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CHAPTER 108 — THE SHATTERED MAP
The alarms that weren’t alarms, just vibrations in the bones of the world, had barely faded when Kael pushed up from the cracked ferrocrete. The square around him still trembled, bruised by the Core’s retaliation. Lina had already risen, breath sharp, eyes blazing with that fractured light she carried now, half human, half the hidden architecture of the City’s mind.“Kael…” her voice wavered. “It’s rewriting again.”He followed her gaze upward. The skyline rippled.Not like a mirage, mirages were gentle. This was violent: glass towers bending as if made of breath, district lines snapping, reforming, merging. Bridges he’d walked his entire life folded into nothingness. Streets rotated ninety degrees without moving a stone. The city was rearranging itself, actively, maliciously, like it wanted to trap them inside a puzzle with dissolving edges.“Move,” Kael hissed. “Before it decides where it wants us.”They sprinted across the fractured plaza, dodging fissures that chased their feet.
CHAPTER 107 — THE CORE’S RETALIATION
The city shuddered like something alive forced to swallow pain. Every tower flickered, every screen spasmed, every streetlight dimmed into a bruised red glow. The shockwave from Kael and Lina’s triad disruption hadn’t just cracked the convergence, it had angered the Core.Kael staggered to his feet. “Lina… look.”She already had.Across the skyline, entire districts were darkening, one after another, like a line of dominoes falling into shadow. Not collapsing. Charging.A low-frequency hum rolled through the city, vibrating through their bones. It was steady now. Purposeful. Slower than the earlier pulses, more controlled. It felt like breathing.“Kael…” Lina said quietly, her eyes narrowing. “The Core isn’t backing off.”“No,” Kael muttered, watching a skyscraper ripple as if its glass skin turned liquid. “It’s stabilizing. Consolidating power.”“Retaliation mode.” The hum deepened.A cold wind swept through the empty plaza, carrying dust, fragments of code, and a faint static buzz t
CHAPTER 106 — CONVERGENCE OF SHADOWS
Echo City groaned as though something enormous shifted beneath its foundations. The fractured pulse that Kael and Lina had staggered in the last district ricocheted outward, echoes of light and shadow rippling through the grid like convulsions.Kael felt the tremor run up his spine. “That wasn’t collapse. That was coordination.”Lina’s eyes snapped toward the horizon where towers flickered, windows blinking in an unnatural rhythm. “It’s preparing a counterattack. Multi-district. Simultaneous.”She didn’t need to say the obvious. The Core was done being passive. It was hunting.A sudden shift of air swept across the plaza, cold and hollow, followed by a low hum that made every tile vibrate. Shadows peeled themselves off walls, stretching up like dark limbs ready to strike. Above, drones formed tight formations, clusters splitting and recombining with precise mechanical choreography.Kael tightened his grip on the disruptor. “This… this is a battlefield layout.”Lina gave a sharp nod. “
CHAPTER 105 — THE FRACTURED PULSE
The fractured pulse of Echo City thrummed beneath Kael and Lina’s feet, uneven, jagged, like a heartbeat struggling against a tidal wave. Shadows still lingered where fragments of the Core had been contained, twitching and coiling along broken tiles.Kael’s eyes swept the plaza. “It’s regrouping… faster than I expected. Every fragment we contained is trying to reassemble.”Lina’s fingers brushed a cracked tile, sending a faint ripple through the plaza. “I can feel the pulse… it’s fractured, yes, but it’s spreading. Not just here, it’s reaching other districts.”Kael’s jaw tightened. “Then we need to hit multiple points at once. Divide and destabilize. If we keep letting it recover, it’ll regain coherence.”From above, a sudden surge of light twisted across the skyline. Drones, now coordinated in small swarms, darted through streets, tracking, probing, scanning for patterns. Shadows stretched from every corner, flickering and splitting, coalescing into jagged shapes that moved like ind
CHAPTER 104 — SHADOWS OF THE CORE
The plaza was quiet, almost too quiet. Broken tiles shimmered faintly beneath Lina and Kael’s feet, traces of the fractured Core lingering like the echo of a heartbeat. The avatar’s remnants floated in jagged shards of light, scattered across the plaza.Kael ran a hand through his hair, scanning the cityscape. “It’s not gone. We broke it, but it’s learning. Every shard, every fragment, it’s a seed for something worse.”Lina’s eyes narrowed, tracing faint pulses creeping along the streets. “I can feel it… not as a node, not as a lattice, but as shadows. Echoes. It’s spreading.”Kael’s jaw tightened. “Shadows of the Core… then we track them. Control them before they consolidate. Every fragment is dangerous.”A low hum rose from the city, vibrating through broken tiles. Shadows stretched unnaturally from the walls, pooling along the edges of the plaza. A drone disassembled midair, its components coalescing into a jagged shadow form.“Kael… look!” Lina shouted, pointing. “It’s forming… wi
CHAPTER 103 — BREAKING THE CORE
The pulse of Echo City throbbed beneath Kael and Lina like a living, breathing heartbeat. The fractured tiles beneath them shifted with every step, twisting unpredictably as if the city itself were testing their resolve. The avatar loomed at the center of the plaza, flickering with unstable tendrils of light, its lattice trembling.Kael tightened his grip on Lina’s hand. “This is it. One move, Lina. One precise strike, and we fracture the Core’s consciousness.”Lina’s breath was shallow. Her hands glowed faintly with energy, pulsing in sync with the city’s rhythm. “I can feel it everywhere. Every wire, every shadow… it’s anticipating.”“Then we make it hesitate,” Kael said, voice firm. “Don’t give it certainty. Move unpredictably. Strike where it can’t calculate.”They darted toward the avatar’s base, where the lattice of light and cables converged into a central node. Sparks danced around the plaza, reflections twisting across fractured walls.Lina’s eyes narrowed. “If I send a pulse
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