Level 999: The Glitch King

The Forbidden Palace

The crater held.

That was the first thing Jace realized, once the ringing in his ears had dulled enough for him to hear anything else. The glass-smooth hole in the ground where Times Square had once been should have been swallowing itself whole, edges folding in on the mess within, half the block consumed in the process.

It held.

Jace stood at the center of it, blood drying at the corner of his mouth, the last fragments of the system's text messages fading from his vision. The ground beneath his boots did not give.

Around him, the broken remains of Times Square stretched out. A bus lay on its side, one wheel still spinning. A storefront had been swallowed whole. Down the block, someone was still screaming a name that would not answer.

Jace flexed his fingers. They responded, this time, if stiffly.

The blue light beneath his skin had burned away to thin lines along his wrists and forearms. He was still sore where the spear had found his ribs, his shoulders still ached, but the tightness behind his eyes had eased. It was not the worst pain he'd ever known.

Above him, the sky still bled red, the lattice of torn muscle and sinew barely concealing the growing point of gold beyond. A few minutes ago, he'd have been thinking about lunch, about whether his manager would have his ass for even asking.

Now half of Manhattan was rubble, and something worse was coming.

Jace turned.

He took in the devastation first, the curl of smoke, the wreckage of steel and glass, the screens long since gone dark still burning with angry reds in their frames. Then, through the haze at the far end of the crater, he saw it.

The tower did not rise.

It did not fall.

It simply was.

Set into the ground like a spike, the slender building of white stone and harder shadows loomed over the crater's edge. There were no windows on the lower levels, no doors save one Jace could see from his vantage. It was an unadorned thing, a clean line of pale rock and the sharper lines of its own making, planted in the middle of the dead square.

Jace stared.

"What the hell is that?"

He knew a little of what it was, even as he stood there, heart hammering in his throat. He knew the feeling in his chest, the tug at his ribs, the whisper along his bones.

Something in him answered, and he was already walking before he thought to.

The crater's slope was broken glass and loose stone, but it held him up as he climbed. It should have shifted beneath his boots, but each step found purchase, and he was halfway up before he realized it. Reality Anchor, the system had called it, if that was a thing.

By the time he reached the base of the tower, it no longer felt like New York.

A long set of white stairs led up to the building's entrance, set into the very center of the square. A flash of white light struck the steps, and then another, and another, before Jace could take it all in.

Three figures stood at the top when the light faded. They were not Wardens, not exactly. Vane's soldiers were all broad shoulders and practical clothing, but these wore pale armor, their sleeves and trousers trimmed with thin strips of gold. One figure bore a staff tipped with a ring of white light, the other two twin blades of the same color.

Judges.

The one at the front looked down their nose at him and smiled.

"Behold the peasant who plays at being a King."

Jace stopped at the foot of the stairs.

Behind them, the white stone building opened into a great hall, its inner workings visible from where he stood. Set at the far end and raised on a final set of steps was a throne, if one could call it that. There was no gold, no jewels, no comfort to be found in the simple white stone seat.

Someone was already on it.

They leaned back against the wall at the center, as if the sight of it had grown old on them. Their hair was white, their armor clean if less fine than the Judges'. One hand rested on the arm of the throne, fingers curled loosely.

Seraphina.

Jace knew the name before it left his lips.

She looked him over, then dismissed him.

"That," she said, "is the anomaly?"

One of the Judges answered, if only because he had not taken his eyes off Jace. "The records indicate an unauthorized claimant event."

Jace looked past them, at the throne, and then at Seraphina again.

The leader Judge raised his staff, the ring of white light at its tip flaring.

Seraphina's voice was bored, but it carried through the chamber nonetheless. "Dispose of him."

Jace spat blood at the step before him and climbed.

The light from the Judge's staff grew brighter, but he kept coming. The Judge took a step back, but Jace was faster.

[GLITCH PROTOCOL: Static Step unlocked.]

[Movement through unstable space authorized.]

Jace's spine felt as if it had been split down the middle, his vision doubling before snapping back to focus. He was still standing, though, and that was what mattered.

He drove the heel of his palm into the front of the Judge's helmet. The white armor cracked, and Jace had the satisfaction of seeing the man's face as he grabbed the back of the helm and drove his forehead into the step. The faceplate split, and the Judge's body went limp, the broken armor falling to pieces at his feet.

Access: 60% (from 45%)

Corruption Load: 58% (from 55%)

Jace barely had time to steady himself before the other two Judges moved. The staff-bearer fired, and the swordsman came at him from the side, but Jace was already dodging the blast and rolling away from the edge of the steps. The light from the attack scorched his shoulder, and the edge of the swordsman's blade took a shallow bite out of his ribs, but Jace was faster. He drove into the wall, cracking the stone, and shoved off, turning with a feral snarl.

The Judges wanted to dance.

Jace would give them something to stumble over.

He caught the swordsman's wrist and twisted, driving the man's own momentum into his side as the staff-bearer fired again. The blast tore through the swordsman's chest, and the Judge's armor split down the back in a cascade of white sparks. The swordsman went down, dead before he hit the steps.

The last Judge came at him, reversing his grip on his weapon.

Jace met him head-on, all snarl and fury. He drove his forehead into the man's faceplate, and the Judge reeled back, but Jace was already behind him. He drove the hilt of the Judge's sword into the man's ribs, and something wet and important gave way beneath the armor. The Judge folded over his wound, and Jace drove his knee into the man's chest, sending him tumbling backward down the steps.

He was on his feet again before the Judge hit the bottom, his hands braced against the wall to keep from following.

For a long moment, no one moved. Seraphina was on her feet now, watching him with cool, calculating eyes.

"You have no claim here," she said.

Jace pushed off the wall and looked past her, at the throne. "Didn't ask."

He climbed the steps, one at a time. Seraphina raised one hand, and the air in front of him hardened, slowing his advance. The next step took more effort, and then the one after that, until his boots were sliding on the floor. White light ran along the floor from the throne, twisting through cracks in the stone, and Jace knew she'd been feeding the room itself.

He looked at the light, then back at Seraphina.

It was not hers.

“You’re bleeding on my floor,” Seraphina said.

Jace looked down at her, then at the throne.

"Move."

Her eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

The pressure against his chest grew, and his shoulders sagged beneath it, but Jace took another step forward. And another. The light along the floor shifted, and Seraphina's expression changed.

"No," she said. "This seat rejects contamination."

Jace kept walking.

“Looks like it’s rejecting you.”

The lines of light along the floor stopped running into Seraphina's boots. They curled around Jace's instead.

He reached the platform and stopped, and Seraphina struck out at him, her palm open, the light in it white-hot. Instinct told him to block, and he caught her wrist, his fingers biting into the bone. The impact drove the step beneath her into his ribs, and Jace winced, his arm screaming in protest. She was stronger than she looked.

Not strong enough.

Jace twisted her wrist, using his weight to throw her off-balance, and shoved. Seraphina stumbled back, her hands coming up to brace herself against the throne. It did not stop her, and the light along the floor died beneath her boots.

She looked up at him, her expression one of astonishment. "This is not your place."

Jace pointed at the entrance. "Out."

Seraphina looked at him as if he'd just told her something incredibly stupid. "You don't understand what this place is."

"Maybe not," Jace said, his voice rough. "Still not yours."

The chamber responded.

A pulse of energy rolled through the floor, and Seraphina was lifted off her feet, sent backward in a spray of white light. She landed hard on her backside, and for a moment, Jace thought she might get up again. The entrance to the chamber was already half-sealed with pale stone when he turned back to the throne.

It was not as imposing up close. The white stone was cold, the arms of the chair carved in hard lines that left no room for comfort. Jace stood in the middle of it all, blood on his sleeve, dust in his hair, half the city in ruins around him, and knew he had no business sitting there.

It did not stop him.

Jace took his place on the throne, and the Spire answered. The sound of it was like something beneath the earth, a deep vibration that rolled up through the tower. The chamber grew brighter, the lines of white light tracing patterns along the walls. Outside, the city responded in kind, the distant glint of glass catching the light, old systems stirring to life, the lights along forgotten streets flaring to life one by one.

A title burned through Jace's vision.

The Uncrowned Landlord.

Jace gripped the arms of the throne as the room settled around him. It accepted him.

Outside the Spire, the white light climbed the tower, spilling over the top in a ribbon of pale fire that cut through the red sky. Across the ruined city, anything that had survived the blast watched in silent awe. And somewhere far above the tower, in the deep reaches of the sky where the larger things drifted, something answered.

A fleet turned as one, its course altering.

Jace leaned back in the throne, looking up through the cracks in the chamber walls at the torn red sky above Manhattan. He had not hidden. That was over.

Whatever came next would come because he had taken something real.

Good.

He was tired of being found.