Chapter 3: An Unholy Alliance

Chapter 3: An Unholy Alliance

The offer hung in the corrupted air between them, a lifeline braided from static and poison. Become its user. Fight OmniCore. An unholy alliance with a digital phantom that the entire world now considered an apocalypse in progress.

Kae’s knuckles were white on the hilt of her longsword. Every instinct, honed by years of scraping by in a system designed to crush her, screamed trap. This creature, this Glitchwraith, was chaos incarnate. It had been imprisoned for a century for a reason.

Then, her phone, still clutched in her other hand, buzzed with a notification. It wasn’t a city-wide alert this time. It was a simple, automated email from her landlord.

Subject: IMMEDIATE EVICTION NOTICE

The message was curt, citing a newly implemented ‘Hazardous Association Clause’ in her rental agreement. Her status as Primary Liability for the OmniCore breach made her a risk to the property. She had two hours to vacate.

The last frayed thread of her old life had just been snipped. She had no home, no money, and a debt that could swallow a small nation. The skull icon on her BaneHunt profile wasn't just a mark of shame; it was a digital leprosy, severing her from the world.

“Fine,” Kae said, the word tasting like ash. She lowered her sword, not sheathing it. “What’s the plan, ghost in the machine?”

The Glitchwraith’s single red eye pulsed with something that might have been satisfaction. <<They feed on power. Magical energy… converted to data. Throttled. Controlled. Sold back to hunters like you for a pittance. We will take it back.>>

The static in her mind coalesced into an image: a map of the city, overlaid with shimmering lines of energy, like a glowing circulatory system. One point flared brighter than the rest.

<<OmniCore Data Nexus 03. A primary artery. It pumps raw, unfiltered Aether into the city’s network grid.>> The voice was eager, hungry. <<I am… weak. Unstable. I need a direct feed to restore my core processes. You will be my conduit.>>

“Your conduit?” Kae narrowed her eyes. “What’s in it for me? Besides helping an apocalypse-class entity get its strength back.”

<<You feel it, don't you?>> the Glitchwraith whispered in her thoughts. <<The System… it starves you. It gives you just enough power to complete its tasks, never enough to be truly powerful. I offer you a taste of the source. Power beyond their ratings, beyond their classes. The power they hoard for themselves.>>

The temptation was vile, and utterly irresistible. The memory of struggling to carve a simple ‘Sever’ rune, feeling her own meager energy drain away, was fresh in her mind. To have more? To have enough? It was the one thing she’d craved since the day the Aetherium Academy had kicked her out.

“Lead the way,” Kae said, her voice flat, betraying none of the terrifying hope blooming in her chest.

Nexus 03 wasn't a fortress like the server farm. It was worse. It was hidden in plain sight, disguised as a massive, modern art installation in the center of a bustling corporate plaza. A twisted sculpture of chrome and obsidian that spiraled fifty feet into the air, it pulsed with a faint, internal light that most citizens probably dismissed as part of the display. Beneath the artifice, Kae could feel the thrum of immense power, a sleeping giant.

<<The physical wards are tied to the plaza's network,>> the Glitchwraith communicated, its presence a faint hum at the edge of her senses. <<A frontal assault is… inefficient. But the power conduits run beneath the surface. They have a maintenance access point. Out of sight. Out of mind.>>

It guided her not to the sculpture, but to a grimy service alley behind a high-end sushi restaurant. A simple, meter-square steel plate was bolted to the ground. It was covered in corporate warning labels and a high-level locking rune.

“This will take more than ‘Unravel’,” Kae muttered, studying the glowing, complex sigil.

<<You will not unravel it. You will… interface with it.>> A schematic, a blueprint of impossible complexity, flooded her mind. It was a runic array, but unlike any she had ever seen. It was a fusion of ancient magic and raw code, designed not to break the lock, but to fool it, to make it believe she was a high-priority systems administrator. <>

Kae knelt, took a deep breath, and drew the tip of her longsword across the cold steel plate. There was a screech of metal on metal, but as she channeled her will, a cyan line of light blazed into existence in the groove.

She began to carve. It was like trying to write a novel with a pen that was running out of ink. The array was huge, intricate. Her own energy reserves, already low, dwindled with every line. Sweat beaded on her forehead, her muscles screaming in protest. The cyan lines flickered, threatening to die.

“I can’t… Not enough power,” she gasped.

<<Then TAKE it!>> the Glitchwraith roared in her mind. A phantom current of static jolted through her. <<You are a glitch! Their rules do not apply!>>

Desperate, Kae pushed past her limits. She didn’t just draw on her own energy; she reached out, feeling for the ambient magic humming in the very air of the city, the leakage from the Nexus itself. She pulled, siphoning stray motes of power, a trick she’d never dared attempt before.

And it worked. The runes flared, burning with a stable, brilliant light. As she carved the final line, completing the array, the world went silent. The locking rune on the plate glowed white-hot, then faded, accepting her credentials. With a heavy clunk, the bolts retracted.

She pried the heavy plate open. Below was a dark shaft, descending into the earth. A torrent of raw magical energy washed over her, a physical force that made her hair stand on end. It was like standing at the mouth of a hurricane.

<<Now,>> the Glitchwraith commanded. <>

Kae plunged her sword into the rushing stream of power.

The effect was instantaneous and agonizing. A tidal wave of pure, unfiltered Aether surged up her blade, into her arm, and detonated inside her body. It wasn't the gentle, regulated flow of a standard spell. It was a firehose of raw data-magic, screaming through her veins. Her vision exploded into a universe of binary code and fractured light. She felt the Glitchwraith’s consciousness merge with the torrent, drinking deeply, its form stabilizing, growing stronger within the storm.

But it was keeping its promise. A portion of that immense power was diverted, flooding her own magical pathways, overwriting her limits. It felt like her very soul was being defragmented and recompiled.

A notification popped into her vision, a system message from a place deeper than the BaneHunt app.

[ERROR: UNRECOGNIZED CLASS DETECTED] [ATTEMPTING TO QUANTIFY… FAILURE] [NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: [SYSTEM SHOCK]]

Before she could process what that meant, the city answered.

The vibrant neon glow of the plaza outside the alley flickered. The hum of the surrounding buildings faltered. One by one, the lights across the skyline began to dim and die, not just the electric ones, but the enchanted lanterns, the glowing advertisements, the personal ward-fields. A wave of magical darkness spread out from their location, a brownout that plunged a ten-block radius into an unnatural twilight.

They had done more than siphon power. They had broken the grid.

Kae ripped her sword free, collapsing against the wall, panting, every nerve ending singing with a terrifying new energy. Her phone buzzed violently, insistently, in her pocket. Another priority alert. Shaking, she pulled it out.

The BaneHunt app loaded, displaying the new bounty. It was anonymous, posted with the highest priority OmniCore could muster. But the picture wasn’t of a glitching, monstrous entity.

It was her face, taken from her old Academy ID, set beside the stark, red