Jera stood in the rubble of the art museum. The night air was cold, and sirens wailed in the distance. The explosion from the destroyed portal had been loud.
Seraphina was on the ground, staring at him. She was breathing in deep, sharp gasps. The air of freedom.
"You... you destroyed the portal," she whispered, her violet eyes wide with a terrifying, ecstatic awe. "You locked them in. All of them."
"They were in the way," Jera's digital voice replied, flat and cold. He looked at her. She was shivering, her thin black dress offering no protection from the wind. She was a "high-value asset," and she was fragile. He couldn't let his new tool break. "You are unsecured. We are leaving."
"Leaving? Where? You just declared war on the entire world!"
"Their opinions are irrelevant." Jera stepped forward and, with the same impersonal efficiency as when he'd grabbed her in the auction, he picked her up. She weighed nothing to him.
"What are you—" Seraphina yelped as he cradled her in his arms.
"You are slow," he stated. He looked at the approaching sirens. He could not run at his full, multiplied speed with her; the g-force would kill her. He would have to use the tunnels.
He leaped from the ruined building, landing silently in the dark alley below. He moved with a heavy, purposeful grace, his DM-100 Rig making almost no sound. He found the same maintenance hatch he had used to travel to Chicago. He pulled it open with one hand, descended into the pitch-black, and sealed it above them.
They were in the deep, silent underworld of New York.
The journey to the Infinite Fortress was fast. Jera moved at a steady, 40-mile-per-hour jog, his internal sensors navigating the maze of tunnels perfectly. Seraphina was quiet, her face pressed against his cold, metal chest plate. She could feel the power inside it, a quiet, thrumming hum, like a contained star.
They arrived at the hidden, reinforced chamber. Jera put her down.
"Where is this place?" she asked, her voice echoing in the massive, dark room.
"My fortress," Jera said. He touched a panel, and the lights flickered on, revealing the room of bare, multiplied rock. "You are safe here. You will not be harmed. You will be... kept."
Seraphina rubbed her arms, her eyes adjusting. She looked at this strange, silent man in the terrifying black helmet. He had saved her. He had stolen her. He spoke of her like an object.
"Thank you," she said, her voice shaking, but firm. "You... you freed me. The Auction Master... he held my contract for ten years. I was his... his tool."
"You are now my tool," Jera stated, his logic perfect. "You are the Oracle. You can read the 'Heresy Fragments.' You are a high-value asset."
Seraphina's head snapped up, and for the first time, a flash of fire appeared in her violet eyes. "I am not a tool," she said, her voice rising. "I am not an 'asset.' I am a person. My name is Seraphina. You didn't just 'acquire' me. You saved me."
Jera paused. He tilted his helmet, his cold, calculating mind processing this new, inefficient data. Person.Saved. These were human, emotional terms. They were... messy.
And yet... he wasn't annoyed. He was... intrigued.
This woman was the only other being he had ever met who was connected to the same cosmic mystery as he was. She was not like the assassins or the Guild Leaders. She was, like him, an anomaly.
"Seraphina," he tested the name. It felt strange. "You are... unique. Your value is absolute. Therefore, you will be protected. Absolutely."
For Jera, this was the closest he could come to kindness. It was a declaration of ownership and protection.
"You said you were the lock," Jera said, changing the subject back to the mission. "And I have the key."
He walked to the stone table in the center of his fortress. He reached into his Unlimited Inventory.
First, he placed down the [Runestone of the First War] (the one from the Blood Dungeon).
Second, he placed down the new, 100-billion-credit fragment he had just won.
[HARMONIC RESONANCE: STABLE. Fragments are compatible.]
The two pieces of metal snapped together, not like magnets, but as if their very reality was drawn to each other. They merged, forming a single, larger, but still incomplete, metallic tablet.
Seraphina's breath hitched. She was drawn to it. She walked to the table, her hand outstretched. "May I?"
Jera nodded.
She placed her fingertips on the joined fragments.
The moment she touched them, her violet eyes lit up. They began to glow with a soft, internal light. The ancient symbols on the relic, which were dark for Jera, now glowed a bright, matching violet.
"I can... I can hear them," she whispered. "They sing. I told you. You have the key... but I am the lock. I can read them for you."
"Read," Jera commanded.
Seraphina closed her glowing eyes, and her voice took on a strange, melodic, distant quality. She was no longer just speaking; she was translating.
"The two pieces... they tell the beginning," she recited.
"Before, there was only the 'Bleed.' A sea of... chaos. Of corruption. Of hunger."
She shuddered. "The 'Weavers' came. They feared the Bleed. They could not destroy it, so they... they walled it off."
Jera was frozen. This was the truth he had been hunting.
Seraphina continued, "To do this, they tore the Dimensions. They built a cage of realities, to hold the Bleed back. But their cage was imperfect. It was... alive. It needed a warden. They built a... a System... to manage the cage and the 'life' inside it."
Jera's blood ran cold. "The System," he whispered. His System.
"The System is the Warden of the cage," Seraphina said, her voice pained. "And we... we are the life inside it. The dungeons... the monsters... they are not the real enemy. They are just... repairs. The System uses them to patch the walls of the cage where the Bleed is seeping in."
"The Corruption," Jera said, "the black oil from the Blood Dungeon."
"Yes," Seraphina said, her eyes snapping open. The glow faded, and she looked terrified. "It's the Bleed. The real Bleed. The thing in the outer dark. The cage is failing, Cain Walker. The Corruption you saw... it's just the first drop of a tsunami. The Weavers, the System... they are losing. And the Bleed is coming."
Jera stared at the relic, his mind processing the cosmic, terrifying implications. He was a rat in a cage, and his cage was breaking.
He finally understood the data-burst.
[...THE CORRUPTION IS A LIE...] (It's not the true enemy; it's just the "Bleed".)
[...THE SYSTEM IS A CAGE...] (Literally.)
[...THE TRUTH IS IN THE FRACTURES...] (The Runestones.)
Before he could process this further, his private comm, the one linked only to The Vault, buzzed violently.
Jera opened the channel. The Vault's face appeared on his HUD. He was not laughing. He was not calm. He was pale, sweating, and looked like he hadn't slept in days (though it had only been minutes).
"WALKER!" The Vault yelled, his voice cracking. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"
"I acquired the assets," Jera said calmly.
"ASSETS?! Jera, you didn't just rob the Midnight Auction. You broke it! You punched a hole in a stable, S-Rank pocket dimension! The portal is gone! It's severed!"
"I am aware."
"NO, YOU'RE NOT!" The Vault screamed, pulling at his hair. "You don't understand! Every major Guild Leader on Earth was in that room! Lord Valerius! Kenji Tanaka! The S-Rank heads of the European Consortium! The Hunter Bureau's shadow-director! You didn't just steal from them, Jera. You TRAPPED them!"
Jera paused. The implications of this were new. And... interesting.
"They're gone," The Vault continued, his voice dropping to a terrified whisper. "They can't get out. The global power structure... the 300 S-Ranks, the Guilds, the Bureau... their entire leadership... is gone. The world is now, as of five minutes ago, completely and utterly destabilized."
"The world is in chaos, Jera. And you... you just... you just became the single most powerful, and most wanted, entity on the planet. They will hunt you. And if they ever get out... they will bring the world down just to kill you."