Chapter 15: The Flaw in the Design
The world narrowed to the space between my brother's stolen body and me. The greatsword, wreathed in annihilating amethyst light, descended. It wasn't a skill; it was a command to cease existing. My Umbral Blades crossed to meet it.
The impact was not metal on shadow. It was a fundamental contradiction, a law of physics screaming in protest. Light met absolute darkness. The sound was a vacuum, a silence that hurt more than any noise. The force threw me back, my boots skidding across the blood-slicked arena floor. My arms screamed in protest, bones vibrating from the transfer of cosmic energy.
[ Health: 81% ]
[ Mana: 1320/1720 ]
The thing wearing Kaelen didn't follow up. It stood, tilting its head, the amethyst eyes analyzing me with cold, computational interest.
"Resonance frequency anomalous," it spoke, its voice a hive-mind whisper. "Shadow-attuned essence at EX-tier purity. A statistical impossibility for a Seed World native. You are not part of the design."
"I'm his brother," I snarled, shaking the numbness from my hands. "That's all that matters."
I didn't let it analyze further. I became the aggressor. I used Shadow Stride, not to run, but to launch myself in a zig-zag pattern, too erratic to predict. I closed the distance, my daggers aiming not for killing blows, but for the joints of his armor, the spaces between the plates of living metal. I was trying to free him, not destroy him.
The possessed Kaelen moved with infuriating, perfect economy. Every parry was minimal, every dodge precise. It used his Stone Skin, but the effect was warped, the grey hue shot through with violet cracks, making it far more resilient. It used Lightning Rush, but the movement was a series of instantaneous, jarring teleports rather than a burst of speed.
It was like fighting a reflection in a broken mirror—recognizable yet horrifically wrong.
We danced a deadly ballet across the pinnacle of the false Sanctum. I used Echoing Step, creating a trio of afterimages that lunged from different angles. The entity didn't falter. It simply pointed a finger, and a beam of amethyst light lanced out, identifying and obliterating the real me amidst the decoys. I barely got my blades up in time, the force scorching the air around me.
[ Health: 65% ]
I was losing. It was too skilled, too powerful, and it was wearing down my brother's body, a resource it clearly didn't value.
"Your persistence is inefficient," it stated, as it casually backhanded a Shadow Bind tendril away before it could fully form. "This vessel's mana signature is fading. Your struggle only hastens its expiration."
Expiration. The word was a spike of ice in my heart. It was going to burn him out and discard him.
No.
A cold, crystalline clarity settled over me. I couldn't win a battle of attrition. I couldn't out-skill a consciousness that had probably culled thousands of worlds. I had to break the rules. I had to be the "flaw" it feared.
I stopped trying to land a physical blow. I sheathed my Umbral Blades. The entity paused, its head tilting again.
"Surrender is the optimal path."
"I'm not surrendering," I said, my voice quiet but carrying across the battlefield. "I'm rebooting the system."
I closed my eyes. I reached inward, past my status screen, past my skill descriptions, into the very core of my being where the five EX-tier skills intertwined. I focused on World Tree's Blessing. Not its passive effect, but its essence—life, purity, restoration. I focused on Dungeon Walker—freedom, traversal, defying boundaries. And I focused on Apocalypse's Greed—assimilation, evolution, taking what is needed.
I wasn't trying to use them separately. I was trying to make them resonate.
I poured my entire, massive mana pool into this single, desperate act. I wasn't casting a spell. I was becoming a counter-frequency.
A visible wave of energy erupted from me. It had no color, no sound. It was simply a negation. The white-and-gold illusion of the Sanctum flickered violently, the horrific organic machinery beneath stuttering into view for longer periods. The Aetherial Cullers faltered, their movements becoming jerky, confused.
The possessed Kaelen stumbled, a hand flying to its head. The amethyst light in his eyes flickered.
"Cease! You disrupt the harmonic convergence!" it shrieked, its voice losing its composed layers, becoming raw and panicked.
This was my chance. While the entity was destabilized, I lunged, not with a blade, but with my bare hands. I slammed my palms against Kaelen's chest, right over his heart.
"Get out of my brother!" I roared, and I pushed.
I pushed not with physical strength, but with the combined, raw essence of my EX-tier skills. The purifying life of the World Tree. The boundary-breaking will of the Dungeon Walker. The all-consuming hunger of the Apocalypse.
A shockwave of pure, contradictory energy blasted out from the point of contact. The Crown of Subjugation on Kaelen's head cracked, a web of fractures spreading through the woven light.
Kaelen's back arched violently, and a scream—this one entirely his own, filled with terror and pain—tore from his lips. A specter of amethyst light, a shapeless, shrieking intelligence, was forcibly ejected from his body. It hovered for a moment, formless and furious, before the destabilized Sanctum seemed to recoil, and a rift opened behind it, sucking the entity back into the void with a sound like a dying star.
The crown shattered into motes of fading light.
Kaelen collapsed into my arms, unconscious, breathing in ragged, shallow gasps. He was pale, his skin cold, but he was him. The amethyst light was gone from his eyes.
The battle in the arena had ground to a halt. The remaining Aetherial Cullers, their connection to the controlling intelligence severed, dissolved into inert dust. The horrific organic walls of the Sanctum began to shudder and decay, the entire structure groaning as the illusion fully collapsed.
We were adrift in a dying leviathan.
The system notification that flashed before my eyes was broken, glitched, and filled with static.
[ Warning... Primary Administrator Link Severed. ]
[ Hostile Entity Expelled... Containment Failing... ]
[ Ascension Trials... Terminated. ]
[ Calculating Rewards for Participant: Aiden Vance... Error... Data Corruption... ]
[ Forced Evacuation in 10... 9... ]
There was no experience. No level-up. The system itself had been wounded.
I held Kaelen tight against me, ignoring the tremors shaking the world apart. I looked down at his face, finally at peace, even in unconsciousness. The cost had been immense. I had exposed myself to everyone. I had nearly lost him forever.
But I had won. The flaw had broken the design.
As the countdown reached zero, the world dissolved into blinding white light. The last thing I felt was Kaelen's heartbeat against my own, a fragile, steady rhythm in the chaos. We had survived the harvest. But as the teleportation took us, I knew with cold certainty that we had just declared war on the harvesters.