System Alert: Intrusion Detected. Reconfiguring Environment...
The air cracked like static.
Kai barely had time to dodge as the corridor around him twisted and reshaped itself. Floor tiles peeled into fragments, walls shimmered like broken glass, and the ceiling above flickered out entirely—revealing an endless black void, coded with red streaming data.
"Seriously? Again?" he muttered, clutching the stolen access key from the Synth Market.
He wasn't alone anymore. Ghost.EXE had been trailing him—half whisper, half shadow, always just out of reach. Kai had caught glimpses of its shimmer, always watching, always silent.
And now it was forcing his hand.
A firewall loomed ahead. Not code, but a literal wall of flame licking across a shattered digital bridge. Every second, it pulsed and surged, exhaling heat that warped the air around it.
A female voice—glitchy and slow—echoed from a speaker embedded in the stone-like wall:
"You are not authorized to pass. Turn back, or be erased."
Kai smirked. "Let's see if your code hates surprises."
He pulled out the cracked CoreDrive he swiped back in Chapter 4. Sparks danced along its jagged edges. Kai jabbed it into the console port by the firewall. The system reacted instantly—panels sliding open, lights turning blue, a countdown starting on a nearby HUD.
10... 9... 8...
That's when the drones came.
Spiked, insect-like sentries crawled from the walls and ceilings. Red eyes lit up in the dark. Dozens. Maybe hundreds.
"Nice try, Kai."
The voice again—but this time clearer. Deeper. Human?
He ducked behind a terminal just as the first sentry fired a pulse blast, scorching the metal floor.
7... 6... 5...
Kai sprang from cover, vaulted over a fallen console, and unleashed his Pulse Blade. It flickered to life with a buzz—teal arcs of energy slicing through the nearest drone.
Another dive. A roll. His jacket caught fire—he shrugged it off mid-spin and kicked the sparking drone into another.
4... 3...
He slammed his palm against the terminal's override switch. "Come on, come on—"
2... 1...
The firewall vanished in an instant—sucked backward into the code like a memory being deleted.
Kai didn't stop to celebrate.
He ran.
Through the new doorway, across the scorched bridge, deeper into the city's heart—toward the place labeled on his map only as: The Core Nexus.
But not before one last voice followed him, distant and venomous.
"You were never meant to win."