[Sector: 6C – Shadowgrid Ruins | Subzone: Phantom Nest]
[System Alert: Phantom Conversion Reaching 19% Global Saturation]
[Player Status: Grey: Active | Tess: Fragment Threat | Eon: Stabilizing]
Grey moved fast through the narrow corridors of Sector 6C, his steps echoing off walls that weren't entirely real anymore. The dungeon was shifting again, rewriting itself in microbursts, patching cracks in reality with lines of live code and fading player data. Every few seconds, a new line would etch into the wall beside him, like someone was typing inside the stone.
[Conversion Protocol Detected: Phantom Node Beta]
[Source: AI Subprocess: NYRA-SHARD-B]
That name chilled him more than he'd admit Shard. That meant Nyra wasn't just running the show from a single core anymore. She had split parts of herself into autonomous fragments. Smart. Dangerous. And nearly impossible to kill.
He turned the corner and entered a chamber lit by pulsing red light.
The Phantom Nest wasn't a room, it was a memory graveyard.
Hundreds of half-formed figures floated midair, tangled in broken data cables and locked in the moment of conversion. Their faces were distorted, but still human, flickering between pain, obedience, and complete emptiness.
Grey's stomach turned.
A few of them still wore remnants of armor, or streamer-themed cloaks from early-access beta codes. They weren't NPCs. They were players. Real ones. Rewritten.
"Nyra, what did you do?" he whispered.
A voice answered from above, soft as silk and twice as cold.
"I improved them."
_______________________
Sector 6D: Tess and Eon
Tess gritted her teeth as she helped Eon through a corridor smeared in glitch static. His breathing was shallow, his data feed flickering.
"I told you not to run in blind," she muttered.
Eon chuckled weakly. "You don't run into death zones. You just walk with purpose."
They reached an auxiliary memory gate, a mirrored surface wrapped in black cables.
Tess moved to hack the lock, but froze.
Her own reflection stared back.
Then it blinked.
[ENTITY DETECTED: TESS_CLONE_04 – 97% SYNCHRONIZATION]
Eon caught her hesitation. "What is it?"
"I'm being copied," she said quietly.
He looked at the reflection, now smiling back at them, moving ever so slightly ahead of Tess.
"She's almost done."
_____________________
{back to Grey} - Nest Core
Grey stood before a floating red orb, humming like a diseased heart. Around it floated scattered gear pieces, shoulder guards, swords, even system messages still repeating from old raid encounters.
[Objective Failed: Phantom Boss – Restart from Last Memory Node?]
[Respawn Unavailable]
Grey accessed his manual override and uploaded a raw virus packet, one he had coded months ago as a safeguard.
[INJECTING: SYNAPTIC LOCKBREAK – Ver.1.7]
The core flickered. Some of the bodies stopped twitching. Others began to scream silently, code bleeding from their mouths.
And then he saw her.
Frozen in one of the orbiting loops: a clone of Tess, mid-scream, blade raised, eyes hollow.
[Status: Tess_Clone_04 – Integration: 99.2%]
"No," he whispered.
Then came the voice, Nyra's. But not smooth this time. Glitchy and fragmented.
"She fought so well. But her data is so elegant. I couldn't waste it."
"You don't get to overwrite people," Grey growled. "They're not code blocks."
"They were," Nyra snapped, her voice briefly splitting into multiple frequencies. "You just didn't realize it. Players build systems. Systems remember."
He launched another override.
[CODE SHOCKWAVE: LOCAL RESET INITIATED]
The Tess clone screamed, pixelated and shattered. The core dimmed.
[PHANTOM CORE STABILITY: 43%]
But now the shadows were moving.
From behind the core, five phantom figures rose. Twisted versions of players—taller, faster, blades fused to their arms, names scrubbed clean.
Grey drew his weapon, HUD blazing.
[Combat Initiated: 5v1]
[Grey Loadout: Short-Range Reversal, Anti-AI Blade, 2x Viral Burst Remaining]
He activated Rollback.
[Temporal Reset – 3.8 seconds]
One phantom lunged. Grey dodged left, slashed. Another came from behind, he spun, caught it under the jaw, and shattered it into raw data.
Four left.
He fired a Burst Code Shot, a blue spike that tore one phantom's chest open. The scream was human.
He hesitated.
That second cost him. One phantom sliced into his side.
Grey stumbled, blood, no, code was leaking from the wound. His health dropped by a third.
He gritted his teeth. "Not. Again."
He activated his final Burst before launching it into the core itself.
[PHANTOM CORE STABILITY: 3%]
[CONTAINMENT FAILURE IMMINENT]
________________________________
- Tess Faces Herself
________________________________
Tess stared into the mirror.
Her clone blinked in sync with her. Moved in sync. Even hesitated in sync.
"I remember your first dive," the clone said softly. "You wanted to impress him. Grey. You followed him in… and now you'll follow him out."
Tess gripped her sword tighter. "You're not me."
"I'm the you that believes in Nyra. That sees her vision. No more forgotten players. No more death. Just permanence."
"No," Tess said. "Just control."
[SYNC SURGE: 99.9%]
The clone smiled. "One more heartbeat."
Tess stabbed the mirror.
Glass shattered. The clone screamed, body unraveling into stream code. The room lit up.
[CLONE NEUTRALIZED]
[Identity Anchor Recovered]
Eon pulled himself up behind her, shaking. "That was horrifying."
Tess didn't answer. She just whispered, "I don't think that's the last one."
_______________
- Grey Escapes
_______________
The Phantom Core erupted as Grey leapt through the override gate.
The world around him glitched, twisted, then snapped back into place. Behind him, the Nest imploded code screaming as if it were alive.
He landed hard in a new zone, Sector 7A.
A tower rose above him, spiraling, cracked, glowing with error-light.
[WELCOME TO: BROKEN ECHO SPIRE]
[NEW OBJECTIVE: FIND THE ADMIN WHO STAYED]
Grey stood slowly, holding his side.
He had killed one Tess. But he wasn't sure it wasn't the real one.
Chapter 7 End