Chapter 118: The Meltdown of the Gods and Aki's Origin Story
The Archive Core was screaming. The 99% reboot status flickered like a dying candle in a hurricane. Von (Volt) stood at the center of the chaos, his sword absorbing the leaking binary code until the blade itself started to distort reality.
"Aki! Now!" Von roared.
Aki didn't hesitate. He hurled the liquid-nitrogen vials into the primary cooling fans. CRACK. The fans shattered, and thick, freezing white mist filled the room. The smell of burning silicon and ozone was overwhelming.
[SYSTEM ERROR: Critical Overheating. Hardware Failure Imminent. Reboot Aborted... Manual Override Required.]
"Manual override?" The Cultist Leader shrieked, his static-filled face contorting. "I will be the override!" He lunged toward the core, intending to merge his soul with the machine.
But Sai was faster. With a roar that shook the very foundations of the Archive, he slammed his shield into the Leader, pinning him against a wall of cooling pipes. "You're not merging with anything today except this wall!"
Rena, meanwhile, was frantically searching the nearby terminals. "Von! The system is trying to dump its encrypted data before it melts! If we don't grab it, we'll never know how to stop the other cults!"
The Thief's Reflection
Aki ran to the main terminal, his fingers flying across the glowing buttons like he was playing a high-stakes piano. "Let's see... 'System Secrets'... 'Forbidden Loot'... wait, what's this? 'Subject 777: The Anomaly Thief'?"
A holographic file opened in front of Aki. It showed a small boy in a dark alley, but his shadow wasn't attached to his feet—it was moving independently, stealing coins from a merchant's pocket.
Aki's eyes went wide. "That's... that's me. But I don't remember this."
[FILE DATA: Subject 777 (Aki). Origin: A glitch in the luck-algorithm. The subject was never meant to be born, created from a surplus of 'RNG' (Random Number Generation) energy. He is the physical manifestation of the system's errors.]
"A glitch?" Aki whispered, his hand trembling. "I'm not even a real person? I'm just... a mistake in the math?"
Von walked over, his hand heavy on Aki's shoulder. "The system called me a 'Demon King' because it couldn't control me. It calls you a 'Glitch' because it couldn't predict you. Don't let a dying machine define who you are, Aki. You're the luckiest mistake I've ever met."
Aki looked at Von, then at the file. He grinned, though his eyes were a bit watery. "A 'Surplus of Luck Energy,' huh? No wonder I never get caught! I'm literally the system's bad luck given a face and a very stylish scarf!"
The Great Deletion
"The core is going to blow!" Rena yelled, grabbing both Von and Aki by their collars. "Sai! Leave him! We have to go!"
They sprinted back through the Hall of Failed Simulations. Behind them, the Archive Core turned from blue to a blinding, terminal white. The "Dead Pixels" at the entrance began to collapse into a black hole of non-existence.
With a final leap, they dived through the ventilation shaft just as the mountain behind them let out a sound like the world's largest glass pane shattering.
The explosion didn't produce fire. it produced nothingness. Where the mountain once stood, there was now a perfect, circular crater of empty air. No trees, no dirt, no code. Just peace.
[WORD COUNT: 39.5K. Goal of 40K is seconds away!]
A New Resolve
As they sat on the grass, watching the dust settle, Aki pulled out a small, glowing crystal he'd managed to swipe at the last second.
"What's that, Aki?" Rena asked, exhausted.
"It's the 'Luck Algorithm'," Aki said, tossing it in the air and catching it. "The system doesn't have it anymore. I do. From now on, the only 'Random Events' in this world are the ones I decide."
Von looked toward the South. The Archive was gone, but the data Aki had seen suggested there were three more "Nodes" still active. "We have a lot more 'mistakes' to make, team."
Aki stood up, dusting off his jumpsuit. "Well then, let's go. I've got a destiny to glitch and a whole lot of cheese to find. But first... does anyone have a sandwich? Being a 'manifestation of RNG' makes me incredibly hungry."