The sewer tunnel was silent.
Not the normal kind of silence — but the kind that comes when something is hunting.
Kai could feel it.
Every instinct in his body screamed danger. The faint glow of emergency lights flickered overhead, casting long shadows across the wet concrete walls.
Maya clutched Kai's hand.
"Whatever that thing is," she whispered, "it doesn't feel human."
Kai's eyes were fixed on the glowing text in his vision.
NULLSYSTEM REAPERPURPOSE: ERASE THE OBSERVER
The words felt heavy.
This wasn't a Player.
It wasn't a monster.
It was something the System had built specifically to kill him.
Seraphine drew her blade.
"This thing isn't bound by the Hunt," she said. "It's a direct extension of the Architect."
"So it's basically… God's knife," Maya whispered.
Kai nodded.
"And it's pointed at me."
A soft sound echoed through the tunnel.
Footsteps.
Slow.Precise.Unhurried.
A figure stepped into the light.
It looked like a man — tall, wearing a long dark coat, his face hidden behind a smooth, black mask with no features at all.
But his presence was wrong.
The air around him felt thin, like reality was afraid to touch him.
NULL – SYSTEM REAPER
"You should not exist," the Reaper said calmly.
Its voice was flat, emotionless, perfectly balanced.
"Neither should you," Kai replied.
NULL tilted its head slightly.
"You are a corruption of fate. A statistical impossibility. Your continued existence destabilizes the System."
Maya stood in front of Kai without thinking.
"Get away from him!"
NULL looked at her.
"Fate removed. Anomaly detected."
Seraphine cursed.
"It can see that too."
NULL raised one hand.
A blade of pure black energy formed in its palm.
[ERASURE PROTOCOL READY]
Kai took a slow breath.
"Guess it's time to see if God bleeds."
NULL moved.
Not fast.
Not slow.
It simply appeared in front of Kai.
Seraphine barely had time to react before the black blade slashed through the air where Kai's head had been.
Kai ducked instinctively, feeling a cold rush pass over him as reality itself was cut.
The wall behind him vanished — not broken, not damaged.
Gone.
A perfect slice of nothingness.
Maya screamed.
"That wasn't a weapon," Seraphine muttered. "That was deletion."
NULL turned toward Seraphine.
"Interference is inefficient."
It flicked its hand.
A wave of dark energy hurled Seraphine down the tunnel, smashing her into the wall with bone-crushing force.
"Kai!" Maya cried.
NULL stepped forward.
[TARGET LOCKED]
Kai's heart pounded.
He couldn't see its future.
He couldn't see its fate.
But he could see something else.
Gaps.
Tiny moments where NULL had to calculate.
Moments where it wasn't perfect.
He ran.
Not away.
Sideways.
NULL's blade cut where Kai would have been, not where he was.
The Reaper paused for 0.02 seconds.
Kai felt it.
"Got you."
He grabbed a broken pipe from the ground and slammed it into NULL's mask.
It did nothing.
NULL turned, its featureless face inches from Kai's.
"You are obsolete."
Maya charged, light exploding from her hands.
Her healing energy slammed into NULL like a flashbang, forcing it back.
"Run, Kai!"
Kai grabbed her and pulled her down a side tunnel.
NULL didn't chase immediately.
It was recalculating.
And that was terrifying.
The side tunnel was narrow and barely lit, the sound of dripping water echoing like a ticking clock. Kai dragged Maya forward, his lungs burning, his mind racing.
Behind them…
No footsteps.
That was worse.
"Where did it go?" Maya whispered.
Kai closed his eyes.
For just a moment, the broken Observer window flickered.
Not full visions.
Just instinct.
"Up."
They dove forward just as NULL dropped from the ceiling, black blade carving through the air where their heads had been.
Concrete exploded.
NULL landed gracefully, as if gravity was optional.
"Evasion noted," it said. "Probability of survival decreasing."
Seraphine limped into the tunnel, blood on her face.
"Next time… I don't let it hit me," she growled.
NULL turned its head toward her.
"Secondary anomaly detected."
Two blades formed in its hands.
Kai stepped forward.
"No. You want me."
NULL's head tilted.
"Yes."
It rushed him.
Kai didn't move.
At the last possible moment, he stepped to the side.
NULL's blade passed through empty space.
For the first time…
It missed.
Kai slammed his fist into NULL's chest.
The impact sent a shock through his bones — like hitting steel — but something inside the Reaper flickered.
A number appeared for just a fraction of a second.
CORE STABILITY: 98%
Kai's eyes widened.
"So you do have a heart."
NULL froze.
"Impossible."
Kai smiled, blood running down his face.
"Everything breaks."
The moment Kai spoke, NULL reacted.
Its calm cracked.
Not emotionally — but mechanically.
[CORE STABILITY: 97%]
The number glitched into existence again for a split second before vanishing.
Seraphine saw it too.
"There," she said. "You hit something real."
NULL attacked with both blades, faster than before, its movements no longer smooth but desperate.
Kai dodged left.
Seraphine struck from the right.
NULL blocked her, but that left its chest exposed.
Maya didn't hesitate.
She threw everything she had into one desperate blast of healing energy — not to heal…
But to overload.
Light slammed into NULL's core.
The Reaper screamed.
Not in sound.
In data.
[CORE STABILITY: 72%]
NULL stumbled back.
"You are… not permitted…"
Kai stepped forward, his hands shaking but steady.
"You were built to erase me," he said. "But you were still built."
He punched the exact spot where the number had appeared.
Reality rippled.
NULL's chest cracked open, revealing a pulsing sphere of black and blue light — its core.
[CORE STABILITY: 10%]
NULL reached for Kai.
"I must… obey…"
Kai grabbed the core.
"No."
He crushed it.
The Reaper dissolved into fragments of broken code, screaming as it vanished into nothing.
Silence fell.
Maya collapsed against Kai, crying.
Seraphine let out a shaky laugh.
"You just killed God's assassin."
Kai looked at his trembling hands.
"Good."
But deep inside, he knew something worse now understood him.
And it wouldn't send another knife.
It would come itself.