The Conductor didn't run. It buffered.
One second, the massive, headless figure was standing thirty feet away near the floating ticket booths.
The next second, it was ten feet closer.
Then five.
It moved in jagged, teleporting lurches, bypassing the space in between like a corrupted video file skipping frames.
[ WARNING: ENEMY LATENCY HIGH ]
[ PREDICTION MODEL: UNSTABLE ]
"Move!" Kaelen screamed, shoving Renna to the right.
WHAM.
The Conductor's massive rusted wrench slammed into the concrete pillar where they had just been standing. The impact didn't just crack the stone; it deleted it. A chunk of the pillar vanished into a cloud of grey pixels, leaving a smooth, unnatural crater that looked like a bite mark taken out of reality.
"It's lagging!" Renna yelled, scrambling to her feet behind a vending machine. She brought her rifle up, her hands shaking slightly. "I can't track it! It's jumping everywhere!"
She fired anyway.
BANG.
The bullet tore through the air, aimed perfectly at the creature's chest.
But just as the round was about to make contact, the Conductor glitched forward again. The bullet passed harmlessly through the afterimage of its torso, sparking uselessly against the tiled wall behind it.
The monster roared—that terrible [ 404 ] error box flashing red above its neck like a police siren.
HOOOOOONK.
It swung the wrench again.
Kaelen dropped to the floor, the wind of the swing ruffling his hair. The sound of the impact was delayed—the CRASH coming a full second after the weapon had already destroyed a bench.
Kaelen scrambled behind a pile of fused luggage, his infected leg screaming in protest. He activated [ Admin Vision ].
Blue wireframes wrapped around the monster.
He didn't see muscle. He saw code.
And buried deep in its chest, protected by thick layers of [ Grey Plating ], was a pulsing red knot.
[ WEAKNESS: CORE KERNEL ]
[ PROTECTION: HIGH ]
"Armor's too thick!" Kaelen shouted. "You can't punch through it!"
"Then tell me what works!" Renna yelled back, chambering another round.
Kaelen checked his interface.
[ AUTHORITY: 23 / 100 ]
He could try to [ Delete ] it? Cost: 150. Impossible.
He needed to stop the lag. He needed to force the server to synchronize so Renna could hit the same spot twice.
He pulled up the [ SKILLS ] tab.
[ NEW SKILL AVAILABLE: FRAME HALT ]
[ COST: 10 AUTHORITY ]
[ EFFECT: FREEZE PHYSICS (1.0s) ]
"Renna!" Kaelen shouted, stepping out from cover. "I'm going to freeze it! When it stops, shoot the chest!"
"What do you mean 'stop'—"
The Conductor turned. The [ 404 ] box pulsed violently. It charged.
Clomp... Freeze... Clomp... Freeze.
It was fast. Too fast.
Kaelen waited until he could smell the burning plastic of its corruption. He thrust his glowing palm forward.
"Frame Halt!"
[ AUTHORITY: 13 / 100 ]
ZZZ-THUNK.
The world screamed as physics broke.
The Conductor froze mid-stride. The wrench hung suspended in the air. The dust motes stopped drifting.
For one second, time didn't exist for the monster.
"NOW!"
Renna rose. Aimed. Fired.
BANG.
The bullet struck the chest.
CRACK.
The armor shattered, sending blue sparks flying. But the core held.
Time resumed. The Conductor staggered, roaring in fury. It wasn't dead.
"It's still standing!" Renna cried out.
The monster slammed its wrench into the ground.
CRACK-BOOM.
The platform split open. A massive fissure tore through the concrete between Kaelen and Renna, revealing a [ NULL ZONE ] beneath—a swirling grey void where the map ended.
Kaelen lost his footing, sliding toward the edge of the deletion. He clawed at the tiles, stopping himself inches from the drop.
He looked up. The Conductor was looming over him, raising the wrench for a killing blow.
He had no leverage. He had no weapon that could block a ton of steel.
He only had his balance.
[ AUTHORITY: 13 / 100 ]
He needed one more shot. But using the skill again would leave him with 3 points.
If he miscalculated—if he didn't get a kill reward—he would die of Authority Starvation within the hour.
The wrench began to fall.
"Renna!" Kaelen screamed. "Finish it!"
He slammed his hand against the floor.
"HALT!"
[ AUTHORITY: 3 / 100 ]
The air turned to ice in his veins. The drain was agonizing.
But the wrench froze inches from his skull.
Renna didn't waste the second. She was already aiming at the crack in the armor she had made.
She didn't blink.
BANG.
The bullet threaded the needle. It punched through the shattered plating and buried itself in the red kernel.
SHATTER.
The Conductor convulsed. The [ 404 ] box fractured into a thousand shards of light.
The massive body dissolved into a storm of heavy blue data cubes, raining down on Kaelen like digital hail.
[ TARGET ELIMINATED: THE CONDUCTOR ]
[ REWARD: +50 AUTHORITY ]
[ LOOT DROP: MASTER KEYCARD ]
The warmth of the reward flooded back into Kaelen, chasing away the cold of near-death.
[ AUTHORITY: 53 / 100 ]
He collapsed onto his back, breathing hard. "Worth it," he wheezed.
Renna lowered her rifle, smoke drifting from the barrel. She stared at the empty space where the monster had been, then at Kaelen.
"Next time," she said, her voice shaking slightly, "we fight something that doesn't glitch through walls."
Kaelen laughed weakly, holding up his hand.
Resting in the pile of data cubes was a plastic rectangle glowing with gold light.
[ MASTER KEYCARD ].
"We got the keys," Kaelen said, standing up on shaky legs.
He swiped the card on the heavy maintenance door the monster had been guarding.
BEEP-CLICK.
The door hissed open.
Renna raised her rifle again. "More monsters?"
"No," Kaelen said, freezing as a scent hit him.
It wasn't rot. It wasn't ozone.
It was Lilacs. Fresh, blooming flowers.
He stepped inside.
The room was pristine white. And in the center, a pod made of liquid glass pulsed with a golden light.
Inside was a girl with silver hair, flickering in and out of existence like a bad signal.
[ SIGNAL DETECTED: THE DIVINE ]
Kaelen stared at the girl.
"I think," he whispered, "we just found something the System doesn't want us to have."
Author's Note
High Risk, High Reward.
Kaelen gambled his life bar (Authority) to secure the kill. That's the Admin way.
Math Check: 23 (Start) - 10 (Skill 1) - 10 (Skill 2) + 50 (Loot) = 53 Authority.
Status: Alive. But for how long?
Next Chapter: 100 Points for a Goddess. Kaelen has 53. The Pod costs 100. The math doesn't add up... unless they go on a rampage.
Collection Goal: If we hit 500 Collections, I drop a bonus chapter! Add to Library now!