Kellan met Acheron at the extraction point, his face a mask of furious anxiety. He didn't speak a word until they were safely back inside the Vigil's sterile, subterranean facility. He simply marched Acheron directly to the observation deck overlooking the main lab—a place dominated by consoles and holographic displays.
Dr. Vesper Caine stood at the terminal, her back to them. She wore the same cold, grey lab coat, but the air around her was suddenly heavy with tension. Her voice, when it came, was measured and low, more dangerous than any shout.
"Protocol Seven: Retrieval Failure," Caine stated, the System's data scrolling across a transparent screen next to her. "The specimen was contaminated and incinerated. Loss of an untainted strain specimen: unacceptable. Kellan, your failure to maintain control over the System's vitals during a critical phase is noted. Your reassignment will reflect the cost of this error."
Kellan, stiff and pale, simply lowered his head. "Understood, Doctor."
Caine turned, her eyes fixing on Acheron with chilling intensity. "As for Subject Acheron. Your actions resulted in a 15\% Corruption Debt spike and the complete deletion of Memory Fragment 001. Your decision to prioritize self-gain over protocol is fundamentally flawed, but predictable."
Acheron stood straight, attempting to project the obedience he was trained for, but the rush of the stolen Celerity still hummed beneath his skin—a secret defiance.
Caine merely smiled, a thin, unnerving curve of the lip. "You believe the cost was paid. You believe the deleted memory is the end of the transaction. You are wrong."
She tapped a key on her console, and the System interface in Acheron's vision exploded with red data. A wave of intense neurological pressure hit him—not pain, but a crushing weight.
[CORRUPTION DEBT: 15\% ACCRUAL. PENALTY ENFORCED: 72 HOUR SYSTEM LOCKDOWN (LEVEL 1).]
[DEBUFF: PSYCHIC STAGNATION (LEVEL 1) - SYSTEM POWER GAINS ARE BLOCKED. ALL SKILLS/STATS LOCKED.]
The System wasn't taking more memories; it was cutting him off from the power he craved. The newly gained Celerity (Lvl 1) felt instantly inert, useless. He was suddenly slow, sluggish, trapped.
"The System does not just punish you physically, Acheron," Caine explained, watching his barely perceptible grimace with clinical interest. "It restricts your growth. For the next 72 hours, you are a human with only a tiny, insufficient flicker of vampiric hunger. You will feel the full, miserable weight of the Bloodthirst Debuff with none of the power to mitigate it."
She was forcing him to endure the constant, ravenous hunger while denying him the power to satisfy it, amplifying his agony for three days. It was a perfectly tailored psychological punishment.
"Your first official task is simple," Caine continued, waving a dismissive hand. "You are unstable and inefficient. You will report to the training bay and run a standard Combat Conditioning Protocol until your Handler—your new Handler, " Dr. Caine said, glancing at Kellan, "deems you minimally compliant. You will not use Celerity. You will use only the human skills we deemed acceptable."
She dismissed Kellan with a curt nod and turned back to her work, leaving Acheron isolated with the crushing weight of his static, starving power. His punishment was not a beating; it was a painful, three-day return to his weakest, most desperate state.
The training bay was a featureless grey box designed for maximum efficiency. It was here, during his original conditioning, that Acheron had been stripped of his identity and fitted with his purpose. Now, under the agonizing weight of the Psychic Stagnation debuff, it felt like a grave.
His new handler, a stoic woman named Eris, stood by the observation glass. She had replaced Kellan and carried herself with the air of someone who had seen too many failed experiments to register shock.
"Conditioning Protocol 4-Beta," Eris announced over the speakers. "Standard defense and evasion drill. Targets set to 60\% intensity. You will adhere to the System's human baseline. Any unexpected velocity will result in immediate debuff escalation."
The walls of the bay slid open to reveal pressurized air cannons designed to launch foam projectiles. The drill was meant to hone reflexes, but with the Bloodthirst Debuff active, Acheron felt sluggish, his vaunted Hybrid reflexes dulled. His newly acquired Celerity (Lvl 1) was a frustrating, silent void.
He couldn't use the power openly, but he could test the cage.
Acheron began the drill, moving just fast enough to evade the projectiles, but not so fast that Eris would notice a superhuman burst. Every step was a conscious, agonizing effort.
[WARNING: VITAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION TOO HIGH. ABORT.]
The System screamed the warning in his mind. It monitored his energy usage and predicted his moves, ready to punish any deviation from the expected human baseline.
But Acheron wasn't testing his speed; he was testing the System Glitch—the small flaw in the code created during his unauthorized Synthesis.
He allowed a projectile to graze his shoulder, a calculated risk. The minor pain distracted the System's monitoring protocols for a fraction of a second. In that infinitesimal window, Acheron focused all his willpower on the inert Celerity skill.
He wasn't trying to activate it, just to ping it.
Just a flicker. Just a ripple.
His movement didn't change, but in his mind, the System Glitch momentarily flickered, distorting the debuff notification.
textbf{DEBUFF: PSYCHIC STAGNATION} {LEVEL }{STATUS} {LOCKED {ERROR}(0.02s){end}
It was less than a blink, and it cost him a sharp spike of nausea. But it worked. The debuff hadn't been defeated, but the code had been momentarily bypassed.
Acheron quickly repeated the process, using the pain of impact, the sound of a shattering target, or a sudden, sharp breath to create a sensory distraction. He discovered that the Glitch wasn't a speed boost; it was a tiny window of System Blindness.
He realized the true nature of his defiance: he couldn't break the leash, but he could learn how to choke the communication line.
After an hour, Eris called the drill off. "Sub-optimal compliance," she stated flatly. "You are running 12\% below your established human maximum. Report to the Medical Annex for scheduled Blood Pack injection."
In the sterile corridor leading to the annex, Acheron's System interface updated with the first sliver of good news since his punishment began:
[SYSTEM GLITCH (ANALYSIS COMPLETE): UNMONITORED WINDOW DURATION: \approx 0.02 SECONDS.]
[RECOMMENDATION: INITIATE GLITCH DURING HIGH-STRESS, HIGH-DEBUFF ENVIRONMENT.]
He had his window. A fragment of hope, paid for with the loss of a memory, now provided his path forward. But first, he had to endure the shame of the controlled feed.
The Medical Annex smelled strongly of copper and antiseptic. A nurse, whose face was completely forgotten the moment Acheron walked away, attached the I.V. drip. The blood flowing into him was thin, cold, and chemically stabilized—a mockery of the raw, vibrant power he had tasted hours ago.
As the blood entered his veins, the Bloodthirst Debuff receded, but his Equilibrium remained locked. He felt functional, but dull. Obedient.
He knew that for the next three days, he was Dr. Caine's human doll. But he also knew the System was not infallible. His first real mission would not be a clean retrieval; it would be a chaotic, messy hunt that allowed him to exploit the System Glitch to steal power.
The question was, where would the Vigil send a weapon they couldn't fully trust?