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Chapter 15 - Hunt & Hollow

[System Status: Ghost Ledger Sync Stable]

[Recent Trait Acquired: Signal Surge (Passive)]

[Public Interest Flag: Active | Observer Channel Ping: YES]

Three hours after the Echo trial end, Hollow was gone. Not just disconnected from the system. Literally vanished.

Left without leaving a single message. No deck trail anywhere. No log of him. Nothing. Literally nothing.

Jack noticed it first. Like he always did.

They were sitting together in the Quiet Arena, a short cooldown period after emotional-level sync was recommended by Lucen's protocols.

Sear still hadn't fully spoken since her overload in the reflection match, and Lucen kept running simulations of echo resistance fields, her hands tracing patterns in the air.

But Hollow still wasn't there.

When Jack tried to trace his ID, the System responded:

[User: Hollow | Status: Undeclared | Location: Black Corridor]

Jack's brow furrowed. There was no such thing as undeclared. Not unless you were dead, trait-fractured, or hunted.

Lucen read his silence and nodded, a cold certainty in her expression. "He's moving fast. Whatever got him… it's chasing, not capturing."

Sear finally looked up, her gaze hard. "What's in a Black Corridor?"

Jack answered, already standing. "Wagers that don't wait for consent."

[Side Thread Initiated – Private Pursuit Format]

[Target: Hollow | Hostile Entity Present]

[Permission to Enter Black Corridor 08X Granted – By Emergency Override]

The moment Jack crossed the entry line, the environment changed.

This wasn't a trial room. It was a hunt field.

Mist swirled around steel columns, overhead lights blinked randomly, and sound warped as if underwater. Mist swirled around steel columns, overhead lights blinked randomly, and sound warped as if underwater. Everything was spatially disconnected. Close and far, loud and quiet, all at once.

Jack moved through the chaos with the calm of experience, his body already a step ahead of his mind. His deck flickered with partial sync readings. Null zones. No trait overlay. This space was raw, procedural, and wildly unpredictable.

The air was charged with hostility not from Hollow, but from the entity pursuing him.

Then he heard it. A footsteps, but not Hollow's footsteps.

A woman emerged from the static mist in a bone-white coat, smiling like someone who'd already won. Her name tag read: Eidra.

[Wager Type: Predatory Protocol – Enforced Duel]

[Target: Hollow | Status: Live | Location: 61m Southeast]

Jack didn't speak anything. He just moved.

He found Hollow bleeding, his back against a steel pillar, breathing in short, ragged bursts. His deck was still lit, active but overridden, his UI nothing but a jumble of static.

"Didn't think... they'd send someone like her," Hollow said, coughing a bitter laugh.

Jack crouched beside him, his voice low and steady. "You're still conscious. That means we win."

A voice echoed overhead, Eidra's broadcast clear and chilling: "You rewrote part of the System. That makes you interesting. That makes you prey."

[Initiating Wager – Duel Condition: Shared Threat Elimination]

[Jack + Hollow vs. Eidra | Enemy Trait: Phase Track, Fragment Burn]

Jack's mind spun, his thoughts running a thousand times faster than her voice. Phase Track allowed movement through predictive shadows. Fragment Burn consumed traits temporarily for power surges. He needed misdirection. He needed noise.

"Hollow," he said. "Can you still fragment sync?"

Hollow nodded faintly, his strength ebbing. "Short burst. One time."

Jack tapped his deck. "Here. Use mine."

He transferred [Signal Surge] into Hollow's fragment sync interface.

The moment Hollow activated it, the air bent and fractured. Noise. Real, tactical confusion. Sound and data wavered, the corridor flickered, and Eidra's targeting sequences failed. Her first strike, a blur of motion, missed. Her second, too fast and too committed, overshot its mark.

Jack countered with a Dominion echo, freezing her trajectory for half a breath. Hollow lunged not to attack, but to drag time backward just enough to create a window. His trait snapped. And the world warped.

The trial flickered, a glitch in a perfect system. One second, Eidra was mid-lunge. The next, her memory loop failed. Her deck hesitated.

[Memory Drift Detected – Eidra] [Sync Incomplete | Threat Level: Dropping]

Jack grabbed Hollow by the collar and pulled him clear. "Now."

They struck together one trait each, unaligned but simultaneous. Eidra's deck shattered with a low-frequency pop, like static being torn from the air. She collapsed, her form dissolving into light.

[Wager Complete – Victory: Ghost Ledger Members]

[Damage Sustained: Moderate | XP Awarded: +90 | Eidra Mark: Logged]

***

Back in the Quiet Arena, Lucen and Sear waited. Hollow limped through the gate first, and Jack followed, a look of grim satisfaction on his face.

Lucen stood. "You were tailed."

Jack nodded. "And tested. She knew our sync patterns."

Sear's eyes narrowed, a slow burn starting behind them. "Then someone is leaking. Internally."

Lucen checked her deck, cross-referencing signal trails. "No obvious breach, but her rhythm was exact. This wasn't data. This was design."

Jack didn't disagree. He stood over the central console and loaded the last frame of Eidra's collapse. Not to gloat, but to remember.

"Next time," he said, his voice a promise and a threat, "we don't let them hunt us."

Then, after a pause, he added: "We hunt first."

Sear grinned faintly. "That's more like it."

Lucen's fingers danced across her interface. "I'm tracking three other threads that showed the same tactical cadence as Eidra's. If they're copying our sync traces, we may have seeded a hidden program."

Hollow, slouched in his seat, looked up. "What is that? A virus?"

Lucen nodded slowly. "No. A template. Our moves, our responses—recorded, injected, tested across hostile instances. We're not fighting opponents. We're fighting simulations trained to replace us."

Jack's eyes darkened.

"Then we'll make sure they break trying. We'll turn their own design against them, corrupting their training data with chaos. They want our patterns? They'll get a storm.

Jack glanced around them and continue. "Every calculated move they've recorded will become a trap, every simulation a dead end. Let them try to replace us, they'll only replace themselves with ruin."

[Chapter End – Eidra Introduced. Hollow Rescued. Predatory Protocol Activated. Ghost Ledger Flagged: System Disruptor Tier 2.]

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