Everyone Thinks I'm the Strongest

Chapter 7: The Negotiator by Accident

The hangar didn't just shake; it groaned, a deep, metallic sound of tectonic plates of data grinding together. The woman—the leader of the obsidian-armored faction—stumbled as the floorboards turned into semi-solid jelly.

"What is this? Stop it!" she shouted, her blue eyes flickering with alarm. "Is this some kind of gravity hack?"

Rian held his hands up, his fingers still trailing ribbons of violet static. "I didn't do it on purpose! I’m sorry, I was just trying to… look, I’m just trying to keep the walls from collapsing!"

"He’s using a reality-distortion field!" one of her soldiers screamed, scrambling for footing. "Captain, he’s tearing the local instance apart!"

"I’m not!" Rian yelled back, sweat stinging his eyes. "I’m literally just trying to apologize! Can we just talk about this like, I don't know, rational human beings?"

"Apologize?" The Captain gripped her sword, her knuckles white. "You just turned the floor into a puddle, you absolute maniac!"

"It was an accident! My hands are, like, glitching out, okay?" Rian stepped forward, but his foot slipped on a loose bolt.

As he flailed to stay upright, he bumped hard against a heavy, overhead weapon rack. It groaned, tilted, and then swung downward like a pendulum. With a screech of tortured metal, the rack slammed into the Captain’s position, pinning her armor-plated shoulder to the ground with the force of a falling freight train.

"Oh, man," Rian whispered, his face draining of color. "Oh, no. Are you okay?"

The Captain hissed, struggling to move, but the heavy energy-rifles pinned her down. "You… you planned this, didn't you? You led me here."

"I really, really didn't," Rian stammered. "I was just trying to find a bathroom, I swear."

Sera stepped up, her sword pointed lazily at the Captain’s throat. "He’s a tactical genius, lady. He doesn't need to plan. He just lets the universe handle the heavy lifting. You should have checked the stats."

"Stats?" The Captain spat, her voice tight with pain. "He’s a bug! He’s a walking software corruption!"

"He’s the guy who just pinned you to the floor without even drawing a weapon," Jax added, circling the remaining obsidian soldiers, who had all frozen in place, their rifles lowered.

"Drop them," Kael ordered, his voice echoing through the hangar. "Or we start deleting you from the roster permanently."

The Captain glared up at Rian, her eyes searching his face for a sign of deception. "How long? How long have you been tracking my movement? Was it in the hangar? Or back at the perimeter?"

"I’m telling you," Rian pleaded, holding his hands up, "I’ve been trying to get a nap for, like, six hours! I didn't track you. I didn't even know you existed until you kicked down the door!"

"He’s still playing the humble act," the Captain muttered, her bravado finally cracking under the weight of the impossible situation. "Fine. You want to pretend you’re an amateur? Fine. My squad surrenders. We aren't dying for a tactical error."

"Surrenders?" Rian blinked. "Wait, no, don't surrender! Just… leave? Can you just leave?"

"We're stuck," she growled. "The sector’s locked. You broke the exit, didn't you?"

"I didn't break it, I just… patched the path," Rian muttered, feeling a headache bloom behind his eyes.

"See?" Sera nudged Rian’s arm, her eyes twinkling. "She thinks you’re a mastermind. Just go with it, Rian. It keeps them from shooting us."

"I hate this," Rian whispered to her. "I really, really hate this."

"It’s a revolution, babe. Get used to the applause," Sera replied, loud enough for the room to hear.

"So," Kael stepped over to the pinned Captain, towering over her. "What’s the word from your high command? Are they going to send more drones to get turned into scrap metal by our 'bug' here?"

The Captain looked at Rian, her expression shifting from hatred to a reluctant, terrifying awe. "My command… they don't even know this sector exists yet. You’ve shielded it with that… that code-noise."

"See?" Rian groaned. "I’m not shielding anything! I’m just leaking!"

"It’s an impenetrable defense," the Captain whispered, her voice tinged with genuine fear. "You’ve made this entire building a black hole."

"Great," Rian muttered. "I’m a black hole. Is there, like, a snack bar in this black hole? Because I’m starving."

Sera laughed, a clear, sharp sound that seemed to relax the tension in the room. "The hero demands sustenance. Fetch him something, Jax. Maybe one of those MREs we looted from the supply cache."

"On it," Jax said, jogging off.

The Captain looked at Rian, her blue eyes scanning him as if trying to decode a puzzle. "What are you going to do with us? If we stay, we’re just resources for your next... whatever this is."

"I’m going to go to sleep," Rian stated firmly. "And you guys are going to sit over there, and if anyone tries to shoot anyone, I’m just going to… I don't know, turn the air into lead or something. Seriously, don't make me do it. I’m tired."

"He’s threatening us with elemental transmutation," the Captain whispered to her soldiers, who looked on with wide, terrified eyes. "Don't touch your gear. Nobody move."

Rian rubbed his face, his vision swimming with purple text. A new notification bloomed in his peripheral, glowing a soft, ominous gold.

‘FACTION INTEGRATED. COMMANDER [RIAN] GRANTED CONTROL OF SECTOR 4A. WARNING: SYSTEM ARCHITECT PRIVILEGES REACHING THRESHOLD. REWRITE IMMINENT.’

Rian’s heart stopped. Control? He didn't want control. He wanted out.

"Rian?" Sera leaned in, her voice low and intimate, her hand resting on his lower back—a touch that felt less like a gesture of comfort and more like a tether. "The Captain is waiting for your orders. What’s the next move?"

Rian looked at the hundreds of eyes in the room, all waiting for his command. He looked at the flickering code beneath his fingernails.

"The next move," Rian said, his voice quiet, "is that we stop being players. And we start being the ones who write the game."

As he spoke, the entire hangar flickered. The lights shifted from standard emergency red to a deep, royal violet. Outside the bay doors, the sky didn't just static—it began to reconfigure, building a new, impossible city from the scrap of the old world.

"What is he doing?" the Captain gasped, clutching the floor as the very reality of the hangar began to solidify into a fortress.

"He's not playing anymore," Sera whispered, a dark, hungry smile spreading across her face. "He’s building a kingdom."

Rian stared at his hands, watching as a command prompt solidified in the air, waiting for his touch. ‘AUTHORITY GRANTED. INITIALIZE WORLD-BUILDING?’

He looked at the button. He looked at his friends. And then, he looked at the red eye of the void, still watching them from the horizon.

"I’m not building a kingdom," Rian whispered, his voice trembling as he reached out. "I’m building a way home."

He tapped 'YES.'

The entire world went silent, and then, the floor beneath them simply... vanished.