The bounty announcement hit the city like a plague vector. My overlay went from tracking three party members to tracking forty-seven hostile signatures in 12 seconds. The tags were depressing: [LEVEL 3-8 (CULTIVATORS)], [SKILL: HARVEST-READY] , [MOTIVATION: 5000 ESSENCE].
They weren't real hunters. They were scavengers. And we were the freshest corpse.
"North gate," I said, already moving. "0.8 miles. Direct route."
"Direct route's suicide," Mira countered, her bow tracking a rooftop sniper. "They'll—"
"Calculate." My parallel analysis overlaid Hollow's End in a grid, each block a probability cloud. "Cultivators cluster in groups of 3-5. They hesitate 1.4 seconds before engaging. Their average speed is 3.2 mph. We can outpace them at 4.5 mph, but only if we maintain momentum."
Drek was already running, hatchets clearing a path through the market crowd. Callum flickered beside me, his phase-state unstable. [CALLUM SYNC: 67%] . He was fighting the Architect's residual control. Good. Gave him an edge.
The first wave hit at the intersection of Ash Barrel Lane and Silk Street. Five cultivators, armed with rusted machetes and one crossbow. My overlay identified the crossbowman as priority alpha—44% of our failure paths involved his bolt hitting Mira's spine.
"Crossbow, 11 o'clock, 40 feet," I announced, not slowing.
Mira's arrow was already in flight. It didn't target the crossbowman. It targeted the wall behind him, striking a stress fracture I'd mapped during our descent. The wall was 6.2 pounds of pressure from collapse. The arrow added 4.1. The remaining 2.1 came from the crossbowman's own body weight when he sidestepped.
The wall fell. [ENVIRONMENTAL KILL: 1/5] . The crossbowman's HP bar vanished.
The other four hesitated . My Luck 6 activated. Not as a stat boost—as a quantum nudge . The universe's random number generator, previously locked at "screw Kael," now had a 6% margin of error in my favor.
Cultivator #2's machete slipped . Not fate. Friction coefficient miscalculation caused by the dust cloud from the wall collapse. My overlay hadn't predicted it. Luck had allowed it.
[LUCK 6: PASSIVE ACTIVATION - MINOR EVENT MANIPULATION]
Drek decapitated #3 and #4 with one swing. His hatchet's trajectory was perfect , guided by the same probability cloud that had failed the crossbowman. Luck wasn't making us win. It was making them lose.
Cultivator #5 fell . No one touched him. He tripped over a cobblestone that had been perfectly placed 200 years ago, waiting for this exact footfall. [LUCK 6: PASSIVE] . The statistical improbability was so small that my overlay flagged it: [EVENT: 0.00043% PROBABILITY - MANUAL OVERRIDE?].
Manual override. My Luck was learning .
We cleared the intersection in 9.4 seconds . The remaining forty-two hostiles were 0.3 miles behind. But my overlay showed a new signature—fast. Approaching at 12 mph. Not a cultivator. A professional .
[NAME: VESSEL (REAL)]
[RACE: HUMAN (PHASE-ANCHORED)]
[LEVEL: 12 (CONFIRMED)]
[UNIQUE SKILL: NULL CONTRACT (LV4)]
[THREAT: PURGE-LEVEL]
Vessel. The sifter boss. Not a hologram this time. He phased onto the street ahead, his silk suit pristine, his smile sharp enough to cut.
"Node #9, #6, and #5," he said. "Delivered to my doorstep. The Architect will be pleased."
[COMBAT PROBABILITY: VICTORY 1.2%]
But 1.2% with Luck 6 was 7.2% effective. Still garbage. But not zero.
"You're not here for the bounty," I said. "You're here for me. The Architect wants me intact."
Vessel's smile didn't falter. "Observation confirmed. Calculator detected."
He raised a hand. His Null Contract activated—not on us, but on the street. The cobblestones greyed, their reality erasing. The buildings flattened. He was deleting the environment, creating a null-space where no skills could exist.
[DEBUFF: NULL ZONE (100 METER RADIUS)]
[ALL UNIQUE SKILLS: SUPPRESSED]
[DURATION: PERMANENT (WITHIN ZONE)]
Drek's hatchets faded. Mira's bowstring snapped. Callum's phase stabilized—trapped in physical form.
My overlay died. No system windows. No predictive analysis. Just me. INT 30, but no interface.
Vessel walked forward, pulling manacles from his coat. "Without your system, you're just—"
I punched him.
No calculation. No prediction. Just muscle memory from 27 years on Earth. The punch landed on his jaw, which wasn't phase-anchored . His head snapped back. Blood flew.
[HP: VESSEL -12]
[STUN: 0.8 SECONDS]
He hadn't expected physical violence. Null Contract suppressed skills, not stat points. My STR was still 4. But his jaw wasn't armored .
I grabbed the manacles from his hand and locked them on his wrist . The other end, I snapped onto a drain pipe . The pipe was old iron , still real in the null zone.
" You're just a calculator, " I finished his sentence. "Without my system, I'm still a programmer who's pissed off."
Mira's boot hit his kidney. Drek's fist—just a fist now—broke his nose. Callum stood back, his phase returning, watching.
Vessel's Null Zone flickered. The drain pipe was outside the zone's radius. The manacles were inside. The paradox overloaded his skill.
[NULL CONTRACT: CRITICAL ERROR]
[FEEDBACK: 47 DAMAGE]
He screamed. The zone collapsed. My system rebooted , flooding my vision with windows.
[QUEST UPDATE: ESCAPE HOLLOW'S END]
[STATUS: GATE IN SIGHT (0.2 MILES)]
[VICTORY CONDITION: RUN]
We left Vessel bleeding, his manacles hanging from the pipe, his silk suit ruined.
Drek laughed as we ran. "You punched him! Math boy threw a punch !"
"Statistically optimal," I said. "Probability of him expecting it: 0.7%."
The north gate loomed, a rusted portcullis hanging open. No guards. The bounty had emptied the city.
We sprinted through, into the wasteland beyond.
[QUEST COMPLETE: ESCAPE HOLLOW'S END]
[REWARD: 8000 EXP]
[LEVEL UP! LEVEL 10 ACHIEVED!]
[+5 STAT POINTS]
[+1 SKILL POINT]
[UNIQUE MILESTONE: FIRST PURGE SURVIVAL]
Level 10. [LUCK: 6 → 7] . The debuff cleared. The Architect's mark dimmed, but didn't vanish.
I looked back at Hollow's End. The city was a silhouette against the green moon, its towers like fangs.
We'd escaped. But the Architect had our combat data. Our synergy. Our stats.
[NEW QUEST: THE ARCHITECT'S BLUEPRINT]
[OBJECTIVE: ACQUIRE SOURCE CODE]
[REWARD: ADMIN RIGHTS]
[RISK: SYSTEM ERASURE]
Callum spoke, his voice finally his own: "The Architect's network has ten nodes. River's Reach is #5. Hollow's End is #7. We need to find #1."
"Why #1?" Mira asked.
"Because #1 is where he stores his originals," Callum said. "The Worldlost he hasn't harvested yet. Including..."
He looked at me. "Including the Architect himself."