✨ Part I: The Necessary Override
Kael approached Elara. She was seated in a posture of martial meditation, completely motionless, her muscles locked in an effort of forced stability. Despite her desperation, Elara maintained an icy calm, typical of one accustomed to grappling with death. Kael felt like a neurosurgeon preparing to operate on a fully conscious patient.
"If I move, tell me. If I cough, tell me," Elara whispered, eyes closed.
"The risk is not movement; it's code interference," Kael replied, speaking more to the System than to her. "I have to replace a permanent balancing flag with a null value. The System isn't coded for this. When it detects the modification, there will be interference."
Kael raised both hands and placed them on Elara's shoulders. It wasn't a physical touch, but a mental anchor point. He sensed Elara's code: powerful, efficient, yet with a digital anomaly that screamed like a frayed wire.
His mental core focused. His [Deconstruct Interface] ability had no visible interface; it was a pure act of will and logic.
[Kael Varis uses: Deconstruct Interface] (Focus: Hidden Class Override).
The pain was not searing like in Chapter 1; it was systematic pain. It felt as though every nerve in his body was being mapped, labeled, and put under severe strain. The target was a precise point within her Class Code.
> TARGET: Elara_Entity_15 > LOCATING: Stat_Balancing_Curse_Flag [PERMANENT_TRUE] > EXECUTION: Override.Set_Value [NULL_FALSE]
Kael's mental energy crashed. The sensation was like pouring a barrel of liquid data out of his skull. The Mental Energy bar in his HUD brutally plummeted from nearly full to less than 10%. He was almost depleted, but the modification had been sent.
💥 Part II: The System Reaction
Silence followed for one unbearable second. Then, the world went insane.
It wasn't a flash. It was a white scream of data.
The Statue of Victoria, the stable anchor Kael had chosen, didn't move, but its external interface glitched with a frenzy of colour. The sky above them fractured again, not to insert a Fragment, but to perform an immediate System Controller (Server Check).
A colossal, semi-transparent icon, brilliant red, materialized for an instant above the Westminster Fortress Fragment:
!! WARNING: ENTITY IMBALANCE DETECTED
!! HIGH-LEVEL ENTITY (ELARA) STATS VIOLATE BALANCE PROTOCOL.
!! EMERGENCY RESPONSE: AGGRO CASCADE INITIATED.
The energy Kael had unleashed in Elara's code was detected by the System. The response was not the destruction of the debugger, but the correction of the balance of the player.
🔥 Part III: The Hunter Unlocked
Elara opened her eyes. The look of desperate fury was gone, replaced by an absolute, almost religious, focus.
Her black armor glowed with an intense golden light that was not electrical, but divine. It was the Holy energy of her class finally being unleashed.
Elara stood up. She didn't move. It was kinetic teleportation. She didn't merely rise; she sprang from the ground at a speed that exceeded human reaction time.
[CURSE: STATS LOCKED] – DISABLED.
[STAT: DEX 30] – ACTIVATED (MAXIMUM VELOCITY).
[STAT: HOLY ELEMENTAL ATTACK] – ACTIVATED (100% EFFECTIVENESS).
Her face was of icy resolve. "It worked, Archivist," Elara said. Her voice was low, but Kael, trembling from the effort, could feel the echo of power within it.
⚔️ Part IV: The Aggro Cascade
The System's warning was not an empty threat. The Aggro Cascade was the programmed response to a power imbalance.
The Briar Wraiths (Lv. 10) who had previously been indifferent to Elara were now in a violent frenzy. Their combat logic had been overwritten: the most powerful target must be destroyed.
Four, then six, then twelve Wraiths surged from the Fortress ruins, no longer held back by the Fragment boundary. They were drawn by a primordial signal: Massive Aggro Detected.
"Archivist, you released it," Elara said, gripping her bastard sword. The weapon absorbed the golden light, its blade radiating sacred heat.
"I'm drained," Kael panted. "I can't use [Deconstruct Interface] or [Archive Data] for a full minute. I need to recover 5% just to move."
Elara nodded, her gaze fixed on the approaching enemies. "Your work is done. Mine begins."
The first four Wraiths launched simultaneously. Elara did not use brute force, but speed. She moved like a bullet, and her sword struck with a power that was no longer just metal.
[Elara inflicts: HOLY DAMAGE (CRITICAL)]
The contact with the Holy damage was lethal. The Wraiths did not fall; they dissolved into particles of black light and green smoke. Not a cut, but a corruption of their undead core.
[Briar Wraith (Lv. 10) - ELIMINATED]
[Briar Wraith (Lv. 10) - ELIMINATED]
As the massacre unfolded, Kael focused on one thing: logging. As the monsters were destroyed, the Log Data flooding the area was of an unseen quality.
[High-Level Combat Data (Lv. 15 vs Lv. 10) Detected: HOLY_CORRUPTION. Log Running. Archiving Recommended.]
Kael smiled weakly. He had failed to protect his Mental Energy pool, but he had succeeded in his primary objective: Gathering High-Level Data.
Elara carved her way through the remaining Wraiths with silent ferocity, every strike an execution. The bug was gone, and the Demon Hunter (Elite) had finally made her debut in the world.
When the last Wraith dissolved into a plume of smoke, Elara turned. Not a drop of sweat or a scratch.
"Now," Elara said, pointing her bloodless sword toward the dark silhouette of Big Ben, looming on the horizon, "we head to the Fragment. Archivist, [Scan] your war loot. After that, you will use that data to recharge. You will no longer be a weak variable for me."