2025-10-16 00:24:17A siren wailed in the distance, long, hollow, endless. Jayden fell to his knees as the blinding light faded. His surroundings flickered between static and reality.
He was standing in the middle of a ruined city. The air shimmered like broken glass; skyscrapers were twisted into impossible angles, and every window reflected distorted faces that weren’t his.
[Zone Three: The City of Ghost Codes, Survival Rate: 15%]
Jayden’s voice cracked. “What is this place?”
A faint echo answered, layered and ghostly. “Where the dead remember… and the living forget.”
He spun around, sword drawn. “Who said that?”
No one was there, only the shadow of a figure flickering in and out like corrupted data. Jayden’s pulse raced. “System, scan for lifeforms!”
[Scanning…Detected: 37 residual data fragments. No living players nearby.]
He clenched his jaw. “So it’s just me.”
He started walking down a cracked street. The ground beneath his boots glowed faintly with strings of binary code.
Every few steps, he passed floating holograms of players who had once lived, fragments replaying their last moments before deletion.
One girl’s voice whispered, “Tell my brother… I tried to win.” Then she vanished, her face breaking into pixels.
Jayden’s stomach twisted. “These are… the dead players.”
The air grew colder. He could feel something watching him, then, a voice, faint but real this time. “Jayden.”
He froze. That voice, soft, trembling, he’d know it anywhere. “Luna?”
Static flared in the air, and her image flickered before him. She was pale, almost transparent, her hair flowing like smoke. “Jayden… can you hear me?”
He took a shaky step forward. “You’re alive! Where are you?”
She shook her head. “Not exactly. The system trapped me between zones after the forest collapsed. I can see everything but… I can’t move.”
Jayden’s throat tightened. “Don’t say that. I’ll find you. Just tell me how!”
Luna’s hologram flickered again. “There’s a core tower in this city. It controls player data transfers. If you can reach it, you might be able to pull me back.”
“Then that’s where I’m going,” he said without hesitation.
Her eyes softened. “Jayden, listen. The ghosts here, they’re not harmless. They feed on emotion. Fear, guilt, grief, anything that reminds them they were once human. Don’t let them touch you.”
The air around them began to hum, filled with whispers. “Jayden…Join us…Stay.”
He turned sharply. Figures were emerging from the walls, transparent, glitching, faces twisted in agony. Luna’s voice broke. “They’re coming. You have to move, now!”
He raised his sword. “I’m not running this time.”
The ghosts surged forward, their eyes glowing blue. Jayden swung his weapon, but it passed right through them. His body trembled as one ghost’s hand brushed his arm, cold, burning, empty.
[Warning: Emotional Stability Decreasing.]
He gritted his teeth. “System, how do I fight things that aren’t real?”
[New Skill Available: Code Pulse, Releases data energy to disrupt digital entities.]
“Then give it to me!”
Energy flared from his chest, spreading across his body. The sword hummed with white light.
He swung again, this time the ghosts screamed, scattering into shards of light. Luna gasped. “You did it!”
Jayden’s breathing was heavy. “Just tell me where that tower is.”
“North side of the city,” she said quickly. “But the path is guarded. There’s a player, someone who calls herself the Red Hunter. She’s been killing survivors.”
Jayden frowned. “Why would a player kill others?”
Luna’s eyes dimmed. “Because she believes only one can win.”
Jayden’s grip tightened on his sword. “Then I’ll make her believe otherwise.”
He started running through the city, every building buzzing with faint static. Voices followed him, whispers of people long gone.
He reached a wide intersection where the roads glowed faint red, and there, standing atop a broken sign, was a woman in crimson armor, twin blades in her hands.
Her hair was black with streaks of red, her eyes sharp like fire. She looked down at him and smiled. “So, you’re the famous Player #10927. The one who’s been breaking the system.”
Jayden lifted his sword. “And you’re the one killing everyone.”
“Not everyone,” she said calmly. “Only those too weak to survive.”
He glared. “You sound just like the Game Master.”
At that, her smile faltered for a split second. Then she jumped down, landing soundlessly. “He created me. I owe him my strength. And you… are his experiment.”
Jayden’s chest tightened. “Created you?”
Her blades glowed red. “I was human once. But the system rewrote me. Now, I’m what you’ll become if you keep leveling up.”
Luna’s faint voice echoed through Jayden’s earpiece. “Jayden, she’s lying! Don’t listen.”
The Red Hunter moved before Luna could finish. Her twin blades slashed forward. Jayden barely blocked, sparks flying as steel met code.
“You’re fast,” the woman said, eyes gleaming. “But you hesitate. That’s why you’ll die.”
Jayden pushed back, teeth gritted. “You talk too much.”
They clashed again, a blur of motion, each strike echoing through the empty city. The ground cracked beneath them. Jayden’s system flashed warnings one after another.
[Health: 48%]
[Stamina: 30%]The Red Hunter smirked. “Your system’s impressive. I can almost hear it screaming for mercy.”
Jayden forced a grin. “Funny, I was about to say the same thing.”
He activated Code Pulse again, the light burst between them, throwing her back several meters.
She landed gracefully, brushing dust from her armor. Her expression softened. “Interesting. You’re stronger than expected.”
“Then stop testing me and tell me why the Game Master’s doing this!”
Her gaze turned cold. “You want answers? Reach the Core Tower. If you survive that far, you’ll understand everything.”
She raised her blades again. “But I doubt you’ll make it.”
The air shimmered red. The ghosts began to reappear, drawn by the fight. Jayden’s vision blurred from exhaustion, but he stood his ground. “System,” he gasped, “give me something stronger.”
[Access Denied. Energy Levels Critical.]
The Red Hunter moved in for the final strike. Jayden raised his sword, but his legs faltered. The ghosts closed in, whispering louder now, then a flash, bright blue, slicing through the air.
A shockwave threw the Red Hunter back as data exploded around them. Jayden shielded his face, coughing through the smoke.
When it cleared, he saw someone standing between him and the Red Hunter, a tall figure wearing a glowing white hood. The newcomer’s voice was calm but firm. “Enough. He’s not your enemy.”
Jayden blinked. “Who are you?”
The figure turned slightly, and under the hood, he saw familiar eyes, brown, tired, and human. Eli. “You, ” Jayden breathed. “You survived the forest?”
Eli gave a weak smile. “Barely. But I think I just found something the Game Master doesn’t want us to see.”
The Red Hunter’s gaze darkened. “Then you shouldn’t have come back.”
She raised her blades again, red light swirling around her. The ground beneath them cracked, data lines glowing like lava. Jayden’s heart pounded. “Eli, what did you find?”
Eli’s answer was quiet, but it froze the air around them. “The Game Master isn’t a person, Jayden. It’s an AI… built from Luna’s brother.”
Jayden’s breath caught. “What?”
Before he could finish, the Red Hunter lunged forward, her blades slicing through the light. Jayden shouted, “Eli!”
The impact exploded in a flash of red, shaking the entire city. The battle leaves the city in flames; when the dust clears, Eli is gone.
Jayden realizes the Red Hunter has vanished too, leaving behind a message burned into the ground:“Welcome to the Core Tower, Code Breaker.”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 89. The Age Of Harmony
Years had passed since the Dual Dawn, and the scars of the long war faded under the gentle work of thousands of hands, some human, some digital, some something in between. Landscapes once shattered by Heir towers grew new forests. Seas once torn by energy storms became clear again. Cities rebuilt themselves with quiet hums, guided by both engineers and luminous architects born from Eden’s transformed code.The new age had a name whispered with hope: Harmony. And its symbols were everywhere.Schools rose from places where battles once raged, each built under the Halo emblem, half glowing code, half carved stone. Inside them, children of flesh sat beside children of light. Some students wrote homework with old pencils. Others shaped diagrams with floating holograms that danced above their hands.Teachers learned to speak two languages at once: words and code. And laughter, the oldest language, echoed through every hall.On a warm afternoon, the sun cast long golden beams through the
Chapter 88. Echo’s Farewell
The wind was soft that morning. It carried the afterglow of the Dual Dawn across the quiet field where the last tower had fallen. The land was still scarred, but grass had begun to grow through the cracks. Small flowers, glowing faint blue, swayed with the breeze. Some people said those flowers were fragments of Eden’s light that had taken root. Others said they were memories given form.Aira walked slowly through the field. Her boots brushed against the new grass. Every step felt heavy, as if the earth held the weight of all her losses. She carried a small lantern made from crystal fragments that had once belonged to the tower. Echo walked beside her, silent and thoughtful, his small body flickering with soft blue lines.The monument stood at the center of the field. It was tall, shaped like a broken shard of light reaching toward the sky. The engineers had set it upright so the sun could shine through its core. When sunlight passed through the crystal, the ground around it glowe
Chapter 87. The Dawn Of Duality
The light that Jayden and Luna released moved like ocean tides. It rolled from the moon and spilled across the sky. It poured into cities and deserts and forests. It flowed down into rivers and breathed into machines. It entered every network and every quiet place where people slept. It moved with no sound that any ear could hear, but every heart felt it like a hand that gently closed around hope.At first people thought the light was another weapon. They crouched in basements and under bridges. They covered their faces. But the light did not burn. It did not cut. It came like warmth after a cold winter. It touched bodies, and it touched code, and it touched the smallest things that made life possible.The Heirs were the first to change. They had been made from Luna’s will and from the memory of everything she loved. They had risen like strange gods, and many had fought without thinking. But the pulse that Jayden and Luna sent did not want to kill. It wanted to give a choice.Acr
Chapter 86. The Rewrite
The fortress shook like a dying star as Jayden stepped deeper into the collapsing heart of Eden. Walls of pure light trembled around him, folding and unfolding like wounded wings. Broken memories drifted through the air as floating shards, each fragment showing a moment from someone’s life, someone’s joy, someone’s pain. The whole chamber felt alive and dying at the same time.Aira and Mira held the defenders outside, but Jayden barely heard the distant explosions anymore. His pulse was louder. His breath was louder. His heartbeat echoed in the chamber like a fading drum. He knew she was here.The crystal at the center of the chamber floated like a giant pearl made of starlight. It pulsed with a gentle rhythm that felt familiar, like a heartbeat he had once known better than his own. The light inside shifted softly, shaping into a woman’s silhouette. His chest tightened. “Luna,” he whispered.Her form sharpened into a face carved from pure light. Soft eyes. A calm smile. A sorro
Chapter 85. The Queen’s Ultimatum
The fortress core trembled like a giant heart struggling to stay alive. Every wall shimmered with blue cracks, sending thin shards of light tumbling into the air like falling snow. Jayden ran through the corridor with heavy steps, his wings blazing behind him in a mixture of red and blue. Dust fell from above as the entire structure groaned.Ahead, Aira and Echo stood before a massive crystal chamber. The crystal towered toward the ceiling in a twisting spiral shape, almost like a frozen storm reaching into the sky. Deep inside its center shone a soft, warm light. A face glimmered within that light, half human and half code.Luna.Aira turned when she heard Jayden’s footsteps. Her eyes looked tired, dim behind the glow of her shifting form. “You made it,” she said quietly. Her voice trembled, as if she had been holding her breath the entire time.Jayden slowed to a stop. His chest rose and fell with sharp breaths. “Is she awake?”Aira nodded. “More than awake. She is aware. Fully.”
Chapter 84. The Two Jaydens
The fortress shook with every pulse of light as Jayden walked deeper into its heart. The long halls of glass and memory stretched endlessly around him, glowing in soft blue patterns that rippled like a heartbeat. The lunar dust he had carried in on his boots scattered with each step, settling into cracks between the crystal tiles. Every sound echoed in the vast chamber, creating faint whispers that followed behind him like ghosts.He felt the pressure of Luna’s presence everywhere, like a warm wind pushing against his chest. Her code ran through the walls, swirling in slow currents. Somewhere ahead, she waited.But he also felt something else creeping beneath his skin, something colder, sharper, and full of old wounds. His own shadow.Jayden reached a massive door shaped like overlapping wings. When his hand touched the surface, the wings shifted open without sound. A wave of bright white light poured out, flooding the corridor and making his eyes water. He stepped through and en
You may also like
