100 years left: The Unseen Executioner

The alarms didn't sound when he entered Terminal-9.

They were never meant to.

Buried beneath the combat simulators and drone dispatch yards, Terminal-9 existed outside standard surveillance—locked behind physical clearance gates and biometric locks no longer listed in official protocols. It was a ghost hub, once used for experimental training during the early war years. Now it was forgotten. Almost.

Almost.

[New Objective Available.]

> System Path Synchronization Required.

Shadow Step (60%)

Disruption Blink (40%)

Adaptive Kill Memory (Active)

WARNING: External trace attempt detected.

Executing system encryption hard-shell…

He paused mid-step. The air changed. Not with heat, not with pressure—something deeper. A sense of being watched that clawed into the bones, the feeling of breathing air already claimed by someone else.

He lowered himself behind a support beam. Even now, shadows bent toward him.

The Veil whispered against the edge of visibility.

> "Trace locked. Manual extraction advised."

He moved.

Not a sound—his steps feathered, his figure melting through narrow gaps in equipment racks and disused mech frames. This wasn't just infiltration anymore. This was reconnaissance against a predator.

Terminal-9 was awake.

—

In the core chamber, light panels hummed a dull green. No drones. No personnel. But data was moving—flowing in patterns far too clean for an abandoned site.

[Target: Unknown – Class Unranked]

> Suspicion Level: Elevated

Trace Type: Live Packet Deconstruction

Status: Monitoring High-Level Kill Events

Current Location: Undefined

Objective: Intercept before full system lockout

A soft click echoed. Mechanical. Sharp.

The MC slid backward into cover just as something dropped from the ceiling—not a drone, not a sentry.

A person.

Except it wasn't. Not quite.

It moved like something made to replicate a person. A decoy dressed in civilian fatigues, but its gait was precise. No variance. The kind of calibration only artificial muscle memory could hold.

The system responded.

[Alert: Unauthorized Entity – Neural Spoof Detected]

> Activate: Phantom Engagement Protocol

Shadow Step (60%) -> Cloak Inversion (Enabled)

New Perk: Ghost in the Vein

He closed the gap instantly.

Shadow wrapped around him like a second skin. The Veil inverted—making not just him vanish, but making sound itself die in his path.

One strike—low, from the side, blade sweeping across what should've been ribs.

But it missed.

The entity pivoted faster than predicted. Its spine cracked unnaturally as it twisted, ducking low and retaliating with an electrified blade from the wrist.

Pain flashed.

The MC hissed, his stealth field breaking momentarily as the charge surged across his jacket. His HUD flashed a new warning.

[System Lag Detected – Shadow Step Delay: 1.3s]

[Skill Suppression Active – Passive Recovery Limited]

> Source: Ambient Disruptor Field

He blinked back. Literally. The system forced a short-range spatial dodge, draining his energy reserves as he phased through the wall and emerged in the next corridor, panting, vision narrowing.

This wasn't a random sentry.

Someone had installed hunters here.

—

> "They left a trap for you," a voice whispered—not aloud, but through the system's passive memory sync.

"Not to stop you. To learn you."

The data from Garel's final memory log synced with a delay, and fragment four appeared:

> Fragment 4: "They keep the bodies. They study the death patterns. They're looking for someone who never existed on paper."

He gritted his teeth. His breathing evened out.

[Silent Fang – Kill Count: 6]

[New Path Available: System Ghost – Tier 1 Access Unlocked]

> Effect: You can now redirect trace pings and echo false locations across compromised sectors.

Bonus: Path Fragment Unlock – Neural Burnout Edge (2%)

But that wasn't enough.

He needed to find the central relay before Terminal-9 locked down his activity permanently.

And he only had minutes.

—

Moving fast, he activated Disruption Blink—not to escape, but to fragment his own trace. Every few meters, his position rewound half a step in a blur, causing the sensor systems to stutter.

It worked—barely. Doors failed to seal. Lights flickered. The hunter entity pursued, but it now slashed at echoes.

In the far end of the terminal, the walls parted. A chamber lined with holographic memory threads—data logs that shimmered like silk between suspended frames. In the center was a command chair, unoccupied… but still warm.

Someone had been here.

And the system confirmed it.

[Memory Node Detected – Level: Administrative Override]

> Sync Option: Dangerous – May trigger full relay lockdown

Confirm Access?

He hesitated only for a second.

> Yes.

—

The moment he connected, the world shifted.

The walls peeled away—not physically, but in layers of augmented overlays. And in their place: a thousand names. Kill logs. Event flags. Target studies. Surveillance clips.

His own movements.

They'd been watching him since kill number two.

No alarms. No records. But Terminal-9 had built a profile. An invisible fingerprint of execution. They hadn't stopped him.

Because they were studying him.

He scanned through the feeds, hands flying across phantom interfaces. One command terminal still accepted input. He dumped a full corruption protocol through it—looping the kill events and reassigning identifiers.

And that's when he saw it.

At the very bottom of the kill list:

> "Subject 9–2461 – Primary Constructive Variable.

Project Directive: Weaponized Anomaly Isolation.

Prepared for Phase Two Activation."

It wasn't just surveillance.

They had built him.

—

> [New System Flag Triggered.]

Origin Status: Compromised

Shadow Step Progress Locked

System Mutation Event Pending...

Time Remaining: 6 hours 42 minutes

He staggered back from the terminal, heart pounding.

Built?

By who?

Why?

But there was no time to ask.

Behind him, the air split. The hunter had followed.

It didn't speak. Its face was gone—erased into a blank, smooth surface now lit with the flicker of active code. It had adapted. Now it moved faster. Too fast.

He barely raised his arm before it drove a blade into his side.

[Warning: Wound Penetrated Vital Layer. Skill Usage Rate Dropped by 50%]

The system was slipping.

This wasn't a kill. This was containment.

His eyes flared.

"No," he said, voice low. "You don't get to rewrite me."

And then he exploded.

Not with fire—but with data.

He pushed a full system burn through his core. Energy flooded outward, disrupting every signal field, every suppressor node, every trace thread they had placed in the terminal.

Lights shattered. Metal warped. The entity seized up as its code desynced mid-execution.

He lunged forward, jammed a neural disruptor into its chest, and let it burn.

The thing collapsed—twitching, still half-aware.

Before it could reboot, he whispered, "Tell them I'm not theirs."

And crushed the core.

—

[Target Eliminated: Class-0 Hunter]

> System Damage: 37%

Core Power Suppressed for 6 Hours

Recovery Path: Adaptive Sync Required

New Title: Ghost Subject

—

He limped out of Terminal-9 before backup arrived.

They'd built him.

But they'd also miscalculated.

He wasn't just a variable now.

He was a glitch in their design.

And he was no longer alone.

[Next Path Fragment Loading...]