The core sat in his palm, warm as a stolen heartbeat.
Luzian stared at the notification. That ugly, bruised-purple text waiting for his say-so. Thirty-five percent mental load. He was already pushing nearly seventy from the physique theft. His brain felt like a phone running thirty apps in the background, hot, slow, about to crash.
But the core. Eighty-four percent purity. That wasn't just a payday. That was the kind of rock that bought you a new identity. A ticket out of the slums. A gun with someone else's fingerprints on it.
Or…
He looked at the original core. Then back at the prompt.
Or I could have two.
His thumb hovered over the mental [Y].
"Don't."
The voice came from behind him. Weak. Rattling with broken ribs. Kai had propped himself up on an elbow, blood painting the front of his jacket black in the Zone's shitty light.
"You don't know what you're messing with." Kai coughed. A wet, ugly sound. "The System sees everything. You think this is a gift? It's a leash. It's always a leash."
Luzian turned. Not fully. Just enough to keep the S-Rank in his peripheral vision.
"You're still talking." He let the words hang. "That's a choice."
Kai's jaw tightened. For a second, the old arrogance flickered back, the muscle memory of an apex predator looking at prey. But his body betrayed him. His arm shook holding him up. His S-Rank physique, the thing that made him untouchable in the district, was running at half capacity. Luzian had felt it rip out of him. He knew exactly how much was missing.
"You're going to burn out," Kai said. "That glitch, or whatever the fuck it is, it's eating you. I can see it. Your eyes are bleeding."
Luzian touched his cheek. Came away with red.
He's not wrong. But he's not right either.
[MENTAL LOAD: 71%]
[STABILITY: MARGINAL]
He'd worry about that later. Worrying was for people who had the luxury of a tomorrow.
He focused on the core. Pushed the [Y].
The world glitched.
Not like before, that silent, invisible pressure wave. This was noisy. A digital screech ripped through the air, high-pitched and wrong, like a speaker blowing out. The core in his hand vibrated. The light inside it pulsed, doubled, split,
And then there were two.
Identical. Same weight. Same warmth. Same eighty-four percent purity humming under his fingers like twin hearts.
Luzian's vision went white for a second. His nose gushed. The mental load warning flashed red, then crimson, then,
[MENTAL LOAD: 89%]
[WARNING: CRITICAL STRAIN]
[SYSTEM PROTOC–ERROR–OVERRIDE–]
The notification fragmented. Reassembled. The text was sloppier now, like someone typing with shaky hands.
[DUPLICATION COMPLETE]
[ASSET: S-RANK DUNGEON CORE x2]
[COOLDOWN: 00:04:23]
A cooldown. Of course. Even a glitch had limits.
He sucked in air through his teeth, blinking the static from his eyes. Both cores sat in his left hand now. The original and the copy. Indistinguishable.
Kai had gone silent.
Luzian looked at him. The S-Rank's face had finally settled on an expression. Not anger. Not fear.
Disbelief.
"That's…" Kai's voice cracked. He swallowed. "That's not possible. The System doesn't allow item duplication. It's a hard-coded, you can't just,"
"Yeah." Luzian pocketed both cores. The weight pulled at his jacket. A good weight. "That's what I keep hearing."
He walked over to Kai. Crouched down again. Close enough to see the fine tremor running through the S-Rank's hands, the way his eyes kept darting to the jacket pocket where the cores had disappeared.
"Here's what's going to happen." Luzian kept his voice low. Intimate. The kind of tone you use when you're about to make a promise you fully intend to keep. "You're going to crawl back to whatever hole you spawned from. You're going to tell everyone I'm dead. The Zone got me. Corruption ate my face. Tragic."
He reached out. Grabbed a fistful of Kai's jacket. The S-Rank flinched.
"And if I ever hear my name come out of your mouth again," Luzian pulled him close, close enough to smell the blood, the fear-sweat, the expensive cologne he'd probably stolen from some D-Rank he'd shaken down, "I'm going to find you. And I'm not going to steal one skill. I'm going to copy everything. Every passive. Every active. Every piece of shit that makes you S-Rank. And I'm going to leave you as a wet stain on the sidewalk with a nice, clean F next to your name."
He let go.
Kai hit the ground. Didn't move. Didn't speak. Just stared at the grey sky with the look of a man who'd just realized the food chain had a new top.
Luzian stood. His knees almost buckled. The mental load was a vice around his skull now, squeezing slow. He'd need to crash soon. Find somewhere dark and quiet and let this borrowed body settle before it tore him apart.
One thing at a time. Cores first. Then survival. Then figuring out what the fuck I actually am.
He started walking. The Dead Zone stretched out ahead, collapsed buildings, corrupted flora, the distant shriek of something hungry. Three months ago, this place was a death sentence. Now it was just… real estate.
Behind him, Kai's breathing finally steadied. Then, so quiet Luzian almost missed it:
"You're dead anyway. You know that, right? The System doesn't forgive bugs. It patches them."
Luzian didn't stop. Didn't turn around.
"Then I guess I better crash the whole thing before it reboots."
He disappeared into the ruins. One F-Rank. Two S-Rank cores. And a glitch that was already starting to feel less like a gift and more like a ticking clock.
[MENTAL LOAD: 93%]
[STABILITY: CRITICAL]
[RECOMMENDED: REST. CONSOLIDATION. SURVIVAL.]
Yeah. No shit.