The elevator ride was a claustrophobic ascent into the sky. The hum of the magnetic rails vibrated through the floor, a constant, nervous frequency that matched the beating of their hearts.
The heat of the factory floor evaporated from their skin. A cold, razor-sharp focus locked their muscles into place. Lack checked his internal clock. They were running out of time.
"We're almost at the top," Torin whispered, clutching his bow until his knuckles turned white. "Who lives in a factory penthouse?"
"Someone who likes to watch things die," Volt muttered, sparks dancing nervously between his fingers.
With a soft, polite chime that aggressively contradicted the hostile architecture, the elevator doors slid open.
A nauseating atmospheric wall of stale ozone and rotting velvet breached the elevator—the absolute reality of a funeral home built inside a server room.
The penthouse was a luxurious, old-world office. Thick crimson carpets covered the floor, and heavy mahogany desks sat beneath a wall of windows that overlooked the smog-choked factory below. But the luxury was diseased. Thick black cables snaked through the velvet like parasitic worms. The mahogany was bolted with cooling vents that hissed rhythmically.
And in the centre, fused into a chair that was itself fused into the building’s architecture, sat the Admin.
He—or it—was a nightmare of preservation. The left side of his face was human, pale and wrinkled, sagging with the weight of two hundred years. The right side was a chrome faceplate, dominated by a glowing red optic that whirred as it focused.
"Guests," the Admin rasped. His voice was a hard drive spinning up—scratchy, mechanical, and cold. "You are not authorised. Ticket number?"
[System Identification: The Admin]
- Species: Human (Cyborg / First Arrival Survivor)
- Age: 260 Years (Sustained by Machinery)
- Status: Corrupted / Integrated
"We don't have a ticket," Lack said, stepping out of the elevator, his boots sinking into the plush carpet. "We're here to cancel the subscription."
The Admin smiled with his human half, the skin stretching uncomfortably. "Cancellation requires a signature. In blood."
He tapped a key on his desk with a skeletal, metallic finger.
CLICK.
The room shifted. The ceiling panels retracted, dropping automated turrets. The floor tiles slid open to reveal grids of searing lasers.
"System Defence: Active," the Admin droned. "Purge Protocol initiated."
"Cover!" Lack shouted.
The team scattered as the air filled with the whine of plasma fire. Borg roared, flipping a heavy oak table onto its side to use as a barricade. Wood splinters and burning varnish showered them as the bullets chewed through the furniture.
Terra slammed her palms on the carpet. "Root Bind!" Vines erupted from the floor, tangling the laser grids, but the heat was too intense; the plants withered and burned in seconds.
"I can't get to him!" Volt yelled, dodging a bolt of blue plasma. "He's behind a Force Wall!"
A shimmering, translucent blue barrier surrounded the Admin's desk. He sat there calmly amidst the chaos, typing commands that made the room try to kill them.
"He's controlling the building," Ratchet growled, his beard sparking with static. "He is the building. I need to jack in!"
"Can you hack him?" Lack asked, deflecting a laser bolt with a vibrating backhand.
"Hack him?" Ratchet grinned maniacally, his goggles reflecting the chaos. "I'm going to fry him. But I need to get close to that main console!"
"We'll clear a path," Lack ordered. "Formation Delta! Escort the Engineer!"
The Elites and the Misfits moved as a single organism.
Rian swept his arm forward, freezing a path across the burning carpet. "Slide!"
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Serra grabbed Ratchet by the collar and hurled him onto the ice. He slid forward at high speed, a bullet made of dwarf and tools. Torin fired wind-arrows to deflect the turret fire, while Borg acted as a meat-shield, laughing as he caught bullets in his teeth and spat them back at the ceiling.
Ratchet slammed into the blue energy field. He raised his massive wrench and struck it.
CLANG.
The barrier didn't budge. It hummed aggressively, shocking Ratchet’s arm.
"It's a Level-5 Firewall!" Ratchet shouted over the noise of the turrets. "I can't break it with tools! It’s pure energy!"
The Admin laughed—the physical, tearing grind of heavy gears. "Your hardware is obsolete, Dwarf. I have processing power you cannot imagine."
Ratchet’s goggles flashed. His gaze locked onto Lack with deadly intent.
"Captain," Ratchet yelled, his voice deadly serious. "I'm going to overclock. Cover me for three minutes."
"Three minutes?" Lack asked, kicking a turret off its mount.
"That's all I got," Ratchet spat. "After that, my brain melts."
Ratchet closed his eyes. The air around him shifted into a thick, physical cloud of ozone and burning copper.
[Possession Sequence Initiated]
- Vessel: Ratchet
- Patron: God of Sparks (High Executor Tier)
- God Bond: 25%
- Possession Limit: 3 Minutes
"Possession: The Spark Arm."
CRACK-BOOM.
A bolt of blinding white lightning struck the tower from the outside, blasting through the ceiling and hitting the Dwarf. When the light faded, Ratchet’s right arm was gone. In its place was a limb made of pure, unstable plasma. It crackled with the energy of a dying star, hissing as it ionised the air.
"Let's fix this," Ratchet’s voice echoed, layered with the booming laughter of a God.
[Spirit Mental: 1000/1000]
Ratchet didn't hit the barrier. He grabbed it.
His plasma fingers sank into the forcefield. He wasn't breaking the wall; he was rewiring it.
"God Ability: Circuit Overload!" [Cost: 300 Spirit]
ZZZRRRT.
The blue barrier turned an angry, volatile red. The energy flow reversed, feeding back into the Admin’s console.
The Admin screamed as his keyboard exploded in a shower of sparks.
"Error! Voltage Critical!" The Admin shrieked, his human eye wide with panic. "Rerouting power to internal countermeasures!"
The Admin’s mechanical arm transformed. The metal plates shifted and locked, forming a rotating gatling laser. He aimed point-blank at Ratchet.
"Ratchet, look out!" Lack shouted.
Ratchet didn't move. He was locked in the hack, his mind fused with the machine code.
"God Ability: Hyper-Imagination!" [Cost: 300 Spirit]
Ratchet didn't dodge. He built.
With his free hand, he grabbed the smoking scraps of the exploded desk. In 0.5 seconds, his hands moved in a blur, welding the debris together in mid-air using the heat from his spark-finger.
He constructed a Reflective Mirror Shield.
The laser fired. The beam hit the makeshift shield—polished to a mirror sheen instantly—and bounced back.
ZAP.
The reflected beam sliced clean through the Admin’s gatling arm.
"Math," Ratchet scoffed, smoke rising from his beard. "It always wins."
[Spirit Mental: 400/1000] [Time Remaining: 1 Minute]
"Finish it!" Lack yelled.
Ratchet slammed his plasma hand directly into the Admin’s exposed chest interface.
"Original Skill: System Purge."
He didn't use a God skill. He used his own engineering genius, amplified by the God's raw power. He injected a localised EMP virus directly into the Admin's heart.
The Admin went rigid. His red optic flickered, strobing wildly.
"System... Failure..." the Admin whispered, his voice pitching down. "Project... Genesis... cannot be... stopped..."
BOOM.
The Admin’s mechanical half detonated. His human half slumped over the ruined desk, dead. The turrets powered down, drooping like wilted flowers. The laser grids vanished.
Ratchet fell to his knees. The plasma arm dissipated, leaving his normal (but smoking) arm hanging limply at his side. He panted, sweat pouring down his soot-stained face.
"Three minutes..." Ratchet wheezed. "On the dot. I need... a sandwich."
Lack holstered his weapons and rushed to the smoking console. The screen was flickering, but the Admin Rights were unlocked.
[User: Admin_01 (Terminated)] [Access: Granted]
"Good work, Ratchet," Lack said. He started typing furiously. "Disabling factory production lines... Venting the nutrient tanks... Locking the Vault."
"Wait," Volt pointed at a file flashing on the screen. "Look at the Funding Log."
Lack opened the file. [Project Genesis: Financial Backers]
The logical assumption demanded the names of Devil Worshippers. The screen should have displayed the Dreallytear.
Instead, there was one name at the top of the list. A name authorised to transfer billions of credits from the God Faction's treasury.
[Sponsor: High Councilman Aamon] [Title: The Arbiter of Dawn (Divine Tier Vessel)]
The room went silent. The wind howling through the hole in the ceiling injected an absolute, physical chill into the space.
"Aamon?" Terra gasped. "He's one of the Seven High Councillors. He runs the University Board. He... he funded this?"
"He's building a God," Lack whispered, reading the attached notes. "'Project Goal: Create a controllable deity to end the war. The Gods are too passive. We need a weapon.'"
Oh, the irony, the Light Devil laughed darkly in Lack's mind. The Gods are so desperate to win, they're using Devil tech to build a better God. Hypocrites.
"We have the proof," Lack said, pulling the data-drive from the terminal. "We download this, and we bring down the Council."
Suddenly, the whole tower shook.
A deep, resonant roar echoed from the basement—miles below them. It wasn't just a sound; it was a vibration that rattled their teeth.
[Alert: Subject Zero Awakening Initiated] [Fail-Safe Triggered by Admin Death]
"We didn't stop it." Lack stared at the monitors. The truth locked into place. The thirty-foot giant in the basement was moving.
Its eyes—one gold, one violet—snapped open.
"We just woke it up."
? ? ?
[System Record: Character Progression]
- Intel: High Councilman Aamon is the traitor.
- Threat: Subject Zero (Artificial Hybrid) is active.
- Ratchet Status: Spirit Drained (Fatigued).