**Chapter 30: First Blood**
**Day 1,165 (Afternoon).**
**Location: Pacific Ocean, Sector 4 (The Recovery Zone).**
**Current Status: Level 8 Novice (Secretly Level: Infinity).**
**Mood: Disappointed in the Victory Music.**
Victory in a video game is usually clean. The boss falls, the music swells, the loot chest appears with a satisfying *thud*, and the screen fades to black. There is no cleanup. There is no smell.
Reality, unfortunately, lacks a fade-to-black transition.
I sat on the wet sand of the Pacific atoll where the rescue boats had deposited us. My linen shirt was plastered to my skin, drying into a stiff, salty crust. Around me, the "heroes" of the Stratosphere Raid were coming down from their adrenaline high.
It should have been a moment of triumph. We had boarded an Aetherian Bio-Frigate, killed the core, and plummeted forty kilometers into the ocean without dying. By all metrics, it was a legendary feat.
But the mood was wrong.
"Hey," a voice called out.
I looked up. It was Hawkeye, the Ranger from our raid group. He was sitting on a piece of driftwood, holding the *Aetherian Pulse Rifle* that Damon had looted and tossed to him.
Hawkeye wasn't inspecting the stats. He was staring at the stock of the weapon.
"What is this?" Hawkeye whispered.
I leaned closer, playing the part of the curious newbie. "Alien slime?"
"No," Hawkeye said. He rubbed his thumb against a dark, viscous smear on the grip. "It's dried. It's... sticky."
He looked at his gloves. They were stained purple.
"It smells like copper," Hawkeye said, his voice trembling slightly. "It smells like blood."
I watched him. This was the moment. The *Uncanny Valley* of the System. Until now, the players had treated the aliens like polygons. Even when they were covered in gore, their minds registered it as a texture pack. But holding a physical weapon, stripped from a physical corpse, brought back down to the real world...
The cognitive dissonance was breaking.
"It's just loot," Damon rumbled, walking over. He looked massive without his helmet, his face scarred and wet. "Don't overthink it, Ranger. It gives +500 Agility."
"It's heavy," Hawkeye insisted. "Too heavy."
Suddenly, a scream cut through the air.
It came from the Sanctuary triage tent set up further down the beach.
Ren was there in an instant, vanishing in a blur of motion. Damon and I followed—Damon running, me jogging breathlessly (for appearances).
We burst into the tent.
Elena was kneeling over a player. It was *IronWall*, the tank who had held the line on the hull.
He wasn't dead. But he was screaming.
His leg armor had been torn away. Beneath it, the skin wasn't just damaged; it was *infected*. A lattice of glowing purple veins was spreading up his thigh, pulsing in time with a foreign rhythm.
"The System won't heal it," Elena said, panic edging into her voice. "I'm casting *Greater Restoration*. It registers the HP gain, but the status effect won't cleanse. It's overwriting his biology."
IronWall gripped Elena's wrist. "Cut it off," he wheezed. "It feels... it feels like it's eating me."
Damon stepped forward. "It's a DoT (Damage over Time). It'll fade."
"It's not fading!" IronWall screamed. "It's writing code into my bone marrow! Cut it off!"
I narrowed my eyes. *Nanites.* The Aetherian weapons were infused with self-replicating nanomachines designed to assimilate biomass. The System's healing magic was clashing with the alien tech, causing a rejection loop.
"Do it," Ren said softly. He drew his *Star-Eater* dagger. "If we don't, he loses the leg permanently. Or worse."
Elena nodded, tears in her eyes. She channeled a numbing spell.
Ren swung the dagger.
It wasn't a clean puff of pixels.
Blood—red, human blood—sprayed across the white tent. The leg fell with a heavy, wet sound. IronWall passed out from the shock.
Silence filled the tent. The players stared at the blood soaking into the sand.
"This isn't a game," Hawkeye whispered from the doorway. "We just... we just chopped his leg off."
Damon looked at the blood on Ren's dagger. For the first time, the Warlord looked shaken.
"Zero," I subvocalized. "The filter is slipping."
**[The Aetherian technology is highly invasive,]** Zero confirmed. **[It is bypassing the System's censorship protocols. The players are beginning to perceive the true visceral nature of the war.]**
"Good," I said coldly. "They need to see the blood. If they think they're immortal, they'll get careless."
***
**The Escalation**
The sun began to set, painting the ocean in hues of violet and gold—a reflection of the mana-saturated atmosphere.
We were preparing to teleport back to the mainland when the sky tore open again.
It wasn't a portal. It was a *Warp Exit*.
*BOOM.*
The sound barrier shattered directly above us. The clouds parted, pushed aside by a mass displacement that dwarfed the Frigate we had just destroyed.
A shadow fell over the atoll.
It was a *Destroyer*.
An Aetherian Cruiser, two kilometers long, shaped like a serrated knife blade. It hung in the low atmosphere, its anti-gravity engines humming with a sound that vibrated in our chests.
**[SYSTEM ALERT: REINFORCEMENTS DETECTED.]**
**[ENEMY: AETHERIAN SUBJUGATOR-CLASS CRUISER.]**
**[LEVEL: 75.]**
"Level 75?" Damon breathed, looking up. "We barely survived a 65."
The cruiser didn't hail us. It didn't scan us. It saw the burning wreckage of its scout ship washing up on the shore. It saw the ants that had done it.
It opened its bombardment bays.
"SCATTER!" Ren screamed.
He didn't wait. He grabbed Elena and blinked fifty meters down the beach.
I stood there, watching the bays open. They glowed with a blinding white light. *Plasma bombardment.*
"Zero," I thought. "Shields?"
**[The Moon Base railguns are reloading. I cannot intercept in time.]**
"Calculated casualties?"
**[If that volley hits the beach... Total wipe of the Raid Group. True Death probability: 100%.]**
I couldn't let them die. Not Ren. Not Damon. They were my best investments.
But I couldn't blow my cover. Null couldn't stop a plasma bombardment.
Unless...
"Damon!" I shouted, pointing at a rocky overhang. "The cave! Move!"
Damon grabbed me and Hawkeye, hurling us toward the rocks before diving himself.
The Cruiser fired.
A beam of white energy struck the center of the beach.
It wasn't an explosion. It was an eraser.
The sand turned to glass instantly. The water flashed to steam. The shockwave hit us like a physical wall, slamming us against the back of the shallow cave.
I felt the heat wash over me. I let my *Null* avatar take damage. My health bar dropped.
**[HP: 50%... 20%... 5%.]**
I coughed, tasting copper.
The light faded.
We crawled out of the cave.
The beach was gone. In its place was a crater of smoking glass.
And where the Sanctuary triage tent had been... there was nothing.
"No," Elena whispered. She had survived because Ren moved her, but the others...
Five healers. Three support tanks. They had been stabilizing the wounded.
Now, there were only shadows burned into the rock.
**[SYSTEM DEATH NOTIFICATION]**
**[Player: 'LightTouch' - DELETED.]**
**[Player: 'MedicOne' - DELETED.]**
**[Player: 'ShieldBro' - DELETED.]**
The notifications scrolled. No respawn timer. No "Downed" state. Just *Deleted*.
The Cruiser hovered above, silent, waiting for its capacitors to recharge.
Damon fell to his knees. He punched the glass ground, shattering it. His hand bled.
"They killed them," Damon growled. "They just... deleted them."
Ren stood on the edge of the crater. His coat was burned. His face was a mask of absolute zero.
"This isn't a raid," Ren said. His voice was quiet, terrifying. "This is an execution."
He looked at the massive ship hovering above them.
"Null," Ren said, not looking at me. "Can you get us up there?"
I looked at the ship. I looked at the shadows on the ground.
The boredom was definitely gone. In its place was a cold, simmering rage. They had broken my toys.
"The teleporter is fried," I said, my voice trembling (authentically acting the part of a terrified novice). "But... the loot."
I pointed to the *Aetherian Pulse Rifle* Hawkeye was still clutching.
"That rifle," I said. "It has a transponder. A 'Return to Base' function."
Ren looked at Hawkeye. "Give it to me."
Hawkeye handed it over.
Ren looked at me. "Can you hack it?"
I took the rifle. I pulled a panel off the stock.
"I can trigger the emergency recall," I said. "It will beam the weapon back to the armory of that ship. If we're holding onto it..."
"We go with it," Damon finished, standing up. He wiped the blood from his hand onto his armor. "Do it."
"We're exhausted," Elena said, her voice breaking. "We have no mana. Half our party is dead."
"That's why they won't expect us," Ren said.
He gathered the survivors. Only ten of us left.
I fiddled with the rifle's circuitry. In reality, I was using my *Dev Key* to hijack the ship's teleportation signal.
"Hold on," I said.
I pressed the core.
**[Teleportation Initiated.]**
The world dissolved in white light.
***
**The Cruiser: The Armory**
We materialized in a room lined with racks of energy weapons.
Alarms blared instantly.
**[INTRUDER ALERT.]**
"Don't let them mobilize!" Damon roared.
He didn't use a skill. He didn't use mana. He used pure, unadulterated rage. He grabbed a rack of rifles and hurled it at the door, crushing the two Sentinels running in.
"Ren! Where's the reactor?" Damon shouted.
Ren's eyes glowed violet. He scanned the massive ship.
"Ten decks down. But it's shielded. We can't cut it."
"We don't need to cut it," I said, stepping forward. "We need to overload it."
I picked up an alien grenade from a rack.
"This ship runs on a Void-Core," I explained. "If you introduce a conflicting energy signature—like, say, *Star Metal*—directly into the intake... the reaction becomes exponential."
Ren looked at his daggers. *Star-Eater*.
"My daggers," Ren said.
"You'll lose them," I warned.
"I don't care," Ren said.
"Move!" Damon ordered. "Viper, Hawkeye, cover our rear! We're running a suicide play!"
***
**The Gauntlet**
The run to the reactor was a blur of violence.
We were level 50-60 players running on fumes, fighting Level 75 elites.
Damon tanked shots that should have killed him. His *Blood-Iron* armor was slagged, exposing his skin. He didn't stop.
Elena cast shields until her nose bled from mana exhaustion.
I ran in the middle, calling out enemy positions. "Sniper, left balcony! Trap, floor panel three!"
I couldn't fight. If I fought, I would reveal myself. So I became the ultimate guide. I calculated trajectories. I timed door cycles. I ensured that every desperate move they made was the *right* one.
We reached the Reactor Room.
It was a cavernous chamber humming with dark energy. The Core was a spinning singularity of black light.
"The intake!" I pointed to a vent at the base of the core.
"Guardians!" Ren shouted.
Three *Pretorians* dropped from the ceiling. Level 75.
"I'll hold them!" Damon shouted. "Ren, go!"
Damon charged all three. It was suicide. He was battered, bleeding, out of mana.
"For the fallen!" Damon screamed, tackling the lead Pretorian off the catwalk.
Ren sprinted for the core.
A Sentinel stepped out of the shadows, aiming a plasma rifle at Ren's head.
Ren didn't see it.
I did.
I didn't think. I didn't calculate.
I shoved Ren.
*Thud.*
The plasma bolt hit me.
It hit my shoulder. The linen shirt disintegrated. The flesh beneath burned.
**[Damage Taken: 8000.]**
**[Health Critical.]**
I tumbled across the floor.
"Null!" Ren gasped, recovering his balance.
"Throw it!" I wheezed, clutching my smoking shoulder. "Finish it!"
Ren looked at me, then at the Core.
He threw the *Twin Fangs*.
The daggers spun through the air, glowing with the anti-void energy of the Star Metal. They flew straight into the intake vent.
*CRUNCH.*
The spinning singularity stuttered.
The ship groaned. The hum turned into a scream.
**[CORE DESTABILIZED.]**
**[MELTDOWN IMMINENT: 10 SECONDS.]**
"We have to go!" Elena shouted, helping Damon climb back up (minus an arm of his armor).
"Teleport is offline!" I yelled. "The interference is too strong!"
The Core was glowing blindingly white. It was going to be a nuclear event.
"We're going to die," Hawkeye whispered.
I looked at the team. Battered. Broken. But victorious.
They had done their part.
Now it was my turn.
"Ren," I said, standing up. My shoulder was healing faster than a Novice should allow, but no one noticed in the chaos. "Use your *Void Walker* ult. The one you used on Gourmet."
"Event Horizon?" Ren shook his head. "I can't swallow a ship, Null. I'm empty."
"You don't need to swallow the ship," I said, walking toward the overloading core. "You just need to open a door."
"To where?"
"To the Moon," I said.
Ren looked at me. He saw something in my eyes. A calm that shouldn't exist in a Level 8 Novice.
"Do it!" I commanded.
Ren screamed, tearing open a portal. "Go! Everyone through!"
Damon, Elena, and the others dived through.
Ren waited. "Null! Come on!"
I stood by the Core. It was pulsing rapidly now. 3 seconds.
"I have to manually override the containment," I lied. "Or the explosion will follow us through the portal."
"No!" Ren stepped back toward me.
"Go, Ren!" I pushed him with a burst of telekinesis—subtle, but strong enough to knock him backward into the portal.
"NULL!"
The portal closed.
I was alone in the Reactor Room.
The timer hit zero.
The core detonated.
A wave of pure annihilation swept outward. It was enough energy to vaporize the ship and the coastline below it.
"Time to eat," I whispered.
I dropped the disguise.
The *Null* avatar didn't change shape, but the presence shifted. The Novice was gone. The Architect was here.
I opened my mouth.
I didn't breathe air. I breathed the explosion.
I inhaled the plasma. I inhaled the radiation. I inhaled the kinetic force of a collapsing starship.
It rushed into me, filling the infinite void of my true self.
The ship around me disintegrated, turning to dust. The explosion that should have wiped the map was sucked into a single point—me.
I hovered in the sky, glowing like a second sun.
**[Energy Absorbed: 40 Petajoules.]**
**[Daily Growth: Triggered Early.]**
**[Current Status: Full.]**
I burped. A small ripple of gravity distorted the clouds.
I looked down at the ocean. No debris. No fallout. Just empty sky.
"Zero," I said, re-applying the *Null* disguise, simulating severe burns and 1 HP. "Teleport me to the beach. Make it look like I fell out of the sky."
**[Acknowledged.]**
***
**The Beach**
Ren, Damon, and Elena were staring at the sky.
They had seen the ship explode. They had braced for the shockwave.
But there was no shockwave. Just a flash of light that imploded into nothingness.
"It's gone," Elena whispered. "It just... vanished."
"Where's Null?" Ren asked, scanning the water frantically.
*Splash.*
I hit the water fifty yards out.
"Man overboard!" Damon yelled.
They dragged me onto the sand. I was charred, smoking, and unconscious (mostly).
Elena cast a heal. "He's alive! Barely."
Ren looked at the empty sky. Then he looked at me.
"He stayed behind," Ren whispered. "He manually contained the blast."
Damon looked at me with newfound respect. "The Level 8 rookie. He saved the raid."
Ren touched the Black Box on his chest. He looked at me, sleeping in the sand.
"He's not a rookie," Ren murmured to himself. "No rookie has eyes like that."
The waves lapped against the shore, washing away the blood of the fallen.
The First Blood had been spilled. Casualties had been taken. But the enemy Cruiser was dust.
And the players... the players were no longer playing.
They were at war.
**[Chapter 30: First Blood]** ends.
**[Day 1,165 Ends.]**
**[Daily Growth: +15%.]**
**[Humanity's Resolve: Hardened.]**