Chapter 338: The Last Fragment
Rubedo observed the primary monitor projecting the secured medical ward in Gildreath. Julia slept on the stone bed with the newborn resting against her side. The child stared upward with eyes mirroring the orbital void and batted tiny fingers at the empty space above its face.
Violet sparks danced across its knuckles.
Rubedo tapped the obsidian console to open a communication channel.
"Kronos." Rubedo projected his voice through the neural tether. "Enter the chamber. Remove the child and secure it in the adjacent hall. The extraction process begins immediately."
Down in the palace, the reinforced oak doors swung open. Kronos stepped onto the polished tiles and approached the mattress. Julia remained completely still, her breathing shallow from the exhausting ordeal of childbirth.
Kronos reached down and scooped the child into his arms. The newborn babbled quietly and reached for the plated armor. Kronos turned his back on the sleeping woman and walked out of the room, letting the doors click shut behind him.
Rubedo watched the clearance confirm on his tactical grid. He looked down at Glitch waiting near his boots.
"Go finish the collection." Rubedo engaged the summoning protocol to rip a spatial tear directly above the medical bed.
Glitch leaped off the sanctuary floor and dove into the swirling portal.
He materialized inside the secured chamber to land squarely on the crumpled linens next to Julia. Padding over the blankets, it stopped inches from her sternum and opened its small jaws to initiate the harvest.
A violent stream of blinding white light tore out from Julia’s flesh. The sudden biological trauma violently jolted her awake.
She arched her spine off the mattress and screamed as the extraction ripped the final tether of stolen magic from her core. She clawed frantically at the bedsheets while the radiant energy funneled straight into Glitch’s mouth.
The brilliant illumination faded entirely into the shadows of the room. Julia collapsed onto the pillows and gasped for breath. Her skin turned a sickly gray. She patted the empty space beside her to find the mattress bare. Curling into a ball, she wept openly against the stained fabric.
Glitch swallowed the condensed magic and let out a satisfied purr. He leaped upward into the open rift and vanished from the mortal plane.
Glitch dropped back into the Sanctuary and opened its jaws. A blinding white streak of light shot directly into Rubedo’s chest. The cosmic core inside his ribs expanded rapidly to accommodate the incoming energy. The final fractured piece of his human soul slid perfectly into place.
The final metaphysical crack inside his cosmic core snapped shut. The fractured pieces of his humanity fused together into absolute perfection.
Golden text cascaded across his vision to wipe away the standard tactical overlays.
[ SOUL INTEGRATION COMPLETE. FRAGMENTS RECLAIMED: 14 / 14 ]
[ HOST SYSTEM AUTHORITY MAXIMIZED. ]
[ MORTAL LIMITATIONS PERMANENTLY DELETED. ]
[ NEW SYSTEM PATH UNLOCKED: ABSOLUTE SPATIAL AUTHORITY. ]
[ DESCRIPTION: HOST CAN MANIPULATE GEOMETRIC SPACE, GENERATE DIMENSIONAL PORTALS, AND BYPASS PHYSICAL DISTANCES WITHIN THE SOVEREIGN TERRITORY. ]
Rubedo flexed his fingers over the console. Bursts of golden, pink, green, and blue energy cascaded across his knuckles before merging perfectly into his signature violet flame.
The broken Earthling named Red completely vanished from the server architecture. The Sovereign of the Spiral stood complete.
He focused his intent on the empty space near the center of the room.
A violent tear in reality ripped open to reveal the swirling vortex of an active portal. He willed the rift closed just as easily.
He dismissed the notification screens and stared at the live feed of Julia weeping alone in the dark chamber. The final piece of the stolen power rested safely within his chest. The board was completely cleared of liabilities.
Suddenly, the primary monitor turned a blaring, hostile crimson. The standard systemic interface shattered into strings of chaotic code. A new alert overrode the orbital sanctuary displays entirely.
[ CRITICAL LOGIC ERROR DETECTED. ]
[ SCANNING ENTITY: RUBEDO. ]
[ ORIGIN: PREMIUM SUMMONING EVENT #4492. DESIGNATION: BIOLOGICAL BATTERY. ]
[ ERROR: NON-PLAYER ASSET POSSESSES RANK 19 PRIMORDIAL WARDEN AUTHORITY. ]
[ CLASSIFICATION: MALICIOUS VIRUS. ]
[ INITIATING MACRO-SERVER QUARANTINE PROTOCOL. ]
Rubedo stared at the warning screens. The game engine finally registered the paradox of a disposable fuel source actively rewriting premium content. The system categorized him as unauthorized foreign code.
Down on the physical map, the sky above the Seventeenth Continent turned blinding white. A colossal grid of golden light crashed down from the upper atmosphere. The energy barrier slammed into the surrounding ocean and completely encased the entire landmass in a geometric dome.
The light cast stark, rigid shadows across the Bastion and the City of Spiral.
Gorak looked up at the sky from the courtyard. The golden grid locked the continent down completely.
Spatial rifts tore open across the golden barrier. Thousands of faceless humanoid figures dropped from the rifts. They possessed no armor or weapons. Their smooth bodies consisted entirely of white static and shifting system code.
[ DEPLOYING SYSTEM ENFORCERS. ]
[ DIRECTIVE: DELETE INFECTED DATA. ]
The enforcers plummeted toward the sprawling cities below. They ignored the Vanguard infantry and marched forward to erase the infrastructure directly. Where their static-covered feet touched the cobblestones, the ground vanished into pixels.
Rubedo stepped away from the throne. He activated his absolute spatial authority and projected his voice across the Vanguard network.
"I don’t remember opening my borders to immigrants or tourism," he muttered to himself.
Rubedo reached toward the glowing holographic map on his console. He grasped the digital representation of the golden quarantine grid and closed his fist.
High above the continent, the impenetrable golden light violently shattered. The geometric dome fractured into millions of glowing shards, dissolving into harmless digital rain before it could touch the ground.
Rubedo targeted the descending system enforcers next. He manipulated the spatial coordinates directly from the terminal. He isolated the exact physical space occupying the faceless entities and swapped it with the interior of the Ash-Forge Crucible in the City of Spiral.
The sky instantly cleared. The thousands of white-static enforcers materialized inside the churning, superheated bio-furnaces.
The Ash-Forge roared with alchemical fire. The system code burned alongside the industrial waste. The factory ground the enforcers into base, usable data to convert the anti-cheat mechanism into pure capital.
[ SALVAGE POINTS ACQUIRED. ]
Rubedo sat back on his throne and brushed a speck of dust from his lapel.