2026-01-01 02:00:25Breath. Just breathe.
Alex’s lungs felt like they were filled with broken glass. He stumbled through the dense undergrowth, branches whipping his face, thorns tearing at his ruined suit. Behind him, the screams from the beach were fading, but they were replaced by something worse: the sound of laughter. The "Butchers" were enjoying themselves. Alex tripped over a protruding root and slammed hard into the mud. He tasted dirt and copper. "Get up," he hissed to himself, his voice cracking. "If you stop, you die." He tried to push himself up, but a heavy boot suddenly stomped down on his back, pinning him to the muddy ground. "Found you, rabbit." The voice was raspy, like sandpaper rubbing against stone. Alex froze. He slowly turned his head. Standing over him was a man who looked like a walking nightmare. He was skinny but wiry, wearing a dirty tank top. His face was covered in tribal tattoos, and in his hand, he twirled a jagged, rusted combat knife. "You're the one from the screen," the killer grinned, revealing yellow teeth. "The delivery boy. 'Number 100'." The killer didn't strike immediately. Instead, he crouched down, bringing the knife blade dangerously close to Alex’s eye. "The VIPs are offering a bonus for your head," the killer whispered. "But the Lady Alice... she sent a special message. She said she wants your death to be 'entertaining'." Hearing her name sent a jolt of electricity through Alex’s body. It wasn't fear anymore. It was pure, unadulterated rage. "She... thinks... this is funny?" Alex gritted his teeth, his hands clawing deep into the mud. "Hilarious," the killer laughed. "Now, hold still. I’m going to start with your ears." The knife descended. NO! Alex roared inside. I won't die here. Not like a pig! Not for her entertainment! In a burst of adrenaline that only comes to the dying, Alex twisted his body violently. He grabbed a handful of wet mud and flung it backward into the killer’s face. "Argh! You little shit!" The killer flinched, blinded for a split second. It was the only chance Alex would ever get. He didn't try to run. He knew he couldn't outrun a professional killer. Instead, Alex lunged forward. His hand closed around a fist-sized rock half-buried in the dirt. With a primal scream, he swung it wildly at the killer’s head. CRACK! The stone connected with the killer’s temple. The killer stumbled back, dazed, blood trickling down his face. He looked shocked that a "pig" had actually fought back. "I'm going to gut you!" the killer roared, swinging the knife blindly. The blade sliced across Alex’s forearm, spraying blood. The pain was blinding, but Alex didn't stop. He couldn't stop. He tackled the killer, knocking him to the ground. They rolled in the mud, a desperate struggle between a professional predator and a cornered beast. The killer was stronger, but Alex was possessed. He straddled the killer’s chest, raised the rock with both hands, and brought it down. Again. Thud. "Die!" Again. Thud. "DIE!" Alex didn't know how many times he hit him. He smashed the rock down until his arms went numb, until the killer’s face was unrecognizable, until the struggling beneath him stopped completely. Silence returned to the jungle. Only Alex’s ragged breathing remained. He sat on top of the corpse, covered in blood and brain matter, his chest heaving. He dropped the bloody rock. His hands were shaking uncontrollably. "I... I killed him..." He felt bile rising in his throat. He had never even been in a fistfight before, and now he had beaten a man to death. But before the horror could fully set in, a strange, mechanical sound echoed directly inside his skull. [DING!] Alex looked around wildly. "Who's there?" [System Initializing...] [Host Vital Signs: Critical. Mental State: Unstable.] [Condition Met: First Kill achieved.] A translucent blue panel, like a hologram from a sci-fi movie, suddenly appeared floating in the air right in front of Alex’s eyes. [God-Level Plunder System Activated.] "System?" Alex whispered, staring at the glowing text. He had read web novels. He knew what this was. But he thought it was fiction. [Target Detected: Deceased Class-D Assassin.] [Touch the target to initiate Plunder.] Alex looked down at the mangled body beneath him. He hesitated for a heartbeat, then reached out his trembling, blood-stained hand and touched the killer’s chest. Whoosh. A golden light surged from the corpse and flowed into Alex’s arm. A sensation of warmth washed over him, dulling the pain in his sliced forearm. [Plunder Successful!] [Reward 1: Attribute Points] Strength +2 (You are now stronger than an average adult male) Agility +3 (Your reflexes have improved significantly) [Reward 2: Skill Extraction] Obtained Skill: [Basic Dagger Mastery (Lv. 1)] Description: You now possess the muscle memory and knife skills of a street-level assassin. You know how to hold a blade, where to stab, and how to kill efficiently. The information flooded Alex’s brain. Instantly, the way he looked at the world changed. He looked at the killer’s dropped knife lying in the mud. Before, it was just a scary weapon. Now, he knew exactly its weight, its balance, and how to use it to slit a throat in 0.5 seconds. Alex picked up the knife. It felt like an extension of his own hand. He stood up. The trembling in his legs was gone. The fear in his heart was replaced by a cold, burning determination. He looked up at the hidden camera mounted on a nearby tree. The red light was blinking, broadcasting his face to the VIP room. Alex didn't cry. He didn't beg. He raised the bloody knife and pointed it directly at the camera lens. His eyes were no longer the eyes of a delivery boy. They were the eyes of a Hunter. "One down," Alex whispered hoarsely. "Ninety-nine to go."
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Chapter 189: The All-Seeing Eye
[Location: Galactic Core - Sagittarius A]*[Time: T-Plus 6 Months since First Contact]The fleet exited jump.Forty-eight dreadnoughts dropped out of the white void and stabilized their thrusters at the edge of the galactic center.The stars were gone.The core was dark.A massive ring of white cubes, numbering in the millions, surrounded the supermassive black hole and blocked all light from the galaxy.They formed a shell."The Format is active," Ares said.The AI analyzed the space between the cubes and measured the disintegration of matter as the Architects erased the surrounding star systems."The galaxy is being deleted."Alex stood at the helm.He looked at the black hole in the center of the ring, where the event horizon shimmered with red mathematical code.The Voidbreaker Arm pulsed.The casing grew hot.The white light inside the metal veins vibrated at a frequency that matched the gravity of the central singularity.Alex felt the data surge."Echo, maintain a stable orbit,
Chapter 188: The Architect Signal
[Location: Deep Space - Dyson Sphere Interior][Time: T-Plus 6 Months since First Contact]The pod ascended.It exited the cooling shaft of the planet-sized node and accelerated through the hollow space toward the Terran fleet.The engine flared blue.Alex sat inside.He watched the internal sensors of the pod and verified the atmospheric pressure remained stable during the rapid ascent.The docking clamps locked.The pod entered the UNS Hammer.Alex stepped out of the craft, removed his helmet, and walked through the hangar bay toward the bridge.The crew stood aside.He reached the command deck.He stood at the tactical table and looked at the hologram of the dead Prime Processing Core below.The light was gone."Status report," Alex said."The Harvester Archangels are drifting in the stellar corona and their internal systems have ceased all mechanical function," Ares said."The threat is neutralized."The Dyson Sphere groaned.Without the Prime Node to regulate the magnetic tethers
Chapter 187: The Core Override
[Location: Deep Space - The Dyson Sphere Interior] [Time: T-Plus 6 Months since First Contact] The dreadnoughts descended. They fired their forward retro-thrusters to counteract the gravitational pull of the hypergiant star below their position. The iron hulls vibrated. Echo monitored the telemetry. She pushed the thruster output to seventy percent and adjusted the downward pitch of the forty-nine ships. The fleet held formation. The ambient temperature rose. The external sensors registered ten thousand degrees Celsius as the ships entered the upper stellar corona layer. The iron turned orange. Ares managed the cooling. The AI pumped thousands of gallons of liquid nitrogen through the capillary tubes within the exterior hull plating. The nitrogen boiled instantly. Vance watched the tactical table. He tracked the descent vector and measured the remaining distance to the Prime processing core node. "Forty million miles," Vance said. Solar flares erupted upward. A colum
Chapter 186: The Star Engine
[Location: Deep Space - The Dyson Sphere] [Time: T-Plus 6 Months since First Contact] The red lasers swept across the hull. They tracked the movement of the forty-nine Terran dreadnoughts and locked onto the Belter iron plating. "Incoming fire," Ares said. Thousands of automated cannons deployed. They emerged from the exterior surface of the Dyson Sphere and their mechanical bases rotated on heavy gears. The metal ground together. Their barrels elevated. The cannons discharged their internal capacitors and pushed plasma bolts out of their magnetic chambers. The bolts crossed the vacuum. They hit the Terran fleet. The UNS Hammer shook violently under the physical impact of the concentrated energy weapons. Vance grabbed the command rail. Alex stood his ground. "Armor integrity holding," Echo reported from the helm as she typed a sequence of commands into the primary navigation console. Her fingers hit the keys. She rerouted electrical power. She pulled energy from the
Chapter 185: The Source Code
[Location: Deep Space - Sector Sirius] [Time: T-Plus 6 Months since First Contact] The forty-nine dreadnoughts held their position. They hovered three hundred miles above the seam of the newly formed planet and aimed their railguns at the biological mass trapped between the tectonic plates. Alex walked to the airlock. He opened the storage locker. He removed an environmental suit from the rack, unzipped the front seal, and stepped his right leg inside. He pushed his boot through the gasket. He stepped his left leg inside. He pulled the suit up over his waist, slid his biological arm into the right sleeve, and pushed his mechanical arm into the left sleeve. He zipped the front seal. He reached for the helmet. He placed the helmet over his head, aligned the locking rings with the neck collar, and twisted the helmet clockwise until the mechanisms clicked. He pushed the oxygen valve. Air hissed into the suit. He checked the pressure gauge on his wrist console, verified the
Chapter 184: The Leviathan
[Location: Deep Space - Sector Sirius] [Time: T-Plus 6 Months since First Contact] The eye stared at the fleet. It filled the forward viewport, a continent of yellow bioluminescence set against the black void of the dead sector. The pupil contracted. "Scale," Alex said. "Diameter is three thousand miles," Ares reported. "The entity possesses a dense exo-shell, internal thermal regulation, and a massive centralized nervous system." Vance raised his railgun. "It is a living ship," Vance said. The shadow surrounding the eye shifted, and the void displaced as the massive biological structure moved forward. Tendrils uncoiled from the central mass. They were the size of Harvester command carriers. The tendrils whipped through the vacuum toward the Terran defensive sphere at extreme velocity. "Evasive maneuvers," Alex ordered. Echo pushed the throttle. The UNS Hammer fired its lateral thrusters, shifting fifty miles to the starboard side. A massive tentacle lashed through th
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