THE SYSTEM GAVE ME EVERY VILLAIN'S POWER

Chapter 7

Kian watched the dust settle in the hollowed-out metro entrance until Mei Ling’s silhouette finally vanished into the haze of flashlights and emergency responders. His legs felt like they were made of cooling wax, ready to snap if he shifted his weight too fast.

"Great," Kian whispered, his voice hitching in his throat. "No pressure. Just survive. Easy to say when your veins aren't currently hosting a bonfire."

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: PHYSIOLOGICAL STRESS AT 88%]

[ADVICE: PROCEED TO TARGET DESTINATION IMMEDIATELY.]

"I'm going, I'm going," he muttered, turning away from the chaos.

He kept to the narrowest gutters of the transit district, where the streetlights hummed with an uneven, dying rhythm. His mind was a scramble of two lives—one where he was a college kid worried about a mid-term, and the other where he was a man who enjoyed the sound of a roaring updraft. Every time he closed his eyes, the orange sparks behind his lids got brighter.

He remembered the rumors from the hospital wing, whispered by the 'Long-Termers' who had been broken by the system. If your status glitches, look for the green lantern in the Old Quarter. Ask for the uncle who plays alone.

Ten minutes of erratic shuffling brought him to a storefront that looked more like a storage shed than a business. A weather-beaten wooden sign hung above the door, depicting a single, chipped ceramic cup. Beside it, a small green lantern flickered, its light fighting against the heavy mana-fog of the lower district.

Kian pushed the door open. The interior was thick with the scent of roasted leaves and old paper, a stark contrast to the ozone and blood outside.

"We’re closed," a voice called out from the back. It was deep, calm, and utterly disinterested.

Kian stepped further in, his boots leaving muddy, soot-stained prints on the polished floor. "I’m not looking for tea."

A man sat at a circular table in the corner. He wore a simple gray cardigan over a high-collared shirt, his salt-and-pepper hair neatly slicked back. In front of him, a holographic chessboard projected a series of translucent blue pieces. He didn't look up as he tapped a knight, moving it with a practiced flick of his finger.

"Then you’re looking for trouble," the man said. "And looking at you, it looks like you’ve already found more than you can carry. You’re Bao, right? I heard you know why systems break."

"People call me Bao Nguyen Khang," the man corrected, his eyes finally shifting to Kian. He didn't look at Kian’s face; he looked at the air roughly six inches above Kian’s head, where the UI was hovering. "And I don't look at broken toys for free, kid."

"I don't have many points," Kian said, clutching the edge of a chair for support. "I’ve got thirty-two left. I had sixty, but... things happened."

"Thirty-two points wouldn't buy you the steam off my kettle," Bao said, returning his gaze to his game. "Go back to the Vanguard. Let them put you in a nice, sterile room until you fade into the background code."

"They won't fix me," Kian barked, his voice cracking. "They’ll just watch me overwrite! I can feel it happening! I have memories of things I never did! I know what it feels like to watch a closet burn from the inside! Does that sound like a background fade to you?"

Bao paused, his hand hovering over a pawn. "You’ve got a high-yield absorption residue. Level 1?"

"Level 3 now," Kian panted. "The rift... it happened in the metro."

"A Level 3 that still looks that human?" Bao stood up, his interest finally piqued. He walked over, circling Kian like a buyer at a used car lot. "Your synchronization should be at sixty percent by now. You should be drooling and trying to set the table on fire."

"I’m holding it back," Kian said. "But it’s getting harder. My name is Kian Adiyatma. At least, I think it still is."

"Let me see the log," Bao commanded, extending a hand. "I need the raw dump. Not what the System tells you. What the System hides in the buffer."

"How do I even do that?"

"Hand over your wrist. Let me interface," Bao said. "And don't worry. I’m an info-broker, not a thief. If you’ve got nothing worth stealing, I’ll just kick you out."

Kian hesitated, then offered his arm. Bao tapped a hidden device on his own wrist, and a thin silver wire snaked out, latching onto Kian’s pulse point. Kian let out a sharp gasp as a cold, clinical sensation raced up his arm.

"Hold steady," Bao murmured. "You’re vibrating. It’s hard to get a clear read through all this noise."

"That’s how it feels," Kian said. "Like I’m made of radio static."

Bao squinted at a holographic panel that flared to life between them. His bored expression shifted through several stages: curiosity, confusion, and finally, a deep, unsettling stillness.

"What is it?" Kian asked. "Is it fixable?"

Bao didn't answer. He scrolled through the lines of code with frantic speed. "Kid... where were you when the sirens started?"

"In an ambulance. Then a hospital. Why?"

"No, I mean when the first signal hit. The Big Bang. Before the system initialized your first quest."

"I was dead," Kian said flatly. "The crash. I flatlined."

Bao let out a low, dark chuckle. He pulled the wire back, and it hissed as it retracted into his sleeve. He walked over to the shop’s front window and slammed the heavy iron shutters closed.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Kian scrambled back, his palms starting to smoke.

"Sit down, Kian," Bao said, his voice no longer casual. It was grave. "I was going to charge you a hundred points just to look at your kernel, but you just gave me something worth a lot more."

"What are you talking about?"

"Look at this timestamp," Bao said, flicking a fragment of the holographic data toward Kian. "This is your death record. 09:42:12. Now look at the initialization of the System's arrival in this sector."

Kian squinted at the floating numbers. "09:42:15. So?"

"So?" Bao leaned over the table, his eyes burning with an intense, paranoid energy. "The System is a universal constant. It’s supposed to arrive first, then assign roles to the living. But you? You died three seconds before it even got here."

"I don't get it," Kian said. "What's three seconds?"

"In data terms? Three seconds is an eternity," Bao said, pacing the small room. "You were a vacant lot. When the mana hit, it didn't find a person to assign a class to. It found a vacuum. You didn't just 'get' a system, Kian. You became the host for a logic error."

"Is that why the arsonist is in my head?"

"Partly," Bao replied. "But there’s more. Most people absorb a core and their system filters it. Yours? Yours is eating everything raw because it thinks it’s still trying to fill the hole where your soul was supposed to be during the boot-up phase."

Kian felt a cold sweat break out across his neck. "So... I’m not real?"

"Oh, you're real enough to bleed," Bao said, stopping his pace. "But you're a walking paradox. If the Vanguard figured out your timeline, they wouldn't put you in a cell. They’d take you apart to see how the gears work. They’ve been looking for the source of the 'Pre-Rift' ghost signatures for weeks."

"Are you going to turn me in?" Kian asked, his fingers twitching toward the iron pipe at his belt.

Bao looked at Kian and laughed—a short, sharp burst of genuine amusement that made Kian’s skin crawl. "Turn you in? Kid, I’ve been waiting for a glitch like you since the sky turned blue. You’re the only thing in this city that hasn't been pre-determined by the algorithm."

"I just want the voice to stop," Kian pleaded. "I don't want to be a ghost signature or a paradox."

"The voice won't stop because you're fighting it like a disease," Bao said, sitting back down across from him. "You need to stop thinking of the arsonist as a parasite and start thinking of him as code that needs to be properly compiled. But to do that, I need access to the deep sector of your UI."

"And what’s the price?" Kian asked. "You said you don't do things for free."

"I want the logs," Bao said. "Every time you level up, every time you absorb a skill, I want a copy. I want to see what happens when a system evolves without a leash."

"And in return?"

"In return, I keep the Vanguard off your scent," Bao said, his eyes glinting. "And I give you the tool you need to keep from losing your mind. I can’t delete the arsonist, but I can give you a partition. A wall inside your head."

Kian looked at his hands. The sparks were still there, but they felt different now—less like an attack and more like an unfinished thought. "Can you really do that?"

"I’ve done it for Lesser Villains with more mana than you’ll see in ten lifetimes," Bao said dismissively. "But we have a problem. To install the partition, we need a stabilizer. A Tier-2 Core from a mental-type mob."

"Where am I supposed to get that?" Kian groaned. "I barely survived beetles!"

"There's an illicit auction happening tomorrow night in the sewers," Bao said, leaning closer. "Or... there's a certain 'accident' waiting to happen in the Industrial District. Either way, you're going to have to get your hands dirty, Kian."

Kian slumped into the chair, the weight of the night finally crushing him. "I just wanted to be normal."

"Normal died three seconds before the world ended, kid," Bao said, reaching under the table to produce a small, ancient-looking porcelain teapot. He poured a single cup of dark, steaming liquid. "Drink this. It’ll help with the vibrating. We have a lot of work to do before the hunters find us."

Kian took the cup, his hands still trembling. "Why are you really doing this, Bao? It’s not just for logs, is it?"

Bao paused, the blue light of the chess set reflecting in his pupils. "Because the System says I’m destined to die in a grocery store at age sixty-five during a random raid. And I’ve always been quite fond of rewriting my own destiny."

He looked at Kian with a look that was almost like hope, if hope was made of iron and spite.

"Now drink," Bao said. "We need to talk about why you’re actually seeing those visions of the orphanage. Because if you think they’re just memories... you haven't been paying attention."