The Undercroft had become our new, fragile reality. A home built in the shadows of the system. Days bled into one another in the dim, quiet dark of the abandoned subway station. Our lives fell into a strange, tense rhythm. I would use Glitch's Spoofing Device to enter low-stakes, solo deathmatches, not for glory, but for survival. Every match was a supply run. I was not fighting for skill points or glory anymore. I was fighting for a box of ammo, a spare grenade, or a single, precious Med-Syringe.
After each match, I would return to the Undercroft and pay my tax. I would hand over half of my meager earnings to Glitch, whose red optic eyes would scan the loot with a cold, calculating gaze. He would grunt his approval, and the fragile peace between us would be maintained for another cycle. The other Exiles watched me with a mixture of suspicion and grudging respect. I was the strange, Marked Man who could walk in the clean world above and bring back its treasures. I was their lifeline, and their greatest risk.
Anya spent her time learning the limits of her new, unstable form. Her body, now a shimmering mix of blue light and red static, was a powerful but dangerous tool. I would watch as she practiced, her form dissolving and reappearing in a short-distance "blink" that let her teleport across small gaps. But each blink drained her, leaving her breathless and her form even more unstable. Her corrupted leg remained a constant problem, a glitchy, painful reminder of our race against the system. The Oracle had given us the knowledge to fix it, but the components she needed were rare, found only in the most dangerous of arenas.
When I was not running supply missions, I would sit with the Oracle, studying the data I had downloaded from Caden's terminal. His notes were a complex maze of code, theories, and desperate hopes. I was not a hacker like him, but I was a gamer. I understood systems. I began to see the world not just as a series of maps and objectives, but as a program. A program with rules that could be bent, and maybe, just maybe, broken. I was becoming more of a tactician, less of a reactive survivor.
One cycle, I returned from a match with a particularly good haul: two full Med-Syringes and a box of high-quality rifle ammunition. I presented them to Glitch. His mechanical fingers greedily took the items.
As he was inspecting them, a loud alert pinged from the master terminal he had jury-rigged in his corner of the station. His head snapped towards the screen. "Well, well," he rasped, his voice filled with a new excitement. "The gates to the inferno are opening."
He beckoned us over. On the screen was a system-wide broadcast. A flashy, dramatic advertisement for a new, high-profile tournament.
[THE HADES FORGE INVITATIONAL. DUOS. PROVE YOUR METTLE IN THE FIRES OF CREATION!]
My eyes scanned the details. It was an elite, broadcasted tournament. The entry fee was steep, requiring a host of rare crafting materials that I did not have. But the grand prize, the final reward for the winning team, made my heart stop.
[GRAND PRIZE: 1x PROTOTYPE WEAPON CORE]
This was it. The next piece of the Exile's Path. The Oracle's map had led us here.
"That's our way in," I said to Anya.
Glitch let out a grinding laugh. "Ambitious. That tournament is for the best of the best. The faction elites. They will chew you up and spit you out. And look at that entry fee." He pointed a clawed finger at the long list of required materials. "You don't have a tenth of what's required."
"But you do," I countered, looking at the piles of scavenged parts and components that littered his workshop. "This is our deal, Glitch. We need to get into that tournament. That is our mission."
He stared at me, his red eyes glowing. He was a businessman. He weighed the cost against the potential reward. A functioning team inside a high-tier tournament could bring back loot beyond his wildest dreams. It was a risk, but the payout could be immense.
"The tax will be high," he finally rasped. "Seventy percent of whatever you win. And you provide your own ammunition."
"Deal," I said without hesitation.
He nodded, then entered the commands. He paid our entry fee from his own vast collection of scavenged resources. My name and Anya's appeared on the tournament roster. We were in.
"One last thing," Glitch said, his tone turning serious. "This isn't some random deathmatch in a forgotten server. This is a broadcasted event. Ouroboros will be there. They know you want that Core. They will be hunting you, and this time, it will be in front of a live, system-wide audience."
Before we prepared to queue, the Oracle hobbled over to us. She was holding a strange device made of polished metal and glowing blue wires. It was a brace, perfectly shaped to fit over Anya's leg. [Stabilizer Brace].
"A gift," the old woman said, her voice a dry whisper. "To aid your journey. It will not heal the corruption, but it will contain it. It will give her leg a solid form, allow her to move as she once did." She tapped a small power cell on the side of the brace. "But the energy is limited. If it is overloaded with damage or too much phasing, it will fail. Use it wisely."
Anya strapped the brace to her leg. The red static of her corruption was contained within the device's blue energy field. Her leg became solid. She took a step, then another. A look of pure relief washed over her face. For the first time in a long time, she had a solid foundation beneath her. She was ready to fight.
It was time. We walked over to the designated 'queue' point in Glitch's workshop. He handed me the [System Spoofing Device]. I activated it. A wave of shimmering energy washed over us, masking our Anathema signatures, making us appear as normal players to the system. The queue popped. We were in.
The world dissolved into blue light.
We materialized in a massive, fiery chamber. The heat was a physical presence, a heavy blanket on the air. We were on a metal platform suspended over a river of molten lava. All around us were the other teams, thirty duos in total. They were the best of the best, clad in high-tier armor, their weapons gleaming. This was the big leagues.
I scanned the faces in the crowd. And then I saw them. Across the staging area, standing apart from the others, were the Ouroboros team.
The leader was not a big, brutish man like Hydra. It was a woman. She was sleek, dressed in light, form-fitting armor that prioritized speed over defense. Her face was completely obscured by a smooth, mirrored visor. Her name on the HUD was "Seraph."
But it was the person standing beside her that made my blood run cold. He was tall and wore a stark, featureless set of grey armor. There was no faction symbol on it. Just a simple designation. His faction was listed as [SYSTEM ENFORCER]. His name was "Unit 734."
The System was no longer just sending glitches and anomalies after me. It had sponsored its own official player in the tournament. A player whose sole purpose, I knew with absolute certainty, was to hunt me down and eliminate me. My enemy was no longer just hiding in the code. He was standing right in front of me.