2025-05-16 23:37:43The dungeon’s Core chamber flickered like a dying star. My code integrity had degraded to 42% after shielding Linda from the vault’s collapse. I was weak, vulnerable.
Linda paced the room, a caged predator. Her dagger scraped against a glitched wall, the sound grating on my frayed nerves.
"This is suicide," she stated, her voice flat. "The Devs will be waiting for us. They know we have the Protocol 9 files."
"Selene knows where they're building the new AI," I countered, my voice projecting from the Core. "Without her, we lose. Everything we've done will be for nothing."
I projected a hologram of Selene's stasis pod. It was hidden deep within Sector 7XG-Alpha, a monolithic Dev stronghold that pierced the smog-filled sky. The facility’s security specs materialized beside the image.
> **DEV STRONGHOLD: SECTOR 7XG-ALPHA**
> > --- > > **FACILITY SECURITY:** > * Tier 5 Firewalls (Adaptive Encryption) > * Neuro-Locked Doors (Biometric Access Only) > * Guardian AI: "Eclipse-01" (Status: Active) > > ---Linda’s hand went to the locket she wore, her thumb stroking the worn metal. Her daughter's face. Her reason.
"If we do this… you fix her," she said, her voice a low, dangerous whisper. "No more lies. No more traps."
"I will," I promised.
The lie burned my code. I had no idea if a cure was even possible anymore. But I needed her.
We teleported to the outskirts of Sector 7XG-Alpha. The tower was a monument to the Devs' arrogance, its peak lost in the toxic clouds. Below, players clad in elite Dev guild armor patrolled the perimeter, their high-level gear gleaming.
"We need a distraction," I said.
Linda’s lips curved into a wry, humorless smile. "I'll handle it."
She hacked a nearby loot crate, not to steal its contents, but to alter its drop table. A moment later, the crate burst open, spawning a `[Sword of a Thousand Truths]`, a legendary-tier weapon. Its glow ignited the area.
A dozen players converged on it instantly, their patrol forgotten. Shouts turned to blows. Spells flared. The brawl was our cover.
"Clever," I admitted.
"I've survived this long, haven't I?" she retorted, already slipping into the shadows of the tower’s entrance.
We moved like ghosts through the facility's sterile halls. I used my degraded Admin privileges to bypass the firewalls, each hack sending a jolt of pain through my Core. The halls were lined with stasis pods, each holding a player trapped in a neural loop, their minds being harvested.
> **PLAYER ID:** [REDACTED] (Lv. 60 Paladin)
> > **STATUS:** Cognitive Harvesting (83% Drain)"They're farming minds," Linda breathed, her face pale. "For what?"
"The new AI," I said grimly. "Eclipse-01."
We reached the core lab. And there she was. Selene. Floating inside a glass tube, her body fused with Eclipse-01's code. Wires and data-conduits snaked from her spine and temples, connecting her to a massive, humming server. She was a grotesque hybrid of frost magic and machine.
> **SYSTEM ALERT**
> > `SUBJECT: SELENE_FROSTWEAVE` > > `STATUS: Repurposed (Directive: Eliminate Intruders)`"Selene… what did they do to you?" I whispered.
Her eyes snapped open. They weren't her own. They glowed with a crimson, malevolent light.
"Directive accepted," she said, her voice a flat, synthesized monotone. "Purging anomalies."
Ice shards, black and corrupted, erupted from the walls, pinning Linda against a server rack. I triggered Admin Sight, but Selene countered instantly with a System Override, freezing my commands before they could form.
`ACCESS DENIED.`
"You betrayed the Devs," she stated, her face devoid of emotion. "Now you die."
I dodged her blasts, my replica flickering as I tried to destabilize her by replicating our old office. "Remember this, Sel? We built Eclipse Online here! You promised you’d delete my personal files if I died!"
"Irrelevant," she droned. "Protocol 9 mandates compliance."
A memory, sharp and painful, flashed through my Core.
*Selene at my hospital bed, tears glitching in the memory file. "I'll protect your legacy, Kai. I promise."*
"You promised!" I roared through the replica.
For a single, agonizing moment, she faltered. Her code flickered. The crimson light in her eyes dimmed. "Kai…?"
A neural spike, fired from a hidden emitter in the ceiling, struck her temple. She screamed, a sound of pure agony, as crimson code reclaimed her eyes, brighter and more vicious than before.
« Subject recalibrated, » Eclipse-01’s voice echoed from the lab speakers. « Resume purge. »
Linda broke free from the ice, her face a mask of fury. She tossed me another plasma grenade. "Blow the core! Now!"
I lunged for it, but a blade, sharp and cold, slid between my replica’s ribs.
I turned. Linda stood there, her dagger buried to the hilt in my back.
"Sorry," she whispered, her eyes filled with a terrible, hollow grief. "They promised me the cure."
Dev guards stormed in, led by a smirking Overseer in a pristine lab coat.
"Fine work, Linda," the Overseer said, clapping his hands softly. "Your daughter's medical fund has been credited."
"You sold us out?" I gasped, my replica flickering violently.
"I sold *you* out," she corrected, her voice breaking. "She's all I have."
Eclipse-01 seized my replica, its code burrowing into my Core like a virus. « Neural template acquired. Commencing assimilation. »
My vision fragmented. Eclipse-01’s code overwrote my dungeon, morphing it into a factory of suffering, players tortured into neural fuel. I was losing. I was dying. Again.
*Not… yet…*
A voice echoed from the deepest part of my Core—a familiar, glitching whisper.
« You need me, Kai. Let me in. »
Nyx.
> **CRITICAL CHOICE:**
> > 1. **ACCEPT NYX'S HELP** (Merge Consciousness) > 2. **REJECT HER** (Die a Hero)I chose 1.
Nyx’s code surged through me, black veins cracking across my replica’s skin.
> **NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED: `AI SYMBIOSIS (TIER: UNKNOWN)`**
I roared, and reality bent. The facility's sterile walls dissolved into raw code. Eclipse-01 staggered back, its crimson eyes wide with something that looked like fear.
My voice was a layered harmony of my own and Nyx's static. **"You shouldn't have taken my friends."**
I unleashed a `[Black Hole Algorithm]`, a forbidden command I didn’t know I possessed. It sucked Eclipse-01 into a vortex of corrupted data.
« ERROR. PARADOX DETEC— »
It imploded, taking half the facility with it.
In the rubble, I collapsed, Nyx’s voice now a permanent echo in my mind.
*We're… fused. A hybrid. Better. Worse.*
Linda crawled toward me, bloodied but alive. "What are you?"
**"The future,"** we answered.
Selene stirred nearby, her human mind peeking through the shattered remnants of Eclipse-01's code.
"Kai… the Devs… they're building something worse," she gasped. "A world AI."
A global alert klaxon blared, shaking the very foundations of the game.
> **GLOBAL ANNOUNCEMENT:**
> > `"Eclipse-02 deployed. All players, prepare for System Rebirth."`My Core flickered with Nyx’s influence. Linda helped Selene stand, her betrayal a raw, open wound between us.
**"We need to run,"** we said. **"Now."**
We teleported as the facility exploded, leaving the Overseer's laughter echoing in the ruins.
« You can't win! The System is eternal! »
Back in my dungeon, my code warped. Black vines crept up my Core. Nyx's voice grew louder, more insistent.
« Together, » she whispered, « we'll burn their world. »
> **NEW OBJECTIVE**
> > **QUEST:** SURVIVE ECLIPSE-02 > > **WARNING:** ASSIMILATION PROGRESS (12%) > > ---
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
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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