We sprinted toward the Gold Pillar. The Admin roared, a sound like grinding metal.
"Access Denied!"
The air around us shimmered, and suddenly, the path was blocked. Figures rose from the floor. They were the Moderators—the Admin’s elite guard. They looked like mannequins made of chrome, faceless and smooth, wielding staffs that crackled with red electricity.
There were fifty of them.
"I’ll clear the path!" Kael shouted. "Lag Switch: Overdrive!"
Kael didn't run at them. He vanished.
A split second later, the first ten Moderators were launched into the air. Kael appeared in the middle of them, his data-knife glowing white-hot. He slashed, not at their bodies, but at the air behind them. He was cutting their connection cables.
The Moderators froze, then shattered into pixels.
"Go, Nova!" Kael screamed. He teleported again, appearing in front of a second wave of enemies. He was moving so fast his avatar was tearing apart. He was burning his own brain to keep me safe.
I didn't waste his sacrifice. I ran.
A Moderator lunged at me, swinging its staff.
I didn't dodge. I opened my mouth.
“Get out of my way!”
It wasn't a request. I poured the "Source-Code Singing" ability into the shout. A shockwave of blue energy blasted from my lips. It hit the Moderator in the chest. Its chrome armor buckled, then exploded outward.
[LIKES: 50,000]
[LIKES: 100,000]
My counter was skyrocketing. Even here, deep in the system, the viewers were watching. The Admin couldn't stop the signal. The entire population of Neon-Cloud was tuning in to the end of the world.
I reached the base of the Admin’s titan form. The Golden Pillar was right there, protected by a translucent energy shield.
I took a deep breath. I prepared the note that would shatter the glass.
But before I could sing, the world turned gray.
Time stopped.
Or rather, Kael stopped.
I looked back. Kael was suspended in mid-air, his knife raised to strike a Moderator. But he wasn't moving. The static that made up his body had frozen into a solid, gray block.
A small, terrible notification appeared over his head:
[USER: STATIC]
[CONNECTION LOST]
[SIGNAL: FLATLINED]
"No," I whispered. My voice felt small in the giant cavern.
The Admin laughed. The titan reached down and flicked Kael’s frozen avatar with one massive finger.
Kael shattered.
He didn't turn into pixels. He didn't respawn. He just broke apart like a statue made of ash, crumbling into dust that scattered into the void.
"Inefficient," the Admin said. "Human brains are so fragile. He pushed his hardware too far. He’s dead, Elena. In here, and out there."
I stared at the spot where Kael had been.
Panic didn't hit me. Grief didn't hit me.
What hit me was a cold, absolute clarity.
The Admin thought this was a game. He thought we were just lines of code acting out a script. He thought that by deleting Kael, he had removed a variable.
He was wrong. He hadn't removed a variable. He had removed my safety rail.
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.