2025-05-29 02:56:43Aiden didn’t sleep that night. He found shelter in an abandoned rooftop greenhouse. Glass panels were cracked, plants wilted into skeletal vines but it was high, dry, and quiet.
The city buzzed below, oblivious to the fact that something unnatural was hunting him. He stared up at the night sky, trying to breathe, but the silence only made his thoughts louder.
SYSTEM UPDATE: Status – Host Safe Temporary Adrenal Levels Returning to Baseline
Safe. For now. But Rhea had fought that thing alone. He clenched his fists. How long before Harrow finds me again?
[NEW TASK AVAILABLE: Adaptive Challenge – “The Choice”
“The system tests more than strength. It tests your will.” Objective: Locate and engage one of the following:
[Corrupted Civilian – Extraction Potential]
[Medical Outpost Breach – Ongoing Hostage Scenario]
Reward tier and impact will vary based on action and outcome.
Aiden’s eyes widened. “…What the hell?” Three missions. Three radically different consequences.
The first might let him save someone and learn how corruption starts.
The third was an active crisis people’s lives on the line. The system gave no guidance. No morality.
Just a menu.
[Choice must be made within 60 seconds.]
His mind raced. “I’m not ready for a full assault…” But standing by while people died? That wasn’t him. Not anymore.
Selected: Medical Outpost Breach
Location pinged.
Aiden crouched at the edge of the alley, watching. Men in cracked armor stood outside with stun rifles. Symbols glowed on their gear clearly modded. Not soldiers. Mercs. System-linked scum.
[Scanning Target: Tier-1 Fractured Users – Moderate Threat]
[Recommended Approach: Distraction + CQC (Close Quarters Combat)]
Aiden’s breathing slowed. His hands shook slightly. But his feet moved.
[PASSIVE: Urban Evasion (Lv. 1) Activated]
He moved like a shadow, slipping behind a van. Tossed a bottle. Clink. The guards turned he struck. Fist to throat. Knee to jaw. A rifle fell. His foot smashed the trigger hand of the second. A takedown that felt like instinct but was more.
[BONUS XP: Tactical Execution]
Skill Learned: Pressure Point Combat (Lv. 1) Aiden blinked. Did I just… unlock a fighting style? But no time to process. He ducked into the building. Inside, flickering lights revealed a grisly scene. Patients bound. A medic crying silently. And at the center her. The leader. A woman with white dreadlocks, red irises, and tattoos that pulsed like living code. She floated above the ground barely.
TARGET ID: Nyra Veil – Rogue Host – Ability: Flamebind // Tier-2
Caution: Heat field active. Approach with non-metallic weaponry.
She turned slowly. “Well well,” Nyra purred. “Another boy with a shiny toy.” “I’m not here for you,” Aiden said. “Let them go.”
“You think this is about them?” Her voice cracked like a fire. “These people watched me rot when I collapsed with a broken spine and a glitching system. Not one of them helped.”
“So now you’re killing them?” “I’m repurposing them. Fear is an excellent upgrade tool.” Aiden’s system chimed.
OPTIONAL PATH: Persuasion // Probability of Success: 12%
Alternative: Engage Host – Initiate Trial Battle
“System,” Aiden muttered. “Give me something to tip the odds.”
[UNLOCKING: Experimental Combat Module – Flame Breaker Shell (1 Use)]
Deployable heat resistance + knockback shield. He activated it. Energy crawled up his spine. A translucent barrier formed around his arm, humming softly.
Then she struck. Nyra’s flame whipped toward him like a dragon’s tail. He rolled, the shield absorbing the first arc. His boots skidded across scorched linoleum.
Another blast he dove behind an overturned stretcher. Fire licked the metal but didn’t pierce his shell. Aiden rose and charged. He slammed the shield into her gut.
Nyra gasped, staggering her flames guttered for just a moment. Aiden followed through three fast strikes to her midsection, then ducked as she lashed back. ENEMY STAGGERED – Weak Point Exposed He drove a final blow into her solar plexus. Her glow sputtered. She fell.
HOST DISABLED System Lockout Initiated
Option: Absorb – Purify – Extract – Terminate
Aiden froze. The options hung therewaiting. Like the system was curious what kind of person he’d become. “I’m not like Harrow,” he said. Selected: Purify “You may not always win... but you don’t have to lose yourself.” Nyra collapsed to the floor, unconscious. Her tattoos dulled to gray. The hostages sobbed in relief.
The medic, a young man with wide eyes and trembling fingers, whispered, “Thank you.” Aiden just nodded exhausted.
TASK COMPLETE – Heroic Action Path
Reward: Level Up – Tier-1 Host (Fully Stabilized)
Emotional Trait Unlocked: Moral Anchor
You chose the harder road. The system acknowledges your integrity. Back in the shadows above the city, a different figure watched Aiden through a shimmering panel of light.
A tall woman, eyes glowing silver, dressed in a high-collared coat stitched with data-wires. She smiled faintly. “Subject 17 has stabilized,” she said into a comm device. “Initiate Phase Two.
He’s ready.” From the other end: static. Then a voice. “Does he know who he is yet?” “No,” she replied. “But soon.”
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Chapter 197: The Deal of Oblivion
The chamber’s gravity thickened as Cael lunged at the Devourer, The Thread Spear clashed with a barrier of flickering hexcode symbols, an explosion of kinetic pressure shaking the core beneath them.The Devourer grunted, barely managing to parry the blow with his remaining arm, his body dripping with fractured system energy. “You’re late,” he growled.“And you look like death forgot to finish the job,” Cael spat.The cocoon holding Mira pulsed between them, threads twitching, struggling to contain her awakened Thread Aura, The Devourer’s gaze flicked toward her.“She’ll wake up soon. And when she does, this place won’t hold.”Cael didn’t hesitate, He dashed forward, this time faking high and slicing low, catching the Devourer’s injured side. The blow landed, A gash of corrupted thread split open, The Devourer howled.As the Devourer fell back, black mist spilling from his wound, Cael pressed the advantage, only to be slammed back by a pulse of raw memory energy, They both stumbled.An
Chapter 196: The Door That Shouldn’t Exist
“Cael? Is that… you?”The voice echoed through the wooden doorway like a memory stitched into time itself, He froze midair.Mira’s brow furrowed as she sensed the change in him. “That voice…?”Cael nodded slowly. “My mother.”But that wasn’t possible. She’d died during the first Thread Breach. There was no timeline left where she existed. Not even as a ghost, Yet the voice tender, warm, familiar drifted through the cracks like sunlight through a broken shutter. He stepped forward, trembling.[ WARNING: UNVERIFIED THREADLINK. ORIGIN UNKNOWN. PROCEED WITH CAUTION. ]But he couldn’t stop. “Mira,” he whispered, “if this is real… I have to see.”She didn’t stop him, Instead, she tightened her grip on his wrist. “Then we go together.”They stepped into the doorway, The world on the other side wasn't real, Or maybe it was too real.Cael stood on a cobblestone street, surrounded by the scent of roasted almonds and rain. Lanterns flickered on walls. His childhood home untouched by decay stood
Chapter 195: Starfall Protocol
The collapsing star in the Thread Devourer’s palm pulsed like a heartbeat, Each vibration tore chunks out of the Spiral Core’s floating architecture. Segments of admin script unraveled into strings of light, vanishing into the rift behind him.Cael held Mira in his arms, shielding her from the shockwaves with his own body. His system was screaming.[ SYSTEM CONDITION: CRITICAL ][ USER “MIRA PRIME” STATUS: STABILIZED – BOND LINK INITIATED ][ COMBINED SYNC RATE: 4%… 7%… 12% ]“You really want to destroy everything just to keep me from saving her?” Cael grunted, staring at his monstrous counterpart, The Devourer’s form twisted, part Cael, part god, part void.“I’m not destroying it,” it said. “I’m resetting it. This was always the endgame.”The Spiral Core’s system flared. A new voice, one Cael hadn’t heard in a long time, cut through the chaos.[ ADMIN OVERRIDE IN PROGRESS… ][ ERROR. ADMIN LEVEL INSUFFICIENT. OVERRIDE BLOCKED. ]It was Korben, Back in the Admin Citadel. “Cael,” his v
Chapter 194: The Thread King's Gambit
Cael fell through the void, Not through space. Not through time, But through versions of himself, Each layer shattered like glass as he plunged deeper, each one a world he might’ve ruled, destroyed, or abandoned.And finally, He landed.The ground was cold metal. Silver-gold latticework pulsed with system veins, feeding into a towering black spire rising into a sky of endless equations, The Thread King's domain.[ SYSTEM NOTICE: YOU HAVE ENTERED “THE SPIRAL CORE” ][ WARNING: UNSTABLE DIMENSION — REALITY MAY FRACTURE ]Cael’s breath fogged in the sterile air. The necklace fragment his link to Mira no longer glowed, He was alone again, Except for the entity waiting above.The Thread King hovered in the sky like a broken god, His armor glinted with the same blue-fire runes Zereth once wielded, But his voice when it finally spoke was unmistakably Cael’s. “You’re not supposed to be here.”Cael rose to his feet. His muscles ached from the last battle. His spirit fragile, barely holding form
Chapter 193: The Cost of Breaking
For the first time since inheriting the System, Cael couldn’t move, The Threadbreaker had done something no one else ever could: pause existence.Even the hum of the System, those ever-present status updates and code pulses vanished. Time no longer ticked. Reality no longer breathed, Cael stood in a world made of still echoes.His own thoughts felt… muffled. “I don’t understand,” he said.Threadbreaker stood on a stairway of code that unraveled beneath his feet and rewove with every step. “You shouldn’t.”“What are you?”Threadbreaker’s face remained hidden behind fractured code symbols, ancient and forgotten. “I am the system’s forgotten promise. The cost it never wished to pay.”Threadbreaker extended a skeletal hand long, digitized, flickering with multiple realities at once. “Cael Veritas. You’ve manipulated code, broken limits, stolen fate, and cheated recursive annihilation. The rules of this world bend for you now.”Cael’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t cheat anything. I just”“You wa
Chapter 192: Purged Threads and Phantom Codes
There was no sound No screaming. No fire. No Mira. No sky, Just static. Endless white static. Cael hovered in the core of the explosion, suspended midair, limbs weightless. Every atom in his body was disintegrating and reconstructing simultaneously, trillions of data strings rewriting themselves.[ SYSTEM ERROR: USER EXISTENCE UNRESOLVED ][ THREAD PURGE IN PROGRESS — 77% ][ CORE ENTITY CANNOT BE DELETED ][ SYSTEM IN CONFLICT WITH ITSELF ]“Good,” Cael whispered. “Let it fight.”His body convulsed, light pulsing through his veins like cracked lightning. Each throb of energy revealed glimpses of every decision he’d made, good or bad. There was no running now.The System had called his bluff, Now it wanted to erase him completely, Amid the white chaos, Cael heard a sound Soft. Familiar “Mira?” No-deeper. Hollow. It was Flint.“You were never the chosen one, Cael. You stole it. Just like the rest of us tried and failed.”Then Keiran's voice, like thunder behind glass, “We all became ec
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