"Round 3. The Finale. No holding back."
I crumpled the note in my hand. It was written on heavy, expensive parchment that smelled faintly of sulfur and ozone—Valen's signature scent. The black rose sitting on the velvet cushion of the Royal Box wilted rapidly, turning to ash before the wind could even blow it away.
"He's skipping the brackets," I muttered, staring at the empty seat where the Rival Author had been sitting. "He doesn't care about the tournament structure. He just wants the boss fight."
"Ren!"
I turned. Kaelen was down on the sands, waving at me. Beside him, Lysandra was sitting up, looking dazed but alive. The medics were rushing onto the field, but Ria was already shooing them away with her daggers.
I scrambled down from the Royal Box (using the stairs this time, not Noclip) and jogged over to the team.
"Status?" I asked, looking at Lysandra.
The Heroine looked terrible. Her pristine silver armor was scorched, her hair was a mess, and her eyes... her eyes were wide, darting around as if she was seeing the world for the first time.
"My head," Lysandra whispered, clutching her temples. "It feels... quiet. The pressure. The need to be perfect. It's gone."
"That was the Martyr code," I thought, but out loud I said, "You hit your head pretty hard. Adrenaline crash."
"No," Lysandra said, looking up at me. She grabbed my wrist. Her grip was strong. "You were in my head, Ren. I heard you. You said... 'Live'."
Kaelen froze. Ria stopped spinning her dagger. Cian adjusted his glasses nervously.
This was the danger of the Narrative Overlay. If the target had high enough mental resistance—and Lysandra was a Paladin, so her Willpower stat was S-Tier—they retained fragments of the edit.
"I shouted at you," I lied smoothly. "You were floating ten feet in the air about to turn yourself into a holy grenade. I grabbed you and yelled to snap you out of it."
Lysandra studied my face. She looked for the lie. Usually, she would find it. But my "truth" was reinforced by the Source Code.
"It felt... closer than a shout," she murmured, letting go of my wrist. She looked at Kaelen. "And you... you didn't strike me. You struck the sand."
"I don't hit allies," Kaelen grunted, sheathing The Prototype (which Cian had hastily re-illusioned to look like a rusty slab again). "Even when they try to blow me up."
"Allies?" Lysandra tested the word.
"Yeah," I said, offering her a hand to stand up. "You think Jareth is going to buy you dinner after this? You just lost him the match. Valen is going to discard you both. You're Team Outcast now, just like us."
Lysandra looked at the stands. The crowd was cheering for Squad 7. But the nobles in the VIP section—her father's peers—were looking at her with disdain. A Paladin who lost to a "rusty" sword and a commoner with no magic? She was a disgrace in their eyes.
She took my hand.
"Team Outcast," she said, a bitter smile touching her lips. "It has a certain ring to it."
We didn't go to the infirmary. It was too public. Instead, we retreated to the only place we knew was secure: the Admin Room.
Getting Lysandra there was tricky. We had to blindfold her ("Trust exercise," I told her. She didn't look amused) and lead her through the glitchy wall in the old sewers.
When we finally took the blindfold off inside Arthur's Victorian study, Lysandra's jaw dropped.
"This is..." She walked over to the fireplace, touching the mantle. "This is not on the Academy blueprints. I memorized them."
"It's an expansion pack," Ria said, throwing herself onto the plush rug and opening a bag of chips she'd stolen from the arena concessions. "Welcome to the Batcave. Or... whatever Ren calls it."
"The Backdoor," I said, sitting at the desk.
I placed Valen's note on the table.
"Okay," I said. "Debrief. We won the Quarter-Finals. Jareth is likely in the hospital. Lysandra is..." I gestured to her. "...defecting?"
Lysandra stood by the fire, the light reflecting off her silver armor. "I am not defecting from the Academy. But... I cannot return to Squad 1. Jareth was using a cursed item. And Lord Valen... he encouraged it."
She looked at us.
"Who are you people? Really? You have weapons that defy analysis. Ren, you stepped on air. Kaelen, your sword eats light. And Cian..." She looked at the small genius. "You used a scroll to invert gravity. That is Archmage-level theory."
"We're talented," Kaelen said defensively.
"You're anomalies," Lysandra corrected. "And right now, I think anomalies are the only thing that can stop Valen."
She unclasped her white cape—the symbol of Squad 1—and draped it over the chair.
"I want in," she said.
[Narrative Alert: The Heroine Joins the Party.]
[Party Size: 6/6]
[Story Stability: 90.0%]
"You're in," I said. "But you follow my lead. No heroic sacrifices without a permit."
"Agreed."
"Good. Now look at this." I pointed to the note. "Valen says 'Round 3. The Finale.' But there are still four teams left in the tournament. He's skipping the Semi-Finals."
"He can't just cancel the matches," Tybalt argued from the corner, where he was petting his invisible cloak like a cat. "The crowd would riot."
"He's not cancelling them," I said, a bad feeling settling in my gut. "He's combining them."
I pulled out the tournament bracket sheet.
Remaining Squads:
Squad 7 (Us)
Squad 12 (The Iron Phalanx - Eliminated by us)
Squad 5 (The Royal Guard Cadets)
Squad 9 (The Mages Guild Prodigies)
"Squad 1 is out," I said. "So it's us against Squad 5 and Squad 9."
"A three-way brawl?" Kaelen asked.
"Or a gauntlet," I said. "But 'The Finale' implies an ending. Valen wants to end the story here. He's going to trigger an event that wipes everyone else out so he can fight us directly."
I looked at the grandfather clock.
"The match is tomorrow at noon. We need to be ready for anything. Lysandra, what do you know about Squad 5?"
Lysandra stiffened. "The Royal Guard Cadets? They are led by Prince Aric."
"Prince?" Ria sat up, dropping a chip. "The Crown Prince?"
"The second son," Lysandra explained. "He is... ambitious. And cruel. He uses Fire and Blood magic. If Valen has recruited him..."
"Then we're fighting the royal family," I finished. "Fantastic."
"Ren," Cian said quietly from the bookshelf where he was reading Arthur's diary (I had let him see the non-spoiler pages). "There's something here. Entry 302."
I walked over.
Entry 302:
I built a failsafe in the Arena. If the simulation gets too chaotic, there's a localized reset button. It's hidden in the Royal Box. But if someone presses it while the system is under load... it doesn't reset. It crashes.
I looked at the entry. The Royal Box.
"That's where Valen sits," I whispered.
"He's going to crash the arena," I realized. "He's going to overload the system during the fight, crash the sector, and delete everyone inside except us. That's why he called it the Finale."
"So we have to stop him from pressing a button?" Kaelen asked.
"We have to stop him from existing," I said. "But since we can't kill him yet... we have to steal the button."
I looked at Ria.
"Ria," I said. "How good are you at stealing from the most secure seat in the kingdom while a battle is raging underneath it?"
Ria grinned. It was a sharp, predatory grin.
"Ren, you flirt. That sounds like my dream date."
We spent the night in the Admin Room. It was safer than the dorms, and infinitely more comfortable.
I couldn't sleep. I sat at the desk, the two Source Code Fragments pulsing in my pocket. One for Mind, one for Physics.
I needed to find the others.
The Architect's logbook mentioned five fragments.
Mind (Found in the Bunker)
Physics (Found in the Null-Titan)
Time (?)
Space (?)
Soul (?)
"Can't sleep?"
I looked up. Lysandra was standing there. She had taken off her armor, wearing a simple tunic she must have found in the wardrobe. She looked smaller without the steel, but no less intense.
"Just thinking," I said.
She pulled up a chair and sat down.
"Kaelen told me," she said softly. "About the 'Monster' rumors. About how you stood up for him."
"He's a good guy," I said. "Just had a bad PR team."
"And what about you, Ren?" she asked, leaning in. "What is your story? You have no magic. You come from nowhere. You know things no one else knows."
She paused.
"Are you... a Prophet?"
I almost laughed. A Prophet. That would be easier to explain than "I'm a reader."
"Something like that," I said. "I see the paths people take. And I try to steer them away from the cliffs."
"And me?" she asked. "Was I heading for a cliff?"
"You were heading for a martyrdom that wouldn't have saved anyone," I said honestly. "You were going to be a tragic footnote in someone else's story."
Lysandra absorbed that. She looked at her hands—hands that had wielded holy light since she was a child.
"I don't want to be a footnote," she whispered. "I want to be the author of my own life."
I smiled. "Then stick with me. We're doing a lot of rewriting lately."
She nodded. Then, she reached into her tunic pocket.
"I retrieved this," she said. "From Jareth, before the medics took him."
She placed the black crystal necklace on the desk. The Soul-Leech Amulet.
"It felt wrong to leave it with him," she said. "It feels... hungry."
I looked at the amulet with Observer Vision.
[Item: Soul-Leech Amulet]
[Status: Active]
[Link: Connected to ???]
"It's a transmitter," I realized. "It sends the stolen life force somewhere."
"Where?"
I looked at the link line. It pointed... up. Toward the sky. toward the airship.
"To Valen," I said. "He's farming XP from his own minions."
I grabbed the amulet.
"We can use this," I said, my mind racing. "If it's connected to him... maybe we can send something back."
"Like what?"
"Like a virus," I said.
I pulled out the Mind Fragment (Fragment 1). I touched it to the amulet.
[Action: Corrupt Link?]
[Inject: Narrative Noise.]
"Cian!" I shouted, waking up the poor boy who was drooling on a physics textbook. "Wake up! I need you to code a headache!"
The next morning, the sun rose over the Grand Colosseum. The stands were packed to capacity. The King was there—a tired-looking man who seemed to be asleep in his secondary box.
Valen sat in the main Royal Box, looking fresh and terrifying.
Squad 7 walked out onto the sand.
Me, Kaelen, Ria, Cian, Tybalt... and Lysandra.
The crowd gasped when they saw the former captain of Squad 1 standing with the "dropouts." Lysandra wore no cape. She had painted her silver armor black with soot from the fireplace, matching Kaelen's aesthetic.
"Traitors!" someone shouted from the noble section.
"Heroes!" someone yelled from the commoner seats.
The announcer's voice boomed.
"WELCOME TO THE APEX FINALE!"
"In this corner... SQUAD 7! And their opponents... A JOINT TASK FORCE!"
Two gates opened.
Squad 5 walked out. Prince Aric, surrounded by fire mages. He looked bored and cruel, playing with a fireball.
Squad 9 walked out. The Mage Prodigies. They were floating, their feet not touching the ground.
Ten against six.
"The rules are simple!" Valen stood up, his voice cutting through the noise. "Last team standing wins. No time limit. No surrender."
He looked at me and winked.
"Begin."
Prince Aric didn't hesitate. "Burn them," he ordered.
Five massive fireballs launched toward us.
"Tybalt! Dome!" I yelled.
Tybalt slammed his staff. "Earth Dome!"
A sphere of rock encased us just as the fire hit. The impact was deafening. The inside of the dome heated up instantly.
"It's an oven in here!" Ria coughed.
"Cian, is the package ready?" I asked, holding the cursed amulet.
"Ready," Cian said, holding a messy bundle of wires and crystals he'd rigged up. "But we need line of sight to Valen."
"Ria," I said. "Go get the button."
"How? I'm in a rock!"
I put my hand on her shoulder.
[Skill: Noclip (Target: Ria)]
[Duration: 10 Seconds]
"Run through the wall," I said. "And don't stop running until you're in the Royal Box."
Ria grinned. She turned and sprinted straight at the stone wall. She passed right through it like a ghost.
"Okay," I said to the team. "Kaelen, Lysandra. You're the front line. Break the fire mages. Tybalt, keep the dome up until I say drop."
"And you?" Lysandra asked, gripping her rapier.
"I'm going to make a phone call," I said, gripping the amulet.
"Drop the dome!"
Tybalt dropped the wall.
We exploded outward.
Kaelen and Lysandra charged, a whirlwind of Dark and Light. They moved in perfect sync, Lysandra parrying attacks while Kaelen delivered crushing blows. It was a beautiful, terrifying dance.
I stood in the center of the chaos, shielded by Tybalt. I held the amulet up to the sky, aiming it at Valen in the box.
I focused.
[Narrative Overlay: Inject.]
[Payload: The Song of the Wasp Hive (Looping).]
I sent the memory of the mana-wasps—the pain, the noise, the static—straight up the link.
In the Royal Box, Valen suddenly flinched. He grabbed his head.
"Gah!" he shouted, his composure breaking.
"Now, Ria!" I whispered.
High above, in the shadows of the box, a figure materialized behind Valen's chair.
Ria reached out. She didn't stab him. She grabbed the small, ornate red button hidden under the armrest.
She yanked it out, wires and all.
"Gotcha," she whispered.
Valen spun around, his eyes glowing red. "You little rat!"
He blasted a wave of force at her.
Ria didn't dodge. She threw the button... off the balcony.
"Ren! Catch!" she screamed as she was blasted backward into the wall.
The button fell through the air, tumbling down toward the arena.
"I got it!" I yelled.
I ran forward, sliding on the sand.
Prince Aric saw me. "The grey-coat!" he shouted. "Kill him!"
A fireball zoomed toward me.
I didn't stop.
[Skill: Kinetic Redirect]
I slapped the air. I redirected the fireball into the ground, launching myself upward with the explosion.
I flew through the air.
I caught the button.
I landed, rolling to my feet.
I held the device up. It was heavy, pulsing with "Reset" energy.
"Valen!" I screamed, looking up at the box.
Valen was leaning over the rail, looking furious. Ria was slumped against the back wall, unconscious.
"You want a reset?" I shouted. "I'll give you a reset!"
I looked at Cian. "Overload it!"
Cian pointed his wand at the button in my hand. "Gravity Inversion!"
He didn't crush it. He expanded the internal mechanism.
I smashed the button onto the ground.
CRACK-BOOM.
The button didn't reset the arena. It reset the rules.
A shockwave of blue code swept across the Colosseum.
[System Override: Game Mode Changed.]
[New Mode: Capture the Flag.]
The fireballs stopped mid-air. The mages froze.
A giant, glowing flag appeared in the center of the arena.
"What did you do?" Prince Aric shouted, looking at his hands as his fire sputtered out.
"I changed the genre," I panted. "No more Deathmatch. First team to grab the flag wins."
I looked at Kaelen. He was closest.
"Run!"
Kaelen sprinted. Prince Aric tried to tackle him, but without magic, Aric was just a spoiled kid against a tank. Kaelen shoulder-checked him into the dirt.
Kaelen grabbed the flag.
"Winner: Squad 7!" the announcer's voice glitched, then boomed.
The crowd went wild.
I looked up at the box. Valen was gone. He had vanished again.
But Ria was still there. She gave a weak thumbs-up from the floor.
We won. We survived the Finale.
But as I looked at the "Reset" button shards on the ground, I saw something glowing among the wires.
A small, golden hourglass.
[Source Code Fragment (3/5)]
[Attribute: Time]
"Three down," I whispered, picking it up.
"Two to go."
I looked at my team celebrating in the sand.
"We're coming for you, Valen," I said. "And next time, I'm bringing the eraser."