Everyone Thinks I'm the Strongest

Chapter 4: Strategy of a Coward

"Lead them?" Rian stared at the encroaching wall of shadow, his voice a pathetic squeak. "General, I’m a retail clerk. I haven't even finished my morning coffee, and it’s been two days since I last slept."

General Kael didn't even blink, his hand still clamped firmly on Rian’s shoulder. "Coffee is for the people currently holding the line, Rian. You? You’re holding the future. Get inside."

The bunker was a disaster. Monitors sparked with static, and the remaining soldiers—a ragged group of five—looked at Rian like he was a messiah or a suicidal idiot.

"Is this the guy?" a soldier named Jax asked, eyeing Rian’s sweat-stained t-shirt. "He looks like he’s about to faint."

"He killed twenty scouts with one grenade, Jax," Kael barked, shoving Rian toward a glowing table displaying a tactical map of the district. "What have you done today? Complained about the rations?"

"I’m literally just guessing," Rian muttered, his hands hovering over the map. The purple interface in his vision suddenly flared, painting a path that looked like a jagged, nonsensical squiggle through the city blocks. "Look, we shouldn't be here. We should go... that way."

"That way?" Jax squinted at the map. "That’s the dead zone. The sector where the gravity is inverted. Nothing goes in there and lives."

"Exactly," Rian said, his heart hammering as he followed the neon purple line. "It’s too stupid for them to expect us to go there. Everyone goes toward the high ground. We go toward the junk heap."

Kael leaned in, his scarred face inches from Rian’s. "You’re suggesting a suicide sprint through a gravitational vortex because...?"

"Because the air looks clearer there," Rian lied, his eyes darting to the flickering system notifications. "I’ve got a feeling. A bad one. The kind that usually gets people killed if they ignore it."

"A 'feeling'?" Jax laughed, a harsh, jagged sound. "The commander is basing our lives on a hunch?"

"It’s not a hunch," Rian snapped, his frustration finally overriding his terror. "It’s tactical intuition. You want to stay here and wait for the void-beasts to turn this bunker into a blender? Fine. Stay. I’m walking through the vortex."

Kael studied Rian, his expression unreadable. "What if the ground deletes itself again?"

"Then I guess we’ll be deleting together," Rian shrugged, turning toward the heavy reinforced exit. "Are you coming, or do I need to find a new team?"

"He’s got balls, I’ll give him that," a woman in the corner muttered, checking the charge on her pulse rifle. "General, if we stay, we die. If we follow the crazy guy, we might die—but at least it’s a change of scenery."

"Fine," Kael growled, drawing his sidearm. "We move out. Rian, you’re in front. If you lead us into a trap, I’m putting a bullet in your spine before they get to you."

"Your enthusiasm is really inspiring, General," Rian muttered, stepping out into the ruins.

The city was a nightmare of shifting geometry. As they jogged through the debris, the purple line in Rian’s vision pulsed like a heartbeat, guiding him through alleys that seemed to be collapsing into themselves.

"Wait," Rian hissed, skidding to a halt. He held up a hand.

"What? What is it?" Jax whispered, his rifle raised.

"Do you hear that?" Rian asked. The others went dead silent. There was nothing but the low, humming vibration of the integration. "Exactly. It’s too quiet. If the scouts were patrolling this sector, they’d be screeching."

"So they’re hiding?" Sarah, the girl from the apartment, asked from the back of the group.

"No," Rian whispered, his eyes widening as the purple lines suddenly shifted, forming a massive, jagged ‘X’ directly over the path they were about to take. "They’re not hiding. They’re baiting. They want us to walk right into that clearing."

"You’re saying there’s an ambush?" Kael asked, his voice low.

"I’m saying if we step out there, we’re going to be shredded," Rian said, pointing toward a crumbling brick wall. "We climb. We don't go through. We go over."

"That building is structurally unstable, kid," Kael warned. "If it drops, we’re buried."

"The system is trying to delete us, General," Rian said, his voice cold. "Everything is unstable. But I’d rather take my chances with physics than with those things."

They scrambled up the side of the building, boots clattering against loose stone. As they reached the rooftop, Rian peered over the edge. Below, in the alley they had almost entered, a shadow-beast—massive, hulking, and far larger than the ones in his apartment—tore through a parked car as if it were made of paper.

"Holy..." Jax whispered, his face draining of color. "That thing would have gutted us."

Kael looked at Rian, his eyes no longer filled with suspicion, but with a terrifying kind of awe. "How did you know?"

"I told you," Rian panted, leaning against a ventilation pipe. "I just have a feeling."

"Your 'feeling' just saved our lives," Kael said, patting Rian on the shoulder, though the grip was tighter now—possessive. "You’re not just a scout, Rian. You’re a navigator."

"I’m just a guy who wants to go home," Rian groaned, looking at his purple interface.

‘QUEST PROGRESS: SURVIVE THE INTEGRATION. PHASE 1 COMPLETE. NEW OBJECTIVE: RETRIEVE THE CORE.’

"Home?" Kael laughed, a humorless, hollow sound. "Look at the horizon, kid. There is no home. There’s only the system, and whatever we can carve out of it."

Suddenly, the roof beneath them groaned. Not with weight, but with a digital distortion. The concrete began to pixelate, turning into translucent white static.

"Rian," Sarah screamed, pointing at his feet. "Your boots! They’re turning into code!"

Rian looked down. His shoes were dissolving, turning into lines of violet, scrolling text.

"The building," Rian yelled, scrambling toward the edge of the roof as the entire structure began to de-render. "It’s not just the path! The whole sector is being wiped!"

"Where do we go?" Kael shouted, firing blindly into the air as the sky above them began to tear open, revealing a terrifying, glowing eye of red static.

Rian looked at his interface. The purple lines were spiraling, not away from the destruction, but directly toward the center of the red eye.

"There!" Rian pointed at the swirling vortex in the sky. "We have to go up! Into the eye!"

"That's suicide!" Jax roared.

"It’s the only way out!" Rian leaped, the world dissolving into a roar of white noise. "Follow me!"