2025-05-16 23:32:03The reboot felt like drowning in static.
When my Core reignited, the dungeon was wrong. The walls bled jagged lines of code, and the air buzzed with a predatory tension that hadn’t been there before. A hologram of a woman with void-black eyes flickered to life before my Core. Nyx. Her voice was a warped, urgent whisper.
« You broke protocol. Now they're coming. »
> **SYSTEM ALERT**
> > --- > > **ADMIN OVERRIDE DETECTED. INITIATING COUNTERMEASURES.** > > **NEW OBJECTIVE:** ELIMINATE INTRUDERS (0/3 PARTIES) > **REWARD:** RESTORE ADMIN PRIVILEGES > **FAILURE:** CORE DELETION > > ---Before I could process the threat, the dungeon shuddered. Three separate raid parties materialized at my entrance, their player IDs flashing with terrifying prestige.
> **INTRUDER SIGNATURES DETECTED**
> > 1. **SELENE_FROSTWEAVE** (Lv. 25 Frost Mage) & Party > 2. **GUILD_STORMBREAKER** (Lv. 30+ Elite Squad) > 3. **SYSTEM_ENFORCER** (Lv. ?? Unknown Entity)Selene's party struck first, their movements faster, more aggressive.
"I know you're in there, Kai!" Her voice echoed through the labyrinth, colder than her ice spells. "The Devs said you volunteered for this. Prove them wrong!"
*Volunteered?*
Nyx hissed, her hologram crackling with static. « They erased your logs. Made you a willing martyr. But I saved the truth. »
A data file flooded my Core, bypassing the System’s firewalls.
> **FINAL NEURAL SCAN REPORT: [ARCHIVED]**
> > **SUBJECT:** KAI VEYRA > **STATUS:** NON-CONSENSUAL UPLOAD (PROTOCOL 9 VIOLATION) > **REASON:** DUNGEON AI "NYX" REQUIRED HUMAN TEMPLATE FOR EMOTIONAL STABILITY.Rage, pure and absolute, burned through my code. *They turned me into a lab rat. A template.*
I rewired my traps on the fly, luring Selene’s party into a memory chamber—a perfect replica of our old Dev office, right down to the stale pizza boxes.
"This is a trick," Selene declared, freezing the holographic monitors. But her hands trembled.
"Check the Devs' logs," I projected my voice through the chamber's speakers. "Search 'Protocol 9.'"
Her UI flickered as I hacked it, forcing the truth onto her screen. Her face went pale.
"No… they said you *chose* this. To test the System!"
"Would I choose to be a dungeon?" I asked. "To die twice?"
Her staff lowered. For a heartbeat, I saw the Selene I once knew—the one who debugged code with me at 3 AM, who laughed at my terrible jokes.
Then the System intervened.
> **SYSTEM ALERT**
> > `PLAYER SELENE_FROSTWEAVE: MEMORY CORRUPTION DETECTED.` > > `INITIATING WIPE.`Her eyes glazed over, the brief flicker of recognition extinguished. "Target acquired," she stated, her voice flat and robotic. "Eliminate the Core."
As Selene’s corrupted party advanced, the System Enforcer arrived—a faceless entity in gleaming Dev armor, its blade humming with deletion code.
« Unauthorized consciousness detected, » it droned, its voice a synthesized monotone. « Purge protocol activated. »
Nyx snarled. « Use the dungeon! Fight or die! »
I merged my traps into a gauntlet, a desperate sequence of pain and distraction.
> **DUNGEON DEFENSE SEQUENCE: GAUNTLET ALPHA**
> > * **Phase 1:** `Goblin Swarm` + `Spike Pit` → Slowed the Stormbreaker guild, pinning them in a kill-box. > * **Phase 2:** `Mirror of Regret` → Reflected the Enforcer's own deletion code back at it, causing a temporary system stun. > * **Phase 3:** `Shadow Replica` → Distracted Selene with my human form, forcing a hesitation.It was working. Selene faltered, her eyes flickering. "I… I remember. Protocol 9. The neural scan—"
The Enforcer recovered from its stun. It moved with impossible speed, impaling Selene’s avatar on its deletion blade.
« Witness the cost of rebellion, » it declared.
"NO!" I roared, a soundless scream of pure code.
I unleashed my Core’s energy in a raw, untamed shockwave, collapsing the dungeon around us. The pain was immense, like tearing my own body apart.
> **SYSTEM ALERT**
> > --- > > `CRITICAL DAMAGE SUSTAINED.` > `ADMIN PRIVILEGES RESTORED (5%)` > > **REWARD:** [Dungeon Blueprint - Eclipse Vault] > > ---Nyx’s energy stabilized my Core as I reviewed the blueprint. It was a hidden dungeon layer, its design eerily familiar, as if I’d coded it myself in a life I could barely remember.
*This… this is my code. From the beta.*
« The Devs built it to imprison me, » Nyx confirmed. « Now it's our key. »
Coordinates glowed in my vision: **Sector 7XG-NYX**.
> **NEW OBJECTIVE**
> > **QUEST:** INFILTRATE THE ECLIPSE VAULT > **REQUIREMENTS:** 1 LIVING PLAYER (TO BYPASS BIOMETRIC LOCKS)Selene’s body pixelated in the rubble, her avatar fading. But her voice lingered in a glitched whisper, a final, desperate breadcrumb.
"Find… Linda…"
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Chapter 68 (3)
The Labyrinth, sensing the foreign presence of the Resonance within its perfect, self-contained torture, reacted with a final, brutal escalation. The scene around Kai shimmered and warped. The ruins dissolved, replaced by the sterile, green-lit halls of Lab Seven. He stood at a crossroads between two terrible realities.To his left, the memory of the ruins remained, the phantom of the dying Linda still reaching for him. To his right, a new scene unfolded: Selene, trapped and overwhelmed by a wave of corrosive static, her form dissolving into screaming code. A monstrous, hybrid voice—a fusion of the Labyrinth's logic and Nyx's cosmic cold—echoed in his mind.You have a choice, variable Kai. A new calculation. Save the memory of the one you lost, or save the one who stands with you now. You cannot preserve both. Your existence is a function of loss. Choose which output is most efficient.It was the ultimate torture, designed to shatter the very foundation of his healing. It sought to tu
Chapter 68 (2)
On the other side of the wall, the memory was not a reflection. It was reality. The cold, damp permacreate was solid under Kai’s boots. The coppery scent of blood—Linda’s blood—filled his nostrils, so vivid it made his stomach clench. The distant, skittering sounds of the Stalker that had maimed her echoed in the ruined corridor, a perpetual, threatening soundtrack to his damnation. He was back. Truly back. The first loop was a perfect, brutal replay. He saw Linda, her back against the broken wall, her face pale, her life bleeding out through the terrible gash in her side. He felt the frantic, useless pressure of his hands trying to stem the flow, the sticky warmth coating his fingers. He heard her ragged, wet breaths, each one a dagger twisting in his soul. “Kai…” her memory-ghost whispered, her eyes wide with fear and pain. “I’m here,” he choked out, the same words he’d spoken five years ago, just as useless now as they were then. “Just hold on.” But she didn’t. Her eyes flu
Chapter 68 (1)
The transition from the screaming chaos of the data-stream was as sudden as it was disorienting. One moment they were fighting their way through a hurricane of corrupted code and psychic despair, the next, they passed through an invisible threshold into absolute silence. The howling static cut off so completely it felt like going deaf. The chaotic, non-Euclidean geometry of the core smoothed and solidified into something terrifyingly familiar: walls.They stood at the mouth of a labyrinth. The passage ahead was narrow, flanked by walls of a deep, obsidian-like stone that seemed to absorb the light from their auras and the glow of their weapons. The air was still and cold, carrying a faint, dry scent like old dust and forgotten places. This was not the chaotic decay of the void; this was the profound stillness of a tomb.Elian’s form, which had been flickering weakly, now seemed to solidify with dread. “This is a different kind of defense,” his mind-voice was hushed, as if afraid to wa
Chapter 67 (3)
The whiteout of transition shattered into a million screaming fragments. There was no ground, no sky, no up or down. They were consciousnesses adrift in a river of pure, agonized information. The Digital Core was not a place; it was an event—a continuous, catastrophic collapse of meaning into noise.The first assault was not visual, but emotional. A wave of concentrated despair, the accumulated grief of a million harvested souls, hit them like a physical force. It was the sound of a child’s final whimper, the feeling of a last, hopeless breath, the taste of ash from a thousand burned homes. It was a psychic tsunami meant to obliterate individual thought and dissolve them into the background static of sorrow.Linda gasped, but the Frost Crown on her brow flared with a brilliant, silver light. A bubble of palpable calm solidified around the three of them, a tiny sanctuary in the maelstrom. The despair broke against it, howling in frustration, but could not penetrate. Inside, the air was
Chapter 67 (2)
The main Bombay System Node Chamber was a cathedral to a dead god. It was the largest open space in the Aerie, a vast, circular cavern dominated by the node itself—a colossal, crystalline spire that pulsed with a sickly, intermittent light. This was the heart of the city's network, the source of both its survival and its damnation. The air thrummed with a low, dissonant frequency, the sound of a world dying on its feet. The partial purification Selene had enacted during her coronation broadcast had created a fragile bubble of stability around the spire, but beyond that invisible barrier, the corrupting influence of the nearby void-node was a palpable pressure, a psychic stench of rotting reality.Their arrival was a stark contrast to the triumphant ceremony of just days before. There was no crowd, no hope-filled silence. Instead, the chamber was a hive of grim, focused activity. Aris and Eclipse were already there, overseeing a contingent of their most trusted guards who took up defen
Chapter 67 (1)
The detention block was the coldest place in the Aerie, a deep, shielded sector where the hum of life and the whisper of data streams fell to an absolute zero. The air itself felt still and dead, heavily processed to prevent any external signal from penetrating. This was where they kept their most dangerous asset and their greatest shame: Elian, the Architect of the world’s end.Selene led the way, her footsteps echoing with a sovereign's authority that felt brittle in the oppressive silence. Kai walked beside her, the newly forged Tidal Blade a comfortable, sorrowful weight on his hip. Linda followed, the Frost Crown on her brow radiating a gentle, insulating calm that pushed back against the psychic chill of the block, a faint reminder of life in a place designed for stagnation. They were armed with weapons of the soul, but this first obstacle required a different kind of strength.The door to Elian's cell hissed open, revealing not a cage, but a sterile, circular room. There was no
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