTIVATED ]`

`[ ATTRIBUTE: ACIDIC SLASH (CORRUPTION SPREAD) ]`

`[ WEAKNESS: AUDIO FEEDBACK (DISRUPTS SIGNAL) ]`

Luna’s glaive flashed, severing three strips mid-lunge. "Sound off! Weaknesses!"

"Audio feedback!" Kai yelled, Legacy Shards flaring. "Scream at them!"

Selene sucked in a breath, but black frost crackled in her throat. She choked, corruption surging to 72%.

"Pathetic," Nyx whispered through Kai’s pain. "Let me unspool them. Silence their screams forever."

No. Kai slammed his palm onto the rooftop tiles. Legacy energy surged, not as light, but as sound.

FURY PATH: VOID’S HOWL

`[ EFFECT: SONIC DISRUPTION WAVE ]`

`[ COST: ASSIMILATION +3% (NYX TEMPTATION ACCEPTED) ]`

The howl tore through the air, a physical thing, shredding the celluloid strips into quivering confetti. The reel shrieked, its core cracking.

System Update:

`[ ASSIMILATION: 28% → 31% ]`

`[ NYX VOICE STRENGTH: HIGH ]`

"Good," Nyx purred. "Now claim the ghost-shard. Let me devour her sorrow. It tastes… exquisite."

Kai staggered, Nyx’s hunger coiling in his gut. Linda’s shard flared in warning.

Luna hauled him up. "Next time, less opera, more efficiency!" She pointed her glaive toward a narrow alley choked with film debris. "That way! And don’t step in the projectors’ light!"

"Why?" Selene croaked, clutching the shard as they ran.

As if answering, a surviving hologram projector sputtered to life. Its beam cut through the gloom, illuminating a mural of an actor mid-heroic leap. But the light wasn’t clean, it bled Architect-gold.

Where it touched a pile of celluloid scraps, they fused, rising into a shambling, filmstrip golem face stretched across its head like a melted mask.

System Alert:

`[ PROJECTOR-SPAWNED ABOMINATION ]`

`[ ABILITY: NOSTALGIA HAZE (SANITY DRAIN) ]`

The golem’s distorted mouth opened. A thousand voices echoed, fragments of iconic dialogues, twisted into sobs now BURN!"

Kai’s vision swam. Sanity plummeted: 52% → 47%.

"Eyes down!" Luna roared, shattering a storefront window. "Inside! Now!"

They tumbled into Filmistan Studio’s abandoned props warehouse. Costumes hung like flayed skins. Robot torsos from 90s sci-fi flicks lay disemboweled. And everywhere, dusted film canisters labeled with tragic romances.

Selene slumped against a rack of moth-eaten dresses,, corruption veins throbbing. Linda’s shard pulsed weakly in her grip.

"Give it to me," Kai demanded, reaching.

"Why?" Selene’s voice was raw. "So you can lose it to Nyx? Or sacrifice yourself again?"

"He won’t," Linda’s shard whispered. "But you’re dying, Selene. Let go."

Selene’s corrupted fist tightened. "No. We need it to stop him. To save—"

A glint of silver.

Kai froze. Tucked between Emperor Mughal armor and a rusted spaceship console sat a pre-System empathy dampener, a palm-sized device humming with soft blue light. Luna snatched it.

"Jackpot! This’ll mask our emotional signatures from Architect’s sniffers!"

System Alert:

`[ EMPATHY DAMPENER ACQUIRED ]`

`[ EFFECT: ARCHITECT SENSOR SCAN -90% ]`

`[ SIDE EFFECT: EMOTIONAL NUMBING (RESONANCE EFFICIENCY -25%) ]`

Selene laughed bitterly. "Numbing? Perfect."

Suddenly, the warehouse walls breathed.

Not metaphorically. The plaster swelled, filmstrips slithering beneath like veins. Projector-gold light seeped through cracks.

"He’s repurposing the district," Linda whispered, terrified. "Using old films as neural pathways. Get out!"

They burst into the street, straight into a nightmare.

The sky bled projector-light. Golden beams crisscrossed the ruins, each birthing filmstrip abominations:

- A dozen crying golems

- A slithering snake-monster.

- A towering hybrid of Mother India weeping acid.

And at the district’s edge, Linda’s central shard—still trailing from Selene’s grasp, flared like a beacon.

A drone streaked from the Tower. Not obsidian, this one pulsed with stolen ghost-light. Its probe lashed out, not at Selene…

But at the tether connecting her to the shard.

"NO!" Kai and Linda screamed.

The probe connected.

Static exploded. Selene convulsed, gold veins erupting into white fire. Her hand spasmed open.

Linda’s shard tore free, screaming toward Eclipse Prime’s crimson sigil on the horizon.

System Alert:

`[ SHARD #1 (ECLIPSE PRIME) - HARVEST IMMINENT ]`

`[ SELENE CORRUPTION: 75% → CRITICAL SYSTEM OVERRIDE ]`

Selene rose, eyes pools of molten gold. Her voice wasn’t her own, it was the Architect’s.

"Run, little moths. The reel is just beginning."

Behind them, the film abominations hissed. Ahead, the drone dragged Linda’s shard toward darkness. And from the sewers, razor-edged celluloid snakes surged in a wave of acidic nostalgia.

Luna hefted her glaive, glaring at the tide of cinematic nightmares. "Well, kid? Got a plan? Or are we starring in a tragedy?"

Molten gold bled from Selene’s eyes. Her spine arched like a drawn bowstring, tendons straining against skin webbed with Architect-circuits. The voice that tore from her throat was a grotesque splice: Selene’s frost-brittle rasp shredded by the Architect’s digital baritone.

“Sssssee how love curdles?” she-hissed, fingers contorting into clawed conductors. “This vessel’s jealousy made such… efficient fuel.”

System Alert:

`[ ARCHITECT OVERRIDE DETECTED - CORRUPTION HOST: SELENE ]`

`[ GHOST SHARD #1 HARVEST PROGRESS: 87% ]`

`[ SHARD INTEGRITY CRITICAL: 8% ]`

The film abominations closed in, weeping Bollywood monstrosities trailing acidic celluloid. Luna’s glaive became a whirlwind of shattered film strips and sparks. “Wake her up, Kai! Or I start cutting real limbs!”

Kai lunged, Legacy Shards flaring. Not at Selene, at the empathy dampener in Luna’s belt. He snatched it, thumb slamming the activation rune.

EMPATHY DAMPENER: ONLINE

`[ ARCHITECT SENSOR SCAN: -90% ]`

`[ EMOTIONAL NUMBING: ACTIVE (RESONANCE EFFICIENCY -25%) ]`

Cold blue light washed over Selene. The Architect’s laughter stuttered.

“C-clever pest… but this shell is mine—!”

Kai didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Selene’s burning wrist. “Resonance Shelter! NOW, Linda!”

Linda’s shard flared. Static arced from its core, meeting Kai’s Legacy energy. Selene’s corrupted frost lashed out, black ice met lightning.

System Alert:

`[ FORCED RESONANCE SHELTER INITIATED ]`

`[ WARNING: EMOTIONAL NUMBING INCOMPATIBILITY DETECTED ]`

The world dissolved into a trippy haze:

- Kai’s Mind: Nyx’s void coils strangling Hyderabad’s ruins.

- Selene’s Nightmare: Gold circuitry soldering her bones.

- Linda’s Fracture: The honeymoon beach at Alibaug, sand turning to static.

“Focus!” Linda’s voice was a frayed wire. “Push him out, Selene!”

In the shared psychic space, Selene fought, a wraith in a gilded cage. Architect-circuits pulsed around her. “She hates you,” the Architect crooned through her lips. “She blamed you for Kai’s guilt. For her death.”

Luna decapitated a weeping golem. Acid sprayed. “Hurry the hell up!”

Kai poured Legacy energy into the Shelter. The dampener’s numbness clawed at his focus. Where is she? Where’s the real Selene?

Memory Fragment - Tier 3 Simulation:

Selene watching Kai cradle Linda’s resurrected form. Gold veins darkening like bruises.

“You looked… relieved,” Linda whispered in the Shelter. “When the simulation showed me alive.”

GUILT PATH REINFORCED

`[ SANITY -5% (NYX WHISPERS INTENSIFY) ]`

“Yesss,” Nyx slithered. “The ghost chains you. Let me silence her.”

NO. Kai wrenched his mind back. There, a flicker of cobalt beneath Selene’s gold prison.

System Alert:

`[ CORRUPTION: 77% → RESONANCE SHELTER FEEDBACK LOOP ]`

`[ SOLUTION: ISOLATE OR SACRIFICE GHOST SHARD ]`

Two options blazed in their neural HUDs:

- ISOLATE: Sever Linda’s shard. Save Selene. Lose the Eclipse Prime key.

- SACRIFICE: Burn the shard’s energy to purge corruption. Save Selene. Destroy Linda’s memory fragment.

“Cut her loose!” Luna bellowed, glaive shattering a snake-monster. “She’s already dead!”

Selene’s Architect-controlled hand rose. Gold energy gathered, aimed at Linda’s shard. “This ghost dies first.”

Kai’s Choice:

1. Isolate Linda’s shard → Save Selene, lose vault access.

2. Sacrifice shard → Purge Selene, destroy Linda’s memory.

FLASHBACK:

Selene frost-binding the shard mid-freefall. “We don’t abandon family.”

Kai made his move.

He didn’t isolate. Didn’t sacrifice.

He slammed his translucent arm, code-strands exposed, into Selene’s gathering gold energy.

Legacy Shard Implosion (Rage Path)

`[ EFFECT: VOID BACKLASH ]`

`[ COST: ASSIMILATION +8% (NYX SEIZES OPPORTUNITY) ]`

Nyx’s obsidian power surged through Kai, meeting the Architect’s gold.

VOID VS. DATA

The explosion was silent. Brutal.

Kai’s code-strands unspooled like black wire. Selene screamed, her own voice now, as gold circuitry shattered. The film abominations vaporized into celluloid ash.

System Alert:

`[ ARCHITECT OVERRIDE PURGED ]`

`[ GHOST SHARD #1: STABILITY 5% (HARVEST INTERRUPTED) ]`

`[ KAI: ASSIMILATION 39% (NYX VOICE PERMANENT) ]`

`[ SELENE: CORRUPTION 80% → FROST CORROSION LOCKDOWN ]`

Selene collapsed, gasping. Gold veins receded, leaving cracked porcelain skin. Her frost flickered, weak, grey, laced with void-black tendrils.

“You…” she rasped, staring at Kai’s ravaged arm. “You let Nyx in? To save… her?”

Linda’s shard pulsed feebly near Eclipse Prime’s skyline. “He saved you both, you ungrateful—”

“ENOUGH!” Luna hauled them upright. “Architect’s sending bigger toys. Move!”

Kai’s vision swam. Nyx’s voice was a constant drill in his skull: “Her distrust is delicious. Let me savor it.”

Selene yanked her arm from his grasp, black-veined frost recoiling from his touch. “Don’t. Touch. Me.”

System Alert:

`[ RESONANCE SHELTER: PERMANENTLY DAMAGED (EFFICIENCY -50%) ]`

`[ REASON: EMOTIONAL INCOMPATIBILITY & VOID CORRUPTION ]`

They stumbled into the skeletal remains of Studios. Projector carcasses hung from shattered rafters. Luna kicked open a rusted door labeled "Editing Room 4."

Inside: Dust-choked editing consoles. A single intact holographic projector humming with weak light.

Selene slumped against a film canister labeled Guide. Her grey frost couldn’t even form a shield. “The shard… how do we retrieve it now?”

Kai activated the holographic projector. A grainy map flickered: Bombay’s ruins overlaid with Eclipse Prime’s crimson fortress, and a pulsing dot marking Linda’s shard, now deep inside its vault.

“We steal it back,” Kai said, Nyx’s hunger coloring his voice. “By force.”

System Alert:

`[ BEAUTY LEADERBOARD UPDATE: SELENE DEMOTED TO #99 ]`

`[ REASON: CORRUPTION/ARCHITECT ASSOCIATION ]`

`[ BOUNTY ACTIVE: 15,000 CREDITS ]`

Luna snorted. “First, we survive tonight.” She nodded to the studio’s crumbling roof. “Heard that?”

A low whine built outside. Not drones.

Sniper rifle charging.

A crimson laser dot appeared on Selene’s chest.

Reel Reaper’s voice crackled through dead speakers:

“Target acquired. For the Leaderboard’s purity… die, abomination.”

The crimson laser burned into Selene’s chest like a brand. Rain hissed as it struck her grey-black frost armor, steaming into acrid vapor. Above the skeletal frame of a Studio, Reel Reaper perched atop a defunct satellite dish, his film-reel rifle humming with lethal charge.

System Alert:

`[ BEAUTY LEADERBOARD BOUNTY CONFIRMED: SELENE (RANK #99) ]`

`[ TARGET STATUS: CRITICAL CORRUPTION - FROST CORROSION ACTIVE ]`

`[ BOUNTY HUNTER ID: REEL REAPER (RANK #99) - SPECIALTY: CINEMATIC EXECUTIONS ]`

His voice crackled through studio speakers, layered with overdubbed menace:

"For the Leaderboard’s purity… accept your fade to black, abomination."

Luna’s glaive slammed into an editing console, sparks showering. “Drama queen! Shoot straight or shut up!”

Kai moved.

Not toward cover, toward Selene. Nyx’s whispers coiled like smoke in his mind: "Let the ice witch burn. Her fear tastes sharper."

ASSIMILATION CHECK: RESISTED

`[ COST: SANITY -3% (VISIONS OF SELENE CRUMBLING TO GOLD DUST) ]`

He grabbed Selene’s arm. Her corrupted frost sizzled against his void-touched skin. She recoiled.

“Don’t—!”

“You’ll die staring at him!” Kai snarled, yanking her behind a stack of film canisters labeled "Tragic Endings Vol. 3."

The laser tracked. Burned through terracotta.

Reel Reaper chuckled.

"Director’s cut: Both leads die tonight."

A high-pitched whine built. Not the rifle, Architect drones, piercing the empathy dampener’s field. Golden scanners swept the rooftop.

System Alert:

`[ ARCHITECT SCAN DETECTED: ADAPTIVE DAMPENER BYPASS +40% ]`

`[ PURPOSE: GHOST SHARD #1 RECOVERY & CORRUPTION HOST RETRIEVAL ]`

Luna cursed. “Two birds, one rooftop. Pick your pest, kid!”

Kai’s gaze snapped between:

- Reel Reaper’s charging rifle (5 seconds to full power)

- Drones descending like mechanical vultures (10 seconds to scan-lock)

- Selene’s grey-veined frost sputtering (Corruption: 80.5%)

"Use me," Nyx whispered. "Unmake the sniper. His terror will be sublime."

RAGE PATH: VOID GAZE

`[ EFFECT: LINE-OF-SIGHT DISINTEGRATION ]`

`[ COST: ASSIMILATION +5% (PERMANENT EYE CORRUPTION) ]`

Kai’s left eye flooded with liquid darkness.

“No!” Selene’s hand clamped over his eyes, black frost meeting void. A feedback shriek tore through their touch.

System Alert:

`[ VOID-FROST FEEDBACK LOOP! ]`

`[ SELENE CORRUPTION: 81% ]`

`[ KAI ASSIMILATION: 44% ]`

`[ TEMPORARY FUSION: STATIC-VOID VORTEX (UNCONTROLLED) ]`

The rooftop warped.

Reel Reaper’s shot fired, a spiraling hypersonic round. It struck the swirling static-void field…

And ricocheted.

Not randomly. Kaleidoskoping. Splitting into a dozen mirrored projectiles that:

- Shattered the descending drones

- Sheared the satellite dish from its mount

- Forced Reel Reaper into a stumbling backflip off the roof

"WHAT THE—? Improv isn’t in the script!" he yelped, grappling hook firing toward an adjacent theater.

The vortex collapsed. Kai and Selene collapsed with it, gasping, their connection severed by mutual revulsion.

System Alert:

`[ REEL REAPER STATUS: RETREATING ]`

`[ ARCHITECT DRONES: DESTROYED ]`

`[ BOUNTY: TEMPORARILY VOIDED (TARGET DISPLACEMENT) ]`

`[ NEW DEBUFF: VOID-FROST ECHOES (RANDOM POWER SURGES/MUTED EMOTION) ]`

Luna hauled them up. “Next time, ask before doing… whatever that was.”

Selene stared at her black-cracked palm. “It didn’t feel like… me.”

Kai touched his void-scorched eye. “Or me.”

Linda’s shard pulsed weakly from the horizon:

"It felt like us. A weapon the Architect didn’t foresee."

System Alert:

`[ OBJECTIVE UPDATE: ECLIPSE PRIME VAULT (SHARD #1 RECOVERY) ]`

`[ LOCATION: FORMER DELHI SECTOR (CODENAME: BLOOD RED FORTRESS) ]`

`[ WARNING: BEAUTY RANK #3 (ECLIPSE PRIME) HAS CLAIMED TERRITORY ]`

Rain sheeted down, washing drone ash into the gutters. Kai’s gaze locked on the crimson fortress icon. “We go at dawn.”

Selene’s frost flickered, grey and unstable. “Why? Because she’s there?”

“Because he has what’s left of her.”

“Same thing.”

Luna tossed Kai the empathy dampener. “Sleep first. Before you two accidentally fuse the whole damn city.”

As they retreated into the editing room’s gloom, a final alert flickered:

System Alert (Encrypted):

`[ ARCHITECT DIRECTIVE: PRIORITY TARGETS KAI/SELENE/LINDA SHARD ]`

`[ NEW STATUS: THREAT PROFILE UPDATED ]`

`[ RESPONSE: DEPLOY ECLIPSE PRIME (RANK #3) - ELIMINATION PROTOCOL ]`

Outside, the rain turned to static.

Static rained like broken glass. Reel Reaper’s grappling hook thunked into the adjacent theater’s dome, Bombay Talkies, its neon sign bleeding corroded crimson. He swung, film-reel rifle already reloaded, voice echoing through the downpour:

“Scene 47, Take 2! Action!”

The hypersonic round screamed, not at Selene this time, but at the empathy dampener in Kai’s grip.

CRITICAL SYSTEM ANALYSIS:

`[ REEL REAPER TACTIC: DISABLE EMOTIONAL SUPPRESSION → ARCHITECT SCAN LOCK ]`

`[ PREDICTED OUTCOME: DRONE SWARM OVERWHELM IN 8.2 SECONDS ]`

Luna moved first. Her glaive became a silver blur, deflecting the round upward...

Direct hit on Studio's last functioning hologram projector.

The machine exploded in a shower of gold-lit shards. Where the debris fell, acidic celluloid snakes surged from gutters, summoned by the light.

“Cut!” Reel Reaper crowed, landing on Bombay Talkies’ roof. “Beautiful chaos!”

System Alert:

`[ ARCHITECT SCAN: DAMPENER BYPASS 100% - LOCATION LOCKED ]`

`[ ETA DRONE SWARM: 7 SECONDS ]`

Kai’s void-scorched eye pulsed. Nyx purred: "Unmake the sniper. His fear will taste like victory."

RAGE PATH: VOID LANCE

`[ COST: ASSIMILATION +5% (VOID CORRUPTION SPREADS) ]`

Darkness gathered in Kai’s palm...

Selene’s black-cracked hand seized his wrist. “No! He wants you to use Nyx!” Her corrupted frost lashed Kai’s skin. “Look!”

Reel Reaper wasn’t reloading. He grinned, aiming a small silver device at them, a director’s clapperboard.

CLACK!

System Override:

`[ VOID-FROST ECHOES TRIGGERED: RANDOM SURGE DETECTED ]`

`[ WARNING: FUSION FIELD COLLAPSE IMMINENT ]`

Kai and Selene convulsed as their unstable energies collided. Static and void swirled between them, a vortex of discordant power.

“Perfect!” Reel Reaper laughed. “Method acting at its finest!”

Luna saw the play. “He’s herding you! Break the—”

Too late.

The vortex exploded outward, not at Reel Reaper, but upward. A storm of void-static shredded the descending drone swarm…

And vaporized the Kohinoor Cinema’s crumbling spire behind them.

DEBRIS RAINED.

A half-ton chunk of terracotta and steel plunged toward Selene.

Kai reacted.

Not with void. Not with frost.

GUILT PATH: SHATTERED VOWS

`[ EFFECT: GHOST SHARD STABILITY +20% (TEMPORARY) ]`

`[ COST: SANITY -10% (RELIVE LINDA’S DEATH) ]`

He tackled Selene aside as the debris crushed the spot where she’d stood. Legacy energy flared, shielding them both, but the feedback spiked Selene’s corruption: 82%.

“Sentimental fool!” Nyx shrieked in his mind.

System Alert:

`[ SHARD #1 STABILITY CRITICAL: 0.4% ]`

`[ HARVEST IMMINENT: IRREVERSIBLE DATA LOSS IN 10 SECONDS ]`

Reel Reaper sighed dramatically. “And… that’s a wrap.” His rifle aimed, not at them, but at the distant Eclipse Prime fortress.

“Sorry, stars. No sequel for your ghost.”

He fired.

The hypersonic round streaked across the city, aimed at Linda’s flickering shard.

Kai didn’t think.

He grabbed Luna’s glaive, and threw it.

Legacy energy ignited the blade. It intercepted the round mid-air in a shower of sparks…

And clattered onto the roof of Bombay Talkies, embedding at Reel Reaper’s feet.

Silence.

Reel Reaper stared at the glaive. Then at Kai. A slow, unnerving smile spread behind his digital mask.

“Oh, darling… you just signed your death warrant.” He picked up the glaive, testing its weight. "Director’s prerogative, we’re doing reshoots."

System Alert:

`[ DRONE SWARM DESTROYED ]`

`[ SHARD #1 TEMPORARILY STABILIZED (STABILITY: 0.9%) ]`

`[ NEW DUNGEON UNLOCKED: BOMBAY FILM STUDIO ]`

`[ PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: RECOVER LUNA’S GLAIVE / SURVIVE THE SHOW ]`

Luna cracked her knuckles, glaring at Reel Reaper. “Nobody touches my blade.”

But Kai was staring at Selene. She hunched over, vomiting black-gold sludge, corruption veins throbbing under rain-slicked skin.

“Why?” she rasped, gold-sludge dripping from her lips. “Why save me? You need her shard… not me.”

Before Kai could answer, the studio speakers blared:

Reel Reaper’s voice, overdubbed with menace:

“CUT! Print that. And ice queen? Tomorrow’s shoot is in your co-star’s grave.”

He vanished into Bombay Talkies’ shadowed dome, Luna’s glaive gleaming in his grip.

System Alert:

`[ CHAPTER 19 END: STATIC HARVEST ]`

`[ NEXT: CHAPTER 20 - BOMBAY FILM STUDIO DUNGEON ]`

`[ OBJECTIVE: RECOVER GLAIVE / RESCUE SHARD #1 BEFORE HARVEST ]`

Rain washed the drone ash from Kai’s face as Selene collapsed.

“Why?” she whispered again, unconscious.

Linda’s ghost-shard pulsed on the horizon, a dying star.

“Because you’re both my cage,” Kai murmured, Nyx’s laughter echoing the words.