THE SYSTEM GAVE ME EVERY VILLAIN'S POWER

Chapter 8

Kian took a tentative sip of the tea. It was bitter, with a strange, metallic aftertaste that made the back of his throat tingle, but almost instantly, the heavy, bone-deep tremors in his limbs began to subside. He let out a long, shuddering breath, staring into the dark amber depths of the liquid.

"Better?" Bao asked, leaning back in his chair.

"A little," Kian admitted. "You mentioned the visions. You said I wasn't paying attention. What’s an orphanage got to do with a system logic error?"

Bao didn't answer right away. He flicked his wrist, and the blue chess pieces vanished, replaced by a massive, chaotic glowing web of light that expanded to cover the entire back wall of the tea shop. It looked like an inverted tree, its branches reaching downward into a thick, black fog.

"Every person assigned a class has a root," Bao said, pointing to the top of the tree. "It connects your past identity to your future potential. It’s the link that tells the System who you were, so it knows what you should become. Now, look at yours."

Kian stood up, squinting at the holographic projection. At the very top, where the solid white line of a 'root' should have been, there was only a jagged, broken stump of static.

"It’s missing," Kian whispered. "Why is it missing?"

"Because you didn't have one," Bao said flatly. "Like I told you, you were dead. When you came back, you were a clean slate. But those visions? The fire, the screaming, the cedar wood? Those aren't your memories, Kian. They belong to the arsonist. The System isn't just giving you his powers; it’s using his life to fill the empty spaces in your history. It’s a patch. A very dirty, very violent patch."

"So you’re saying my brain is just... borrowing someone else’s trauma to make sense of itself?"

"In a way. But it’s not just a technical hitch. Look deeper at the nodes, kid."

Bao tapped a specific point on the map where several branches turned an ugly, bruised shade of violet.

"You're not just a bug," Bao continued, his voice dropping into a low, intense register. "You're a carrier. There was an old, classified theory whispered among the developers before the Vanguard locked everything down—something called the 'Villain-Leech' protocol."

"That sounds charming," Kian muttered, setting the cup down with a sharp clack. "What does it mean?"

"It means you were likely designed as a weapon," Bao replied. "Not a weapon to kill people, but a weapon to kill the System from the inside. Think of yourself as a biological hard-drive crash. Your code is meant to absorb high-residue patterns—like that arsonist—and break them down. You’re the disinfectant in a world that’s becoming increasingly infected by these pseudo-gods we call Heroes."

Kian felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. "I’m not a weapon. I’m a student. I was going to be a graphic designer."

"Not anymore," Bao said, his eyes scanning the data with an almost hungry intensity. "You’re a virus, Kian. Or rather, a viral counter-measure. Standard users are 'clean.' They follow the rules, they gain levels, they stay in their lanes. But your signature? It’s designed to strip the protection away from others. It’s designed to cleanse the dirty data that keeps these top-tier guilds in power."

"Wait, back up," Kian said, his hands starting to shake again. "Cleanse them? You mean kill them?"

"I mean take their godhood away," Bao said. "Imagine a Hero who has spent five years reaching Level 90, thinking they’re untouchable. Then they run into you—a walking system-shredder who turns their mana back into raw, unusable noise. They wouldn't just be afraid of you. They would want to erase you from existence before you even took your first breath."

Kian slumped back into his chair, his head spinning. "Is that why that woman—Mei Ling—was so on edge? She said the Guild was hunting me."

"They aren't hunting a common villain, kid. They’ve got thousands of those. They’re hunting the one thing that can break the game they’ve spent millions of points winning. If you stay unassigned, you’re an anomaly. If you integrate fully, you’re a threat to the world order. Either way, they’re coming."

"I don't want to break the world," Kian shouted, slamming his fist onto the table. "I just want to get my life back! I want to stop feeling like I’m about to explode every five seconds!"

"Shouting won't help," Bao said calmly. "And neither will running. Not without the partition I promised."

"Then do it! Install the wall, whatever you call it!"

"I told you the price, and I told you the difficulty," Bao said, his expression hardening. "We need a Tier-2 Core from a mental-type. And we need it fast. Because while we’re sitting here having tea, the Vanguard’s elite dogs aren't sleeping."

"How much time do we have?" Kian asked, his eyes darting to the locked door.

"Minutes? Maybe an hour if the street-scramblers I have outside are working," Bao said, his fingers flying across his interface. "But let’s be clear about something, Kian. You see yourself as an object right now. A victim of a glitch. But once I put that wall up, you’re going to have to make a choice. Are you going to be the virus they think you are, or are you going to be the person who controls it?"

"I just want to be me," Kian whispered.

"That guy died on the asphalt at 09:42:12," Bao said without a trace of sympathy. "The guy sitting here now is something else. Accept it, or go turn yourself into the Inquisitors and see how long it takes for them to cut your head open for 'research purposes.'"

Before Kian could respond, a sharp, rhythmic pinging sound echoed through the room. It came from Bao’s wrist-terminal, but Kian’s own UI flared bright red simultaneously.

"Speak of the devil," Bao hissed, his posture instantly becoming rigid. "They’re triangulating. That's a high-priority search grid."

"Is it the Heroes from the metro?" Kian asked, his breath hitching.

"Worse. Inquisitors. The Guild’s personal cleaners," Bao said, standing up and sweeping his arm through the holographic projections, extinguishing them into darkness. "They don't care about rifts or beetles. They only care about signal deviations. Like yours."

"What do we do? We have to go!"

"Stay put," Bao commanded. "If you run out there now, your mana-leaking heart will light up their scanners like a flare in a coal mine. I need to trigger a localized scramble."

"How?"

"By overwhelming their sensors with garbage data," Bao said, pulling a series of black, rectangular blocks from beneath the counter. He slapped them onto the table. "I’m going to broadcast a fake ghost signature from six different directions. It’ll give us a five-minute window to move you into the tunnels."

"Wait, five minutes?" Kian felt the arsonist’s laughter bubbling up in the back of his mind. They’re coming to play, Kian. Let’s burn the block down. It’ll be easy. Just a little spark...

"Shut up," Kian groaned, clutching his skull.

"Kian, look at me," Bao said, grabbing his shoulder with a grip like iron. "Ignore the noise. Keep your breathing steady. If you spark now, we’re both dead."

Bao’s fingers moved with mechanical precision, typing codes into the black boxes. Suddenly, the entire room hummed with a low-frequency vibration that made Kian’s teeth ache.

"Okay, the scramble is live," Bao said. "But look at your screen. You’re getting a ping."

Kian looked. A tiny, pulsating blue envelope was hovering in the corner of his vision. He hadn't even known the System had a messaging function.

"How is this here?" Kian asked, tapping it with a trembling finger.

A translucent screen unfolded, showing a single line of text in an elegant, serif font.

[MESSAGE FROM: M.L.S. (USER #00921)]

[CONTENT: The Inquisitors are arriving. They’ve tagged the Old Quarter nodes. If they find you with Bao, I cannot protect you. Move toward the secondary sewer outlet at Sector 9. Don't look back.]

"Mei Ling," Kian whispered. "She’s warning me."

"Then she’s risking her neck for a 'bio-hazard,'" Bao noted, picking up his own gear. "Or she’s herding you into a trap. Either way, we can't stay here. The net is closing."

Kian looked around the small tea shop, the place that had felt like a temporary sanctuary only minutes ago. The green lantern outside flickered and then went out, leaving the alley in deep, oppressive shadow.

"She said Sector 9," Kian said, standing firm. "If I'm a virus, Bao, maybe it's time I started acting like I have a purpose."

"Spoken like a man who's finally waking up," Bao said, a grim smile touching his lips. "Follow me. And keep your hood up. The night is only getting darker."