Chapter 6: The Prophet of the System
The university quad was no longer a place of learning. It was a stage for a new, brutal religion. A crowd of about fifty people—mostly F-Rank civilians and a handful of lower-ranked Players—had gathered around a makeshift dais of broken concrete. And on that dais stood Jake.
He was changed. The arrogant jock was gone, replaced by a figure of zealous fervor. His S-Rank aura wasn't just power; it was a beacon, and the people around him drank it in with desperate eyes. His text had changed, too. It now read: **[Jake Fury - Player #087 - S-Rank: Inferno Lord - System Oracle]**.
System Oracle? The title tasted like acid in my mind. The System was promoting him, giving him a new role to play in its narrative.
"...and we were told there were one hundred chosen!" Jake's voice boomed, amplified by some unseen system effect. "One hundred heroes to lead humanity to salvation! But I have received a revelation! A divine insight from the System itself!"
The crowd murmured, a mix of fear and excitement.
"The System is testing us! It sent the invasion not to destroy us, but to forge us! To separate the strong from the weak, the faithful from the faithless! And it has shown me the final obstacle we must overcome to prove our worth!"
He paused, his eyes scanning the crowd until they locked onto me as I emerged from the shadow of a shattered lecture hall. A cruel, triumphant smile spread across his face.
"It's him!" Jake roared, pointing a flaming finger directly at me. "Liam Cross! The Error! The System didn't choose him because he is an abomination! A glitch in our path to glory! He steals the power of true Heroes! He consorts with the very monsters we fight! He is the Final Boss of this Tutorial, and when we defeat him, the System will grant us our salvation!"
A wave of hatred and fear washed over the crowd. They turned to me, their faces twisted with a mob mentality I had only ever read about in history books. To them, I wasn't a person. I was a quest objective.
Sarah stood at the edge of the crowd, her face a mask of conflict. She met my eyes, shaking her head slightly, a warning.
I didn't need a warning. I could see the strings attached to Jake. Thin, almost invisible threads of golden light connected him to the massive system screen in the sky. He was a puppet. The Moderator, Kai, was making his next move. He was using a Player to purge me, keeping his own hands clean.
"Don't listen to him, Jake!" Sarah shouted, stepping forward. "The System is lying to you! To all of us! This isn't a tutorial, it's a—"
"Silence, traitor!" Jake interrupted, his voice cracking like a whip. "You who accepted power from this... thing! You are no better than he is! You are tainted!"
He turned his fiery gaze back to me. "So, glitch. Will you face your judgment like a man? Or will you run and hide, proving your cowardice to all?"
The crowd surged forward, a unified, angry mass. They were weak, but there were dozens of them. I could incinerate them all with a thought. But that's exactly what the System wanted. It wanted me to be the monster. It wanted me to validate Jake's prophecy.
I had to break the narrative.
I didn't raise my hands in attack. Instead, I raised them in a placating gesture. I walked calmly towards the dais, the crowd parting before me, not out of respect, but out of fear and confusion.
"Jake," I said, my voice calm, carrying without needing to shout. "You say the System gave you a revelation. Did it show you the timestamp of its own arrival?"
Jake's fervent expression faltered for a fraction of a second. "W-what? What nonsense are you spouting?"
"Six months," I said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "The System's first message was queued six months before it 'arrived' to save us. Does that sound like a rescue mission to you?"
The crowd's murmuring grew louder. I was speaking a language they understood: data, facts.
"You lie!" Jake screamed, a flicker of panic in his eyes. A system prompt was probably flashing in his vision, telling him to shut me down.
"I lie?" I took another step closer. "Then ask your 'System' what the **Slaughterhouse Protocol** is. Go on, Jake. Ask it. Use your Oracle privileges. Ask it what happens when the Tutorial is 'complete'."
I was bluffing. I had no idea if he could access that information. But the seed of doubt was planted.
Jake's face went from triumphant to confused to enraged. He wasn't receiving an answer. The System had gone silent on him. The puppetmaster had cut the strings mid-performance.
"He's poisoning your minds with his hacker tricks!" Jake yelled, desperate to regain control. "He's the enemy! The only way to win is to destroy him! For the System!"
But the spell was broken. The crowd was no longer a unified mob. They were individuals again, confused and scared. They looked from Jake's frantic face to my calm one.
The System's narrative had a crack.
And I was about to drive a wedge into it.
"You want a Final Boss, Jake?" I said, my voice dropping, laced with the power of my **[True Pyrokinesis]**. The air around me began to waver with heat. "You're looking at the wrong person."
I pointed past him, past the crowd, at the giant, golden system screen in the sky.
"The real Final Boss is the one who told you you were a hero. The one who made you think this was a game. It's the one farming us for fuel."
I let a controlled plume of legendary-grade plasma erupt from my palm, not towards Jake, but straight up into the air—a brilliant green signal flare of defiance.
"I'm not here to fight you, Jake. I'm here to set you free. And if you stand in my way," my eyes met his, and I let the full, terrifying weight of my admin authority press down on him, "I won't fight the hero. I'll delete the NPC."
The words hung in the air. Jake stood frozen, his fire guttering out. The title above his head, **[System Oracle]**, flickered erratically and then vanished, leaving only his original S-Rank title.
The System had disowned its prophet.
I turned my back on the stunned, silent crowd and walked away. The first battle was over. I hadn't thrown a single punch. I had won with truth and fear.
But as I left, a new, chilling notification appeared, this one from a blocked sender.
`A clever play, Hacker. But narrative control is a delicate art. Let's see how you handle a plot twist you didn't see coming.`
The message dissolved. And from the eastern sector of the city, a sound I had never heard before—a deep, guttural roar that shook the very foundations of the ruins—echoed across the sky.
The System wasn't just manipulating Players anymore. It was changing the game parameters. It had just spawned a new boss monster. And it was heading straight for the university.