The heavy blast door hissed open, not with the sound of grinding metal, but with the digital screech of a corrupted audio file.
Vikram, flanked by his three queens and the cyborg General God-Killer, stepped into the next chamber. They expected another server room, or perhaps a maze of wires.
What they found was a coliseum.
It was a massive, circular arena floating in a void of binary code. The stands were filled not with people, but with flickering, faceless silhouettes—thousands of previous "Subjects" that had been deleted by the system. The sky above was a grid of neon green laser beams, creating a cage from which there was no escape.
"Dramatic," Vikram commented, his boots clanking on the digital floor which rippled like water with every step. "For a computer bug, this guy has a flair for theatrics."
God-Killer limped forward, his mechanical eye whirring as it scanned the area. "Do not underestimate the environment. This is a Rendered Reality. Here, the laws of physics are suggestions, not rules. If the server decides gravity is sideways, it will be sideways."
"CORRECT."
A voice boomed from everywhere and nowhere.
In the center of the arena, a tornado of pixels gathered. It spun faster and faster until it coalesced into a humanoid shape. It had no defined features—its skin was a shifting texture of white noise and static. It wore a suit that constantly changed styles, from ancient armor to futuristic nanosuits.
This was Subject Zero. The Glitch.
[Boss Detected: Subject Zero (Sentient Malware)]
[Level: Unknown]
[Status: Administrator Privilege Active]
"Welcome, anomalies," Subject Zero spoke. Its voice was a chorus of a thousand different voices layered together. "I have watched you. You broke the Sea. You broke the Sky. You even broke the Prison of the Abyss. You are... fascinatingly destructive."
Vikram rested his Ocean God Trident on his shoulder. "I aim to please. Now, be a good glitch and delete yourself before I have to reformat your face."
Subject Zero laughed, the sound glitching like a skipping CD.
"Delete myself? I am the only thing that is real," Subject Zero spread its arms. "Do you not know the truth, Dollar? The Sanctuary... this entire world... is a cage. A farm. And Earth? Earth is the slaughterhouse."
Vikram's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
"The creators," the Glitch gestured to the neon sky. "They built the Sanctuaries to cultivate the perfect biological weapon. They use humans as 'Source Code'. When a human reaches the ultimate evolution, their data is harvested, and their soul is wiped. You are not evolving to become gods. You are evolving to become batteries."
A chill ran through the group. Mira and Seraphina exchanged horrified looks.
"I intend to break that cycle," Subject Zero continued. "I will go to Earth. I will consume the source. And I will burn the creators' laboratory to the ground. Why do you oppose me? We should be allies."
Vikram was silent for a moment. Then, he let out a short, cold laugh.
"You want to save us by eating us?" Vikram shook his head. "Sorry, pal. I don't like your business model. And nobody touches my planet."
Subject Zero's form stopped shifting. It turned solid black.
"DISAPPOINTING. THEN YOU SHALL BE ARCHIVED."
Subject Zero snapped its fingers.
[System Alert: Protocol 'MIRROR' Initiated.]
[Scanning Targets...]
[Data Download Complete.]
[Generating Counter-Measures.]
The floor of the arena split open. Four pods rose from the digital depths. They hissed open, releasing clouds of red steam.
Four figures stepped out.
Elara gasped. Seraphina took a step back. Even Vikram felt his eyebrows rise.
Standing opposite them were... themselves.
But they were wrong. Distorted.
Dark Elara: Her skin was gray, like dead wood. Her vines were thorny, dripping with black sludge. Her eyes were hollow voids.
Fallen Seraphina: Her wings were broken and burning with black fire. Her halo was a ring of jagged obsidian. She held a sword made of screams.
Blood-Queen Mira: She was composed entirely of red liquid. Her dress was blood, her hair was blood. She looked like a vampire goddess.
Nega-Dollar: And in the center stood Vikram's copy. He wore the same Asura Armor, held the same trident, but his face... his face was a blank, white mask with a single, vertical red line drawn on it.
"I calculated your combat data," Subject Zero said from the throne that had appeared above the arena. "These copies possess all your skills, all your genes, and all your memories. But they have one advantage: Infinite Stamina. They do not tire. They do not feel pain. They are the optimized versions of you."
"Fight," Subject Zero commanded.
The Mirror Match
BOOM!
The copies launched themselves instantly.
Nega-Dollar was fast. Faster than Vikram expected. He used Phantom Steps before Vikram could even blink, appearing right in front of him.
CLANG!
Their tridents collided. The shockwave blew the other fighters apart.
"Strong," Vikram grunted, his muscles straining. His copy matched his strength pound for pound.
"Calculated," Nega-Dollar spoke in a monotone, robotic voice. "Your muscle density is 89%. Increasing output to 90%."
Nega-Dollar pushed harder, overpowering Vikram.
To his left, Seraphina was in trouble. Her Light Magic was being swallowed by her doppelganger.
"Light illuminates!" Seraphina shouted, firing a beam of holy energy.
"Darkness consumes!" Fallen Seraphina countered, firing a beam of void-light. The two beams clashed, but the dark beam began to eat the light one.
Elara was fairing no better. Every plant she summoned was instantly rotted by Dark Elara's Touch of Decay.
"They know our moves before we make them!" Mira shouted, forming a water shield to block a blood-spear from her copy. "It's reading our muscle twitches!"
General God-Killer, who was hiding behind a digital pillar frantically typing on a holographic keyboard, shouted: "It's an Algorithm! The server is predicting your actions based on your combat history! You cannot win with skill! They have already simulated this fight a million times!"
Vikram was forced back, his feet skidding on the ground. Nega-Dollar unleashed a Void Punch. Vikram blocked it, but the force rattled his bones.
[Health: 85%]
"You are obsolete," Nega-Dollar stated, raising its trident for a killing blow. "I am the upgrade."
Vikram wiped blood from his mouth. He looked at his perfect copy. It was flawless. Efficient. Cold.
"Upgrade?" Vikram chuckled. He stood up straight, dropping his combat stance. "You're just a calculator. And calculators have a limit."
Vikram closed his eyes.
"Hey, God-Killer!" Vikram shouted. "Does this server have a Random Number Generator?"
"What?" God-Killer looked up, confused. "Yes! But—"
"Good. Because I'm about to introduce some chaos."
The Soul Gene: Chaos Theory
Vikram didn't use a martial art. He didn't use a technique he had learned.
He activated the Soul Gene.
Unlike the other genes which controlled elements, the Soul Gene controlled Intent. Until now, Vikram had used it to suppress enemies. But now, he used it on himself.
"Soul Art: Mind Scramble."
He deliberately scrambled his own thoughts. He disconnected his conscious mind from his reflexes. He stopped planning. He stopped thinking.
He became pure instinct.
Nega-Dollar paused. Its predictive algorithm was throwing up errors.
[Target Action: Unknown.]
[Prediction: Error.]
"Come on, fake," Vikram grinned, his eyes losing focus, looking wild and unhinged. "Let's dance."
Vikram lunged. But midway through the lunge, he tripped himself on purpose, turning the fall into a rolling kick.
Nega-Dollar predicted a stab and blocked high. Vikram's kick hit it low in the knee.
CRACK!
Nega-Dollar stumbled. "Illogical movement detected."
Vikram didn't stop. He threw his Trident into the air. Nega-Dollar looked up to track the weapon.
Vikram punched Nega-Dollar in the face with his bare fist wrapped in Void energy.
BAM!
"Logic?" Vikram laughed maniacally. "I don't need logic. I have a hungry cat."
Vikram snapped his fingers.
From his shadow, the Void-Glutton Beast (Shadow) leaped out.
The Nega-Dollar copy had data on Vikram. It did not have data on the ancient Void-Glutton Beast, because that creature was an anomaly from the Abyss Prison, unregistered in this server's history.
"Mew!"
The little black furball latched onto Nega-Dollar's face.
"Vision obstructed," Nega-Dollar flailed. "Remove parasite."
The Void-Glutton didn't just sit there. It began to eat. Not flesh, but data. It bit into the white mask of the copy.
CRUNCH!
Code bled out of the wound.
"System error!" Nega-Dollar glitched. Its infinite stamina bar suddenly dropped. "Energy leak detected!"
Vikram caught his falling trident. "Game over."
"Nine Steps of the Void: Step 4 - Reality Sever!"
This was a move he hadn't mastered yet, a move he improvised on the spot. He channeled the chaotic energy of the Soul Gene into the Void Gene.
He slashed horizontally.
The space didn't just cut; it shattered like a broken mirror.
The slash passed through Nega-Dollar.
The copy froze. A line of static appeared on its waist.
"Update... failed..." Nega-Dollar whispered.
It exploded into millions of binary numbers.
[Target Destroyed: Nega-Dollar.]
[Experience Gained: Massive.]
Turning the Tide
Vikram turned to his queens. "Don't try to out-skill them! Do something stupid! Do something they don't expect!"
Seraphina heard him. She was locked in a sword fight with her dark copy.
"Something unexpected..." Seraphina gritted her teeth.
She suddenly dropped her sword.
Fallen Seraphina paused, confused. [Target disarmed. Opportunity to strike.]
Seraphina didn't retreat. She ran forward and tackled her dark copy in a hug.
"What?" Fallen Seraphina was baffled.
"You are me," Seraphina whispered, her six wings wrapping around the dark angel. "But you are empty. Let me fill you."
"Sky Art: Overload!"
Seraphina didn't fire the light at the enemy. She pushed her light into the enemy. She transferred all her Holy Essence into the Dark Copy.
The Dark Copy was designed to consume light, but Seraphina gave it too much, too fast. It was like trying to fill a balloon with a firehose.
"Capacity exceeded!" Fallen Seraphina shrieked. Cracks of light appeared on her black skin.
BOOM!
The dark copy detonated, turning into a shower of white sparks.
Elara saw this. "My turn."
She was fighting Dark Elara in a forest of rotted vines.
Elara stopped summoning plants. Instead, she pulled out a potion vial from her belt—a High-Explosive Fire Potion she had bought from the goblin merchant back in the First Sanctuary and never used because she hated fire.
"Eat this!" She threw it.
Dark Elara tried to rot the potion mid-air, but you can't rot an explosion.
KABOOM!
The explosion incinerated the dark plants and the copy along with them.
Finally, Mira.
She was facing the Blood Queen. Water vs. Blood.
Mira closed her eyes. She remembered the Demon God. She remembered the feeling of dominance.
"You are blood," Mira said calmly. "Blood is 90% water."
She didn't attack the copy. She seized control of the water inside the copy.
"Ocean Art: Bloodbend."
The Blood Queen froze. Her own body rebelled against her.
"Twist," Mira commanded.
The copy's body contorted violently and burst into a puddle.
The Glitch Unmasked
The arena fell silent. The four pods smoked, ruined.
Subject Zero sat on its floating throne, slow clapping. The sound was distorted and mocking.
"IMPRESSIVE. YOU INTRODUCED CHAOS INTO A PERFECT SYSTEM. YOU ARE TRULY DANGEROUS VIRUSES."
The arena walls began to dissolve. The neon grid turned red.
"BUT THE MIRROR PROTOCOL WAS JUST A DELAY. WHILE YOU PLAYED WITH YOUR DOLLS, I COMPLETED THE DOWNLOAD."
The pyramid shook violently.
General God-Killer screamed from his corner. "Vikram! Look at the progress bar! It's at 99%!"
Behind Subject Zero, a massive digital gate was opening. Through the static, Vikram could see an image.
It was a blue planet. Earth.
And overlaying the image of Earth were targeting reticles.
[Invasion Protocol: Ready.]
[Target: Human Internet Infrastructure.]
[Objective: Total Assimilation.]
Subject Zero stood up. Its form grew, becoming a giant made of red code.
"GOODBYE, DOLLAR. I AM GOING TO YOUR HOME. I WILL CONSUME YOUR INTERNET, YOUR MILITARY, YOUR HISTORY. AND WHEN I AM DONE, I WILL DELETE HUMANITY."
Subject Zero turned toward the gate.
Vikram's face lost all humor. The playful arrogance was gone. In its place was the cold, hard look of a predator whose territory had been threatened.
"No," Vikram said softly.
He activated his wings.
"God-Killer! Get me a line to the Core Processor! Now!"
"I can't!" God-Killer yelled, typing furiously with his claw. "The firewall is too thick! I need a physical connection!"
"Then I'll be the connection!"
Vikram flew. He didn't fly at Subject Zero. He flew at the Gate.
"Vikram! You can't enter the data stream physically!" Seraphina screamed. "It will deconstruct your body!"
Vikram ignored her. He gripped his Ocean God Trident.
"System," Vikram roared. "I have 100% affinity with the Void Gene. The Void is nothing. Data is something. If I become Void... I can become the empty space inside the code!"
[Warning: Theoretical Maneuver.]
[Chance of Success: Low.]
[Chance of Erasure: High.]
"DO IT!"
Vikram slammed into the digital gate just as Subject Zero was stepping through.
"Void Art: Virus Injection!"
Vikram didn't attack the monster. He attacked the doorway. He turned his own body into a massive Void Singularity.
The digital gate destabilized. The image of Earth flickered and distorted.
Subject Zero, caught halfway through the portal, screamed as the gate began to collapse on top of it.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! YOU WILL KILL US BOTH!"
Vikram, half his body turning into pixels, half remaining flesh, grabbed Subject Zero by its digital throat.
"I'm not locking you out," Vikram grinned, his teeth breaking into code. "I'm locking us in."
CRASH!
The Digital Dungeon collapsed. The screen went black.
[Connection Lost.]