The world vanished into absolute darkness. The power failure was so sudden, so complete, that for a moment my brain refused to process it. One second, I was in a tense standoff with Kain under the sterile white lights of the corridor. The next, I was blind, plunged into a suffocating, pitch-black silence. The only light at all was the faint, pulsing blue glow of the server core, visible through the now-open blast door behind me.
This was my System Anathema at work. It was not just bad luck. It was the System itself, actively intervening, trying to level the playing field by taking away my greatest advantage: my sight.
"Nowhere left to run, Leo!" Kain's voice echoed in the darkness, unpleasantly close. He thought he had me. In the dark, we were both blind. An even fight.
But he was wrong.
I had an advantage he could not possibly comprehend. My Acoustic Sensor. I did not need to see him. My minimap was still active, a small, glowing beacon in the corner of my HUD. And on it, Kain's red dot was a brilliant, pulsing light. To me, he was not invisible at all. I could see his every move.
This was no longer a standoff. This was a hunt. And I was the predator.
I immediately put my Ghost skill to use, moving silently away from my last known position. I slipped into the server room, the faint blue light of the core offering just enough illumination to see the outlines of the massive server racks. This was my new hunting ground.
Kain was less subtle. I heard him moving cautiously in the corridor, his footsteps loud and clumsy in the oppressive silence. He was trying to find me. "Come out and fight, coward!" he yelled, his voice tight with a mixture of rage and uncertainty.
He fired a burst from his assault rifle into the darkness where I had been standing. The muzzle flash lit up the corridor for a split second, a brilliant strobe of light, followed by the deafening roar of the gunshots echoing off the metal walls. He was firing blind, trying to draw me out, trying to make me reveal my position.
I stayed silent, my back pressed against a cold server rack. I watched his red dot on my minimap. He was moving slowly, sweeping his rifle back and forth. He was being careful, but he was still completely blind.
I needed to end this. Quickly. Anya was still fighting for her life upstairs, and every second I spent playing games with Kain was a second she might not have.
I got an idea. A risky one. My Anathema status was a curse. It caused glitches and failures. But maybe, just maybe, I could use it as a weapon.
I watched Kain's dot on the minimap as he slowly crept past a large power conduit on the wall. I focused my will on it. I did not know if I could influence the glitches, but I had to try. Fail, I thought. Break.
As if answering my command, a shower of brilliant white sparks erupted from the conduit. The Anathema had triggered another system failure. The sudden flash of light was blinding. It perfectly illuminated Kain's silhouette for a fraction of a second.
It was the opening I needed.
He was momentarily stunned by the flash. He was exposed. I stepped out from behind the server rack, my own assault rifle raised. I did not fire a wild spray. I fired a single, controlled, three-round burst.
The bullets hit him square in the side. He cried out in pain and surprise, stumbling back. He spun around, firing blindly in my direction, but I had already ducked back into the shadows.
He was wounded. He was panicked. And he was reckless.
"I've got you now!" he roared, charging into the darkness towards my last known position. He thought he had me cornered.
It was the last mistake he would ever make.
I was not there. Anticipating his charge, I had used the darkness to circle around him. As he ran past my position, I stepped out of the shadows behind him.
His back was completely exposed.
The fight ended not with a bang, but with a quiet, efficient burst of fire. He did not even have time to turn around. He just collapsed, his body hitting the metal floor with a heavy thud. The red dot on my minimap vanished.
Kain was gone. For good this time.
There was no time for relief. The mission. The server core. Anya.
I ran to the glowing blue pillar of light at the center of the room. I held the [Data Spike] in my hand. With a firm, determined motion, I slammed it into the main port.
The connection was established. The room, which had been dark, was suddenly flooded with a blood-red light. The server core's calm blue hum turned into a screaming, angry siren.
The sixty-second countdown appeared on my HUD. [DATA DECRYPTION IN PROGRESS: 60 SECONDS].
But this time, it was different. The system's response was not just a few automated defenses. My System Anathema status had marked me as a top-tier threat. The system was not just defending itself. It was bringing its full, overwhelming power to bear to eradicate me.
The air in the server room grew cold. The space around the server core began to shimmer and distort. Not with two Cleansers this time.
With a dozen.
They materialized all at once, a silent, terrifying army of shifting black code and red light. They surrounded the server core, their faceless forms all turning towards me.
And then, from the glowing server core itself, a new entity began to form. It was larger than the others, its form more stable, more defined. It was clad in what looked like jagged, black armor made of pure data. It held a long, crystalline spear in one hand. This was not a simple antibody. This was an elite guard. A [System Warden].
I was surrounded. Completely and utterly outmatched. I had no hope of fighting my way out. The countdown was ticking. I was about to be deleted.
I looked at the timer. [45 SECONDE]. I looked at the horde of system agents preparing to erase me.
My mind raced, searching for any option, any last, desperate trick. And then I remembered. Caden's gift. The Trojan Horse. The single-use glitch program he had hidden inside the data fragment.
[GHOST IN THE MACHINE].
It was my only chance. My last resort.
I activated it.
[ACTIVATING GHOST IN THE MACHINE... SYSTEM SIGNATURE MASKED. DURATION: 30 SECONDS.]
My body flickered. For a moment, I felt like I was becoming intangible, my own code being rewritten. To the army of system entities, I had just become invisible. Their red targeting lights, which had all been locked onto me, now swept the room confusedly. They stopped their advance, their programming unable to find the target they had been sent to destroy.
I had bought myself time. But it was not enough.
The countdown continued its slow, inexorable march. [20 SECONDS].
My invisibility only lasted for thirty seconds. The data transfer took sixty.
The math was simple. The math was cruel.
I would become visible again before the transfer was complete. I would be exposed for the final, terrifying thirty seconds of the countdown. Surrounded by an army of System agents that were waiting for me to reappear.
I could not fight them. I could not run.
All I could do was stand perfectly still, invisible in the heart of the storm, and wait for the inevitable.