The training room smelled of warm circuits and adrenaline. Dim ambient lights illuminated six state-of-the-art gaming pods arranged in a U-shape, each humming with a low mechanical breath like sleeping beasts ready to awaken.
Lin Yao stood at the threshold.
His boots clicked against the carbon floor panels, too loud in the silence. No one welcomed him.
No fanfare.
No applause.
Only the cold stare of five strangers—his new teammates.
"Is that the newbie?" muttered a tall player with dyed silver hair leaning against Pod 3. His tone was flat, unimpressed.
"That's Subject… 01?" another scoffed, not even bothering to whisper. "Looks more like a back-alley reject than a 'gifted recruit.'"
Yao didn't flinch. He'd heard worse. He was used to being underestimated.
But his fingers itched—not from anxiety, but hunger.
That feeling he couldn't name after yesterday's match—that fire—it still burned in his bones.
A screen flickered on the far wall. A virtual AI assistant—Code name: HYDRA—blinked into life.
"Welcome, Ghost Unit Alpha. Initial internal calibration: complete. Syncing new player—Designation: Lin Yao—into Trial Protocol 0.3."
The silver-haired guy—Jin, Yao would later learn—laughed out loud. "Oh, he's not even version one. We're testing him on 0.3? What is this, kindergarten?"
"Cut the drama," came a low voice from Pod 1.
That voice stopped the room. Calm, quiet, but firm like iron through silk.
Shen Jue. The Team Captain.
Eyes like obsidian glass. Sharp. Cold. Watching.
"We don't need another soloist. We need someone who can hold a lane and follow calls. That's all."
No hello. No welcome.
Just an order. And a test.
⸻
Yao slid into Pod 6.
As the VR interface loaded, he took one deep breath, remembering something his grandfather used to say when he was younger and fighting on the streets of Yuan District:
"Even the smallest blade, when pointed at the heart, can kill a dragon."
His vision blurred—
then focused.
The game environment materialized.
Map: Crimson Ruins
Mode: 5v5 Strategic Hold
Objective: First blood and capture three artifact points
His hands wrapped instinctively around the dual-motion gloves. The control pads pulsed with energy, syncing with the neural impulse layer at the back of his neck.
Welcome back, Operator.
"GhostSync initializing…"
A chill ran through his spine.
That voice again.
Same as yesterday.
But no one else seemed to notice.
⸻
On the spawn platform, Yao spawned in as VOLT, a mid-range disruptor with lightning strike capacity and adaptive shields. Not a flashy pick. But deadly in the right hands.
"Hold your position," Shen's voice came over team comms. "Yao—lane left. Don't rotate unless I ping you."
"Copy," Yao replied flatly.
"Stay out of the way," Jin added, mocking. "Let the big boys handle this."
The match began.
The Crimson Ruins lit up like a festival gone wrong—arcane flames, broken statues, shockwave mines scattered across the terrain.
And then the enemy team pushed hard.
Too hard.
Yao's side began to fold.
First casualty: Jin. Overextended, cocky.
Second: their tank, trapped by an illusion mine.
"We're getting baited—fall back!" Shen barked.
But Yao saw something.
A pattern.
The enemy sniper rotated out of cover every 6.5 seconds.
The illusion mines had a delay window of exactly 1.2 seconds.
The left pillar zone had a visual glitch—probably a map exploit. A perfect blind spot.
His fingers moved before his mind fully caught up.
He blinked through the illusion mine, shielded mid-air, bounced off the cracked arch above the sniper's perch, and landed directly behind him with a charged EMP.
FIRST BLOOD.
Silence.
Then—
"Who the hell...?"
Shen's breath caught.
Even HYDRA paused the simulation. "…Trajectory recalculation. Unorthodox maneuver detected. Sync deviation… within threshold."
Yao didn't smile.
He didn't gloat.
He just walked back into the lane like nothing happened.
Yao stepped back into the lane, his boots crunching over shards of virtual debris.
"Who authorized that move?" Jin growled over the comms.
Yao didn't answer.
He was focused. Calculating.
His HUD flared briefly:
+200 XP
First Blood bonus awarded.
Tactical confidence rating: 91%
Confidence?
No.
It wasn't confidence. It was instinct.
He didn't play the map.
He felt it.
As if every movement, every glitch, every rotation of the enemy was part of a larger, invisible rhythm—and he had just begun to hear the beat.
Shen's voice cut through the team comms again.
"Focus. Artifact B is about to open."
They regrouped, minus Jin's ego. The tank respawned with a grunt. The healer, Lien, kept her distance from Yao, though her gaze lingered a second too long.
The next phase began.
⸻
Artifact B - "Pulse Core" - Activation in 20 seconds
Enemy presence: confirmed.
Two flanks. One sniper still recovering from the earlier humiliation.
"Lien, cover me. Tank, push center. Yao, stay back," Shen ordered.
Yao blinked at the mini-map. The standard pattern. Safe. Boring. Predictable.
But…
"That's a decoy push," he said flatly, cutting into the comms.
"What?" Shen snapped.
"They'll leave one at Pulse Core and loop three behind to collapse our left once we overcommit. Look at the smoke trails. They're baiting."
Jin scoffed. "You trying to lecture the Captain now?"
But Shen didn't respond.
Instead, he tapped into the feed, zoomed into the pulse of enemy movement, and saw it too—three rotations disappearing behind a crumbling wall that didn't lead toward Pulse Core but… behind their own position.
Silence.
Then: "Lien. Stay back. Yao, come with me."
It wasn't agreement. Not yet.
It was… curiosity.
⸻
Yao shifted into position, crouched behind an abandoned turret post, watching.
He didn't breathe.
The enemy came—just like he predicted.
One cloaked rogue. One long-range caster. One bruiser class. Moving fast. Quiet.
But Yao moved faster.
He tapped into VOLT's secondary skill: "Ghost Lattice."
Lightning split around him, bouncing off terrain to paint the fog of war like radar. Ghostly silhouettes appeared through the distortion field.
+3 detected.
He gritted his teeth.
"Now."
He blinked forward, EMP pre-charged. Shen dropped behind with a sword slash so fast it registered as a shimmer. Lien's stray healing burst clipped Yao's shield just in time as he absorbed a hit from the bruiser's charge.
And again—
Down. Down. Down.
Three enemies flattened in 4.2 seconds.
No damage taken.
A team wipe.
"Squad Bonus: SYNC CRUSHED"
"Yao MVP probability: 93.4%"
When the fight ended, no one spoke.
Shen finally muttered, "How the hell did you—"
But Yao was already walking off toward the next zone.
⸻
Meanwhile, in the observation bay…
Beyond the VR simulation chamber, behind mirrored walls and surveillance nodes, three figures stood in silence.
One of them, a woman in a sharp graphite-gray suit, tapped her nails against a glass pad. She was the Director of Talent Acquisition, known only by her codename: Spectra.
"His neuro-sync rate has jumped to 98.6%. You said he'd need months to reach that baseline."
The technician beside her stammered. "I—I don't know. It's like he's bypassing the standard neural learning loops. The system is adapting to him instead of the other way around."
Spectra narrowed her eyes.
"This isn't standard."
"No, ma'am. It's not."
The screen blinked again.
This time, something unregistered. A flicker behind Yao's profile. A shadow of a secondary identity tag, corrupted and unreadable.
[UNKNOWN SIGNAL - Echo Layer 0]
"Log that anomaly," she said coldly. "And suppress it from team access logs. He doesn't know. Not yet."
⸻
Back inside the pod…
The match ended.
Final score:
Team Ghost Alpha: 3 Artifacts Secured
Enemy: 0
MVP: Lin Yao
Kills: 7
Assists: 5
Deaths: 0
Sync Accuracy: 97%
As the VR environment dissolved, Yao leaned back in the pod, eyes half-lidded.
He wasn't smiling.
But something in his chest pulsed again.
That heat. That voice from yesterday—
"It begins."
He opened his eyes.
And for the briefest second… the reflection on his pod visor wasn't his own.
Ghost Alpha Base - Debrief Room
The room was barebones, illuminated by soft blue holographic lights. Tactical charts hovered in the air like drifting ghosts. Everyone sat at the round debriefing table except Yao—he remained standing, arms crossed, eyes on the map as if it might suddenly change without warning.
Jin tapped the edge of the table with his gauntlet-like fingers.
"Just a fluke," he muttered. "Beginner's luck."
Yao's eyes flicked toward him. Cold. Flat.
"Seven flukes in a row?"
Jin stood sharply. "You calling me weak, rookie?"
"Didn't have to," Yao said without missing a beat.
The room tensed. Lien shifted uncomfortably. Shen exhaled through his nose.
"Sit down, both of you," he ordered. "This isn't a testosterone parade."
Yao didn't move. But he didn't escalate either.
Shen stared at him longer than necessary.
"Where the hell did you learn those rotations?" Shen asked at last.
Yao shrugged. "Nowhere."
"That move at the turret post… That was a textbook bait-counter. I've only seen that once in national league footage."
Yao raised his eyes finally, locking on.
"What if I just see things differently?"
There was silence.
Shen looked like he wanted to say more, but Lien cut in. Her voice was soft, but her gaze was sharper than expected.
"You're not just seeing," she said. "You're reacting before the system even registers movement. That's not human instinct. That's… sync-level warfare."
Yao paused.
It wasn't the first time he had heard it—"not normal," "not human," "too fast." They'd said it back at his previous school, too, before things spiraled.
Before—
DON'T REMEMBER.
A sharp static buzzed in his mind. A shadow blinked in his vision, just for a second—a long hallway, blood-red lights flickering overhead, someone screaming behind a metal door—
"Yao?"
He snapped back. Shen's voice again.
"We'll test squad rotations tomorrow," Shen said, slower this time. "You'll pair with Lien. We need to see if your reads hold in chaos scenarios."
"Fine," Yao muttered. "But no tank dragging me next time."
Jin scowled but said nothing.
As the debrief ended and players filtered out, Lien lingered behind.
She approached Yao—not too close, but not afraid either.
"Hey."
He glanced up.
"You weren't always a player, were you?" she asked.
He blinked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean… there's something behind your eyes. Like you've already seen the worst this game can throw."
He didn't answer. Instead, he turned and walked toward the dorm wing.
But as he passed her, she whispered, "You're not the only one haunted, you know."
Yao froze.
Something in her voice hit a nerve. A familiar weight. And for the first time… he wondered what secrets she was hiding.
⸻
Elsewhere…
Blackroom Node - Hydra Protocol: Online
A server deep within the eSports Institute stirred. No alarms. No interface.
Just lines of ancient, protected code uncoiling like snakes.
SUBJECT_99: Pattern Deviation Confirmed
Reaction Time: +18% over Prime Sync Baseline
Echo Layer Disruption: Growing
Error margin: 0.04%
Alert: UNLOCK SEQUENCE INITIATED
Then—
INITIATOR IDENTIFIED: [CLASSIFIED]
TRACE: AURORA PROTOCOL STILL ACTIVE
EXECUTING TEST SCENARIO ["FRAGMENTED MEMORY"]
⸻
Yao's Dormitory - Midnight
He sat at the edge of the bed, helmet off, hands trembling slightly.
The victory should've made him feel good.
It didn't.
He stared at his reflection in the dark screen of his desk monitor.
But this time…
The reflection blinked.
Before he did.
"…What the hell…"
He reached forward, tapped the screen. Nothing. No error. No input.
But the flicker remained, like a ghost trapped between his mind and the machine.
Then, quietly, a voice.
Not loud. Not even external.
Inside him.
"They buried it. But not deep enough."
"You were more than a player before."
"Find the gate. Before they do."
Yao stumbled back, breathing hard.
The screen returned to normal.
A message appeared.
You Have One New Friend Request: Username: '0DayGhost'
He hovered his cursor, sweat beading along his brow.
And clicked Accept.
Virtual Arena – Late Night Custom Room
Yao reentered the VR rig. He wasn't supposed to.
Everyone else had gone to bed—or at least that's what he told himself. But sleep? Not an option.
Not with the voice still echoing in his head.
"Find the gate. Before they do."
He booted a custom practice map, one no one else used—a forgotten training ground filled with outdated AI routines and abandoned terrain code. Here, he could test alone. Or… not be found.
The map loaded.
A fogged forest. The trees pixelated around the edges like old memory files. Shadows moved unnaturally. Not programmed—wrong.
His HUD flickered. Then went black.
"—What—"
A burst of white static.
Then a figure materialized before him—hooded, semi-transparent, built from shattered polygons and glitch code. Their name tag:
0DayGhost
They didn't move. Just stood. Watching.
Yao's hand moved to draw his blade.
The figure raised a single finger—no threat. A warning.
And then, the map changed.
A ripple passed through the terrain like a wave through water. The forest melted into metallic corridors. A lab. Familiar.
A scream in the distance.
The walls glitched, turning transparent for a second—and he saw himself.
Strapped to a chair. A headset drilled into his skull. Doctors shouting. A woman crying behind a one-way mirror.
He couldn't breathe.
"They made you forget."
The figure's voice wasn't loud. It bypassed sound, cutting into thought directly.
"You were one of them. You are one of them."
"The First Blood Protocol was not a game. It was war."
The world cracked.
The arena disintegrated around him like crumbling stone. The trees rotted. The sky pixelated.
His vitals spiked.
LOGOUT ATTEMPT: DENIED
NEURAL BANDWIDTH OVERLOAD
PHANTOM MEMORY SYNC — 3%… 8%…
The system was locking him in.
And the figure stepped closer, pressing a single hand to his forehead.
"Wake up, Yao."
Flash—
⸻
Real World – Medical Bay
Yao sat bolt upright on the bed, gasping, drenched in sweat. A nurse flinched nearby, nearly dropping a tablet.
"You weren't scheduled for deep immersion," she said sharply. "What the hell happened?"
Yao blinked. His vision blurred. Blood dripped from his left nostril.
He wiped it silently and got up.
The nurse tried to stop him.
"You need to be scanned! You flatlined for four seconds!"
"I'm fine," he muttered, already walking.
But as he passed a reflective panel on the hallway wall—
His reflection lagged behind him by half a second.
⸻
Boardroom – Observation Deck
Somewhere above, hidden behind black-glass panels, a group of men and women watched his footage.
One leaned forward.
"He's accelerating too quickly. The barrier is thinning."
A woman in a navy suit nodded. "Echo Effect is activating prematurely."
Another, older voice: "Initiate Phase II. Activate Observer Protocol. And keep 'Ghost' on a leash."
"But sir," one technician asked, "what if he regains full memory?"
The room went silent.
Then the elder voice whispered:
"Then pray he still believes this is just a game."
⸻
Closing Scene – Dorm Balcony
Yao stood alone outside his room, city lights flickering beneath the night sky. A cool wind blew, brushing past him like something ancient.
He checked his friend list again.
0DayGhost — Offline
He scrolled through his match history. Nothing from earlier appeared. No logs. No arena. It was all… deleted.
But one thing remained.
A private message.
"You were the first kill.
Now be the first to remember."
He stared at the words.
And for the first time in years…
He remembered red.
Not color.
Blood.
⸻
End of Chapter Two – Trial by Fire