Level 999: The Glitch King

Extermination Fleet

Jace was still on the throne when the sky changed.

The spire had opened lines of sight above him, revealing Manhattan beneath the red lattice. The gold point beyond that had widened, and then the ships came in a long black procession, forming up over the city, trailing pale fires from their hulls.

No wings, no familiar sounds, nothing that suggested home.

Jace bent his elbows over the throne's arms and stared at the strange ships floating serenely in the heavens. "Yeah," he muttered. "That's about right."

The throne glowed warmly beneath his palms, but he was still learning the controls. Claiming the spire had been simple enough: he'd sat on it until it gave way. That didn't mean he knew how to use it.

There was a panel at the front of the room.

Access: 60%

Corruption Load: 58%

Territory Claim: Spire / Lower Manhattan

Status: Exposed

The whole room shuddered as something pounded against the sealed entrance.

Seraphina's voice rang out over the stone walls. "You idiot. Do you see what you called?"

Jace pushed himself up and off the throne, wincing as his ribs protested the movement. It was all the adrenaline left in his veins from Vane, from the Judges, from the spire, keeping him upright.

Another knock echoed through the chamber. "That is an extermination fleet," Seraphina said. "They come not to parley."

Jace turned back to the lines in the ceiling, watching as the last of the strange ships fell into formation above Manhattan.

A voice rang out from the heavens.

“Unauthorized claimant detected. Forbidden Palace beacon confirmed. Noble claimant displaced. Glitch-class corruption present.”

It rolled over the ruined cityscape, sending vibrations through the glass-like stone walls.

"...by order of the Outer Hierarchy, the contaminated territory shall be excised; inheritance structure will be reasserted after sterilization has been achieved."

The spire was feeding him the city in fragments, showing him the chaos unfolding below: screams buried beneath the wails of sirens, people walking aimlessly through the streets, dust and debris turning in slow circles, red blinking lights suspended in the air like stars, all arranged into a map hovering just above the throne, the pale spire marking the center, the ship formation hovering over it.

People.

Hundreds of thousands of them.

Jace drew in a steadying breath, looking back at the throne. "Don't show me a map if you can't tell me how to get off it."

The ships opened fire. There was no flash, only dark shapes in the sky, and then circles of air had begun to rise. Loose stone lifted into the heavens, glass climbed the sides of the street, cars flipped end-over-end, and a roadway broke and peeled upward. Jace felt the whole city lift with it.

Seraphina pounded on the sealed entrance once more. "Open the wall."

The stone wall split at the entrance before Jace could reach it.

Seraphina stood on the other side, her mouth slick with blood, her armor cracked along one pectoral. Her fury was undiminished, but it had been joined by something colder, sharper, as she turned from the broken wall to regard the throne room. "You cannot stop this from the chair," she said at last.

Jace looked back at the throne. "Then it's a poor chair."

"It is a seat of claim," she said. "I would prefer it myself."

"Fantastic." Jace followed her gaze to the ceiling lines, where the ships above Manhattan continued their silent work. "Tell that to the people who built this place."

Seraphina pointed to his left. "The outer ledge. The spire responds better at a distance."

Jace watched her for a long moment as the patience finally left her face.

"I do not care if you die," she said sharply. "I care if they erase the Palace."

"Still calling it yours?" Jace moved toward the opening she'd indicated.

"Move." Seraphina's voice snapped at his heels.

The room opened before him, revealing a stairway that curled upward and away, hewn from the very rock of the spire. Jace climbed slowly, one hand bracing against the wall when he stumbled, the spire shifting and reshaping around him in rough segments: the door opening at the end of a hallway, the bridge extending from one corner to the next, the wall parting just before he wandered into it blindly.

Seraphina was close behind him.

The steps opened onto the outer ledge of the spire, and Jace had to steady himself against the railing as he looked down at the broken city below. Cars floated over the streets, and lights bent at impossible angles. Rubble turned in slow, looping motions, tumbling end-over-end until it vanished into the ghostly circles in the sky. Jace had to look closer to see the figures among the wreckage.

On the leading ship above the crater, a dark shape hung from the underbelly, one of the larger vessels if the relative size was to be believed. Its weapon system was aimed directly at the spire.

Jace raised a hand, and light flared at his feet. He gathered it hungrily until it spilled over the ledge in a thin sheet before dying away with no effect on the pull overhead.

The tug was insistent. Cracks spiderwebbed out from where Jace's boots met the stone.

"Come on," he muttered, already feeling the insubstantial tug of the air current. "Make it do something."

Seraphina caught his sleeve before he could loose another handful of power. "It will not break the siphon that feeds the weapon."

"What do I hit?" Jace turned back to the battle.

"You interrupt the rule feeding it."

Jace looked at his friend. "I do what now?"

Seraphina pointed at the first ship. "Look harder."

Breach sight opened before his eyes.

The lines of the city fell away to lines, the spire, the ships, the weapon, the pull overhead, all patterns weaving in and out of each other in a set of rules. Most of them were locked, their place in the system immutable, save one rogue thread that ran the length of the ship's weapon, buried within the larger rule governing the pull.

Jace pointed. "There."

"If you can see it," Seraphina said, "mark it."

"Mark it with what?" Jace gestured at the weapon.

"The thing that makes you wrong."

The ledge split beneath Jace's boots as the siphon pulled again. Below him, the section of sidewalk with the man and child lifted into the air. The signpost bent nearly double, and the man's grip slipped, caught, and slipped again.

Seraphina's fingers found his belt. "Jump."

Jace didn't ask how she knew. He needed both hands to steady himself as he landed on the ship's underbelly. Metal scraped raw skin from his palms, and his shoulder shot a sharp pain as he landed atop a raised section. The siphon pulled tighter, and he caught the groove in the hull before sliding back out into the sky.

A turret unfolded from the ship's side. Jace rolled as it fired, the beam of energy tearing through the space where his chest had been a heartbeat before. He shoved himself forward before it could track him down.

Two armored figures stood at the edge of the opening, their blades curved and wickedly sharp. The first moved low and fast, and Jace ducked beneath it, driving his shoulder into the man's knee. The second took the opening, but Jace caught the hilt of his fallen weapon, driving it up and behind him until the man's faceplate cracked. The first attacker caught his ankle, but Jace kicked backward, his heel snapping the man's helmet against the hull. He rolled clear of the ship's edge and crawled toward the nearest weakness in the siphon's hold.

Corruption Load: 63%

The pull was stronger now.

Below him, the section of sidewalk with the man and child lifted again. The signpost bent nearly double, and the man's grip slipped, caught, and slipped again.

Jace reached the weak point and drove his palm into it.

The ship responded instantly.

Pain flared up his arm, the siphon's rule burning against his skin before a panel opened up before his eyes.

Unauthorized contact detected

Hierarchy Law protected

Claimant authority insufficient

Jace growled at the message. "Yeah, I heard you."

His palm was sucked into the ship. Something within the glitch protocol was wrong, damaged, wounded. It screamed at him to leave it alone, to stop prying at the weak point.

[GLITCH PROTOCOL: Error Mark unlocked.]

[Rule damage authorized.]

Jace drove his hand down into the ship's side. Black veins of energy crept out from his palm, and the circle of the siphon pulled him back by his legs as the pattern above Manhattan wavered. Around the city, the siphon's power failed.

Cars fell back down to the streets, boulders crashed through roofs, and the section of sidewalk with the man and child broke away from the pull. Jace could see the man's face as he fell, but he was smiling. It was a good look for him.

The formation of the ships overhead wavered, and the fleet opened up on the spire. The lead vessel's weapon fired, and Jace felt his own arm power up in response to the pain in his side. He pushed himself forward.

A smaller ship drifted closer to the siphon, its bow already bent back, engines roaring. One of the turrets on its side had turned toward the pull, but it fired at what little remained of the bridge. The other ship clipped the siphon and spun sideways into the third, its weapons still blazing.

Jace tore his hand from the ship's side. His palm was black and slick where the siphon had marked it.

Corruption Load: 70%

The mark on his hand glowed, and the ship fought him for control. Something else had been damaged within the protocol, something that sought to repair itself.

"Stay broken," he told it. "Stay."

Another ship fired on the hull, and Jace was thrown back by the blast. Static Step caught him midair, hissed, slipped, and tossed him back into the sky. The spire saved him from falling to the ruined streets below, but his breath came in short gasps as he skidded on the ledge.

The spire's light snapped around his other arm, dragging him back through the outer wall. Jace landed on his knees in the throne room, rolling back onto his rump, wincing at the pain in his ribs.

Above him, through the lines in the ceiling, the lead ship was reeling from the attack, the underbelly torn open. Two vessels were missing, and the other one was pulling away from the siphon, engines flaring along the side of its hull.

The fleet still stood, its formation shaken but not broken.

The broadcast returned to his hearing, garbled by the interference. "...extermination protocol interrupted."

Seraphina took his place at the entrance, her hand pressing against the damage to her armor. She looked up at the sky, taking in the sight of the broken city, before she turned back to the mark on Jace's palm.

"You marked Hierarchy Law."

Jace pushed himself off the floor with his elbows. "Did it work?"

"It should not have been possible."

"That wasn't what I asked." He turned his palm up to the light. The mark was still glowing faintly, his fingers curled around it.

The whole chamber was growing dark.

The few remaining ships had frozen, their weapons trained not on the spire but on the distant gold point beyond the red lattice. The opening in the heavens widened, and a panel appeared before Jace's eyes.

Error Mark confirmed

Forbidden Heir status escalated

Outer Hierarchy notified

Jace's breath caught in his throat at the last line.

THE KING HAS BEEN NOTIFIED.