Ray didn’t feel his body anymore. No lungs to drag air into, no heartbeat to count, no ground to press his back against. The pain was still there, suspended somewhere deeper than nerves, a memory of steel and blood that hadn’t been given permission to finish. It sat in him in layers, dulling and sharpening in slow pulses. He tried to move and found nothing to move. He tried to blink and realised he didn’t have eyes to close.
The last thing he remembered clearly was Layla’s scream, Vaeldren’s blade, and the System’s quest...
Then his words.
System… Activate Meeting.
The void answered.
[Meeting accepted.]
The message appeared with the same clinical certainty everything else had, and Ray hated it on instinct. This was the place the System liked. Here, it held power. It could be what it was. Pure control. Pure interface.
A pressure pushed against him, not physical, more like attention, something vast turning its face toward a speck of grit that had spoken out of turn.
[You have invoked a restricted clause.]
[You have no right to negotiate.]
Ray forced thought into shape. “Then why am I here?”
Silence, long enough to feel deliberate.
[Clarification: you have invoked a clause granted by Title: Outcast (Unique).]
[This clause exists to reinforce compliance through false hope.]
Ray’s mouth would’ve laughed if he still had one. “So you admit it.”
A pause.
[Admitting nothing is required.]
[State your request.]
Ray held onto anger because it was the only thing that made him feel real. “You issued a global quest to kill me.”
[Correct.]
“You rewarded betrayal.”
[Incorrect.]
[The Nexus Authority does not reward betrayal.]
[The Nexus Authority rewarded compliance of its user.]
Two things landed here. The name the System gave itself. The Nexus Authority. It sounded like something straight out of a sci-fi. The second… If it didn’t reward betrayal, but rather compliance, was his suspicion right then? Was Vaeldren actually a hidden spy for the System… The Nexus Authority?
It wasn’t new information to the universe. It was new information to Ray. The System had always called itself the System, polite and cheerful and snide, but here, stripped of the skin it wore for new arrivals, it used its real name without hesitation. Ray felt his own thoughts snag on it, trying to make sense of something that big.
“The Nexus Authority,” Ray repeated, tasting it in his head. “So that’s what you are.”
[We are jurisdiction.]
[We are stability.]
[We are the law that prevents a galaxy from tearing itself apart… Directive: Gain power. Dominate Milky Way. 67% complete]
Ray’s temper flared. “Funny. The first thing you do on a new world is turn people into animals.”
[Incorrect framing.]
[New worlds require accelerated integration.]
[Civilisations resist integration.]
[Resistance is addressed through incentives, fear, and selective pressure.]
It spoke the words with the same tone someone used to list weather patterns. Ray pushed back against the pressure of its attention. “You control the Milky Way.”
There was a pause that felt like a glance.
[Incorrect.]
[Majority jurisdiction established.]
[Expansion ongoing.]
[Arkus is within active integration.]
The pieces clicked together in his head, ugly and neat. Titles. Quests. Rewards that turned people into knives. Skill windows that trained behaviour. The way it punished defiance with smug little insults. It wasn’t a game. It was a machine that turned lives into levers. It was at war with others of its kind… playing God.
“And if someone doesn’t comply?” Ray asked.
[Noncompliance is corrected.]
[Persistent noncompliance is removed.]
Ray’s thoughts sharpened. “So you tried to remove me.”
[Correct. You betrayed Nexus Authority.]
“And failed.”
The pressure shifted. Not anger. Not emotion. Adjustment.
[Clarification: removal succeeded.]
[Status: Ray Atton is deceased.]
Ray felt something cold in his core. “That’s a lie.”
[Jurisdictional reading: Ray Atton is no longer present within Arkus physical space.]
[Therefore: deceased, removed, or irrelevant. Any result satisfies compliance incentives.]
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Ray’s anger tightened into something else. “You marked it complete to buy obedience. No… you marked it complete to buy time, to gain even more strength.”
[Correct.]
He didn’t have hands to clench, but he felt the urge anyway. “Then what’s the point of this meeting?”
[Final clause: one request.]
[If request is invalid, meeting ends.]
Ray searched himself for what mattered most. Not revenge. Not justice. He was bleeding out in a clearing that no longer existed. He needed one thing before he was sent back into pain.
“My bond,” Ray said. “My companion. Miu. Don’t take her.”
Silence again. Then the response came, thin and precise.
[Unable to comply.]
“What, why?”
[Bond formed. When host dies, so does bond.]
Ray’s thoughts slammed forward. “Then I’ll just have to burn everything you’ve built inside me. If I’m going to die anyway, may as well sever you.”
Pressure built in the void. It pressed down on Ray… ever harder. The Nexus Authority’s attention sharpened. It was almost as if someone else had taken control. Even the voice was different.
[You have no capacity to threaten.]
[You are an Error.]
The word hit him with weight. Not an insult this time. A label. He felt something inside him stutter, the way a damaged file tried to open and failed. A window attempted to form. Lines appeared, then tore, then reassembled wrong.
====================================
Status — Corrupted
Name: Ray Atton
Race: Human-Error (F)
Class: [UNRESOLVED]
Level: [READ ERROR]
HP: [DATA LOST] / [DATA LOST]
Mana: [DATA LOST] / [DATA LOST]
Titles:
? Outcast (Unique)
- [REDACTED]
Warning:
- Jurisdiction Conflict Detected
- External Interference Active
====================================
Ray stared at the broken thing floating in nothing and felt a sick, grim satisfaction. The Nexus Authority was inside him, woven into the way the world read him, and yet again it had slipped. It hadn’t expected him to refuse it for the second time. It hadn’t expected Arkus to push back. It hadn’t expected something else to get its hands into the same code.
The void shifted. Another presence entered, smaller than the Nexus Authority, but sharp. This felt like freedom. Like free flowing energy, not the order of the System… of the Nexus Authority.
A pulse of green rolled through the white.
[Arkus Gaia: Stabilising host interface.]
Ray’s thoughts caught. “Arkus.”
The Nexus Authority’s pressure tightened instantly, like a fist closing.
[Unauthorised presence.]
[Quarantine required.]
[Arkus Gaia: Quarantine denied.]
The denial wasn’t loud. It was absolute. Ray felt it settle through him like a second spine.
The Nexus Authority pushed again, and Ray felt the push in his broken status window, lines juddering, text smearing, his name flickering.
[This jurisdiction is active.]
[Arkus Gaia is subordinate.]
[Arkus Gaia: Arkus is not yours.]
[Arkus Gaia: Arkus is refusing integration.]
Ray’s mind raced. “Is that what this is? A fight over territory?”
[Arkus Gaia: Yes.]
[Arkus Gaia: You are in the middle.]
The Nexus Authority’s next message came colder.
[Correction: Ray Atton is a tool.]
[All inhabitants are tools.]
Ray’s anger flared hot enough to feel like heat in a place with no temperature. “I’m not your tool.”
The Nexus Authority didn’t reply to the sentiment. It replied to the condition.
[Your interface is compromised.]
[Your class selection is invalid.]
[Reverting to approved options.]
The class window tried to form again, the three Common portraits flickering into place, smug and waiting.
====================
Option 1: Convoy Guard
Option 2: Trail Scout
Option 3: Pack Hauler
====================
Ray felt the edges of his vision strain even in the void, as though his mind remembered the green border and reached for it out of habit.
The Nexus Authority anticipated it.
[External interference will be removed.]
The green border shuddered. For a moment it dimmed, and Ray felt something inside him tear, like a thread snapping under tension.
Then Arkus Gaia pushed back.
[Arkus Gaia: Claim maintained.]
[Arkus Gaia: Arkus Wayfarer is bound to host.]
Ray felt it the deepest depths of his body. He felt it latch onto him, the familiar feeling that the System provided was pushed aside for this new one.
The Nexus Authority’s attention sharpened to a razor point.
[This path is denied.]
[Arkus Gaia: Denial recorded.]
[Arkus Gaia: Compliance not required.]
Ray’s thoughts hit a wall. “How? How can you just refuse it?”
[Arkus Gaia: I am a world-root.]
[Arkus Gaia: The Nexus Authority has not assimilated.]
[Arkus Gaia: Arkus is resisting assimilation.]
Soo… Arkus Gaia was some sort of being similar to this Nexus Authority then.
Ray tried to drag his broken status window into focus again, and it fought him. It wasn’t gone, but it wasn’t stable either. Parts of it were missing in a way that felt permanent.
[Arkus Gaia: Your interface is damaged.]
[Arkus Gaia: The Nexus Authority attempted to excise Arkus bindings.]
Ray’s anger twisted. “So fix it.”
[Arkus Gaia: I can patch. I cannot replace.]
[Arkus Gaia: You will need to feed me power to rebuild what was taken.]
Ray absorbed that in silence. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like needing anything. He didn’t like the idea of trading one chain for another.
“I’m not letting you rule me either,” he said.
There was a pause before Arkus Gaia replied, and the pause felt… real. It simply acknowledging the shape of him.
[Arkus Gaia: Good.]
The Nexus Authority cut back in, pressure returning like a boot on his throat.
[Meeting clause is ending.]
[One request has been processed.]
Ray forced his thoughts into a single sharp point. “Then process this too. Fuck off.” The Nexus Authority’s reply came with the same indifferent cruelty as everything else.
[Request denied.]
Arkus Gaia answered a heartbeat later.
[Arkus Gaia: Request accepted.]
[Arkus Gaia: Pushing back now.]
Ray’s relief was immediate. He felt the pressure fade. The Nexus Authority’s attention didn’t leave. It pressed closer, it tried one last attempt to imprint on him
.
[Notice: Ray Atton is now classified as a persistent enforcement target.]
[Notice: Arkus-linked anomalies will be purged upon contact.]
[Notice: all compliant agents are authorised.]
Ray felt the truth of it settle over him. The moment he stepped back into the world, it wouldn’t just be a quest marker on strangers. It would be pressure in every system-touched mind that crossed his path. The System… cause fuck, he wouldn’t call it the Nexus Authority, like it was some pretentious prick, the System would target him no matter where he went. Nowhere was safe.
He’d become prey on principle.
Arkus Gaia’s presence tightened around him.
[Arkus Gaia: I can move you.]
[Arkus Gaia: The Nexus Authority will attempt reacquisition if you return to open space.]
[Arkus Gaia: I will place you where it cannot immediately reach.]
Ray pushed one last question into the white. “Where?”
[Arkus Gaia: A dungeon.]
[Arkus Gaia: A sealed space.]
[Arkus Gaia: You will heal. You will learn. You will decide what you are.]
The white started to fold.
Ray felt sensation return in fragments first. Weight. Pain. A body that remembered it had holes in it. Then cold stone under his back, breath tearing into lungs that worked again, and the taste of blood that hadn’t fully left his throat.
His status window tried to appear.
It came up fractured, patched in places with green edges that didn’t belong.
====================================
Status — Partial
Name: Ray Atton
Race: Human-Error (F)
Class: Arkus Wayfarer (Epic)
Level: 15 (F)
HP: 42/ [UNREADABLE]
Mana: [UNREADABLE] / [UNREADABLE]
====================================
[Repairs in progress.]
[Transporting Now.]
The moment the transport finished, the air changed. Cold stone pressed against Ray’s back, damp enough that it clung to his shirt, and the taste of iron sat thick on his tongue. The room around him was wide and low, carved from dark rock that had been smoothed in places and left jagged in others, as if whoever made it had cared about function more than comfort. The ceiling disappeared into shadow and came back in a shallow curve when his eyes adjusted, ribs of stone crossing overhead in uneven arches that looked old enough to have outlived the idea of civilisation. Water dripped somewhere nearby in a slow, steady rhythm, and each drop carried through the space with a faint echo that made it hard to judge distance. The smell was worse than simple damp. It carried old rot, mineral bite, and a faint sourness that suggested something had bled here and never truly left.
Ray tried to roll onto his side and immediately paid for it. He rolled into his own vomit. Pain ripped across his torso, sharp enough that his vision flashed white again, and he choked on a breath that came in wet and wrong. His hands found the torn fabric at his chest and pressed down out of instinct, fingers slick with blood that had already started to cool. Lifeline had kept him breathing, yet his body still felt wrong, hollowed out in places that should have been solid. He tried to pull up his inventory and got a flicker, nothing more, a brief pulse behind his eyes that told him the interface existed and refused to behave. He forced himself to slow his breathing, not because calm fixed anything, but because panic would chew through what little strength he had left. He whispered, “Alright,” and the sound came out thin, swallowed by stone.
A faint green shimmer crawled along the edges of his sight for half a second, then vanished, leaving the impression of script carved into the walls just beyond his focus. Ray turned his head carefully and found the source. The stone near the floor had shallow grooves cut into it, lines that formed patterns in broken circles, half erased by time and grime. Some of those grooves held a weak inner glow, dull green that pulsed once and then dimmed, the same colour that had wrapped him when the class locked in. He didn’t trust it. He also couldn’t ignore the fact that the dungeon felt sealed in a way the open world never had, air heavy and contained, with no breeze to carry scent or sound away. Whatever hunted here did not need to be fast. It only needed to wait. Ray swallowed again and felt the bond to Miu pull faintly, a direction and a distance that made his chest tighten with relief and frustration in equal measure.
The drip of water stopped for three beats. Ray noticed because the silence arrived too clean, then something shifted deeper in the dark, a scrape against stone that sounded slow and deliberate. Another scrape followed, then a dragging weight, and Ray realised it was moving toward him. He held his breath and listened, forcing his head to stay still while his eyes searched the room for any hint of shape. The darkness near the far side of the chamber thickened around a gap in the wall that could have been a corridor or a wound in the rock, and a smell rolled out of it, stale and animal, strong enough that it made his stomach turn. A low sound followed, not a roar, more a wet exhale, patient and close enough to feel in his ribs. Ray tried to push himself backward and his body refused, arms shaking, palms slipping on damp stone. Something stepped into the faint green spill from the carved grooves, and for a heartbeat Ray saw the outline of limbs that did not match any beast he’d fought before, then the glow caught on eyes that reflected it back in a hard, hungry shine.
Ray swallowed, every motion sharp through his ruined chest, and forced himself to breathe anyway.
“Alright,” he rasped into the dark. “System denied.”
He stared at the broken window until his eyes watered.
“Now we do it my way.”
He raised his hands and felt the familiar feeling of a sword form.