We observed from the roof of a collapsed data center. My Audit Vision showed the bank’s defenses. Layers of energy shields. Temporal stasis fields. Automated sentry turrets that fired reality anchors.
“Direct assault is impossible,” the Rival said. His stability was back to thirty percent. “The shields will freeze us in time before we touch the wall.”
Eli scanned the structure. “There’s a vulnerability. The shields are powered by the local grid. See the conduit lines running underground?”
He highlighted them on his pad. Thick cables channeling temporal energy from a nearby System node.
“If we disrupt the node, the shields drop for seven seconds,” Eli said. “That’s our window.”
“The node will be guarded,” Marcus said.
Lara checked her phase-blade. “Everything is guarded.”
The plan was simple. Brutal. Eli would hack the node’s cooling system from a distance, forcing an emergency shutdown. Marcus and Lara would hit the node’s physical guards. The Rival would manipulate patrol probabilities. I would run for the bank the moment the shields fell.
We moved into position.
The System node was a humming pillar of blue light in a fortified square. Four Patriot Guards stood watch. Two automated turrets scanned the perimeter.
Eli set up his hack. “Ready in ten seconds.”
Marcus crouched behind a broken fountain. Lara melted into the shadow of a pillar.
“Go,” Eli said.
The node’s hum pitched upward. A warning siren blared. The blue light flickered. The Patriot Guards turned toward the node, confused.
Marcus charged. His shield hit the first guard. The man flew back. Lara engaged the second. Her blade cut through armor. Clean. Efficient.
The turrets woke up. Swiveled. Fired.
The Rival threw a probability shift. One turret’s targeting sensor glitched. Its shots went wide. The other turret tracked Lara.
I was already running.
The bank’s shields shimmered. Faded. The black wall was now just inert material.
Seven seconds.
I reached the wall. Placed my hands on it. Cold. Smooth. No seam.
Six seconds.
Echo Sight activated. I saw the wall’s history. Its construction. The moment it was programmed. There was a weakness. A maintenance access point for the Foundational beings who built it. A single square panel, invisible to the eye.
Five seconds.
I found the panel. Pressed. It slid open. A dark corridor beyond.
Four seconds.
I slipped inside. The panel closed behind me.
Three seconds.
The shields reactivated. I was inside.
The corridor was dark. My footsteps echoed. A soft light grew ahead. I entered the main vault.
The room was circular. In the center, floating in a stasis field, was the Null Core.
It was a sphere of perfect darkness. Not black. An absence. It hurt to look at. Light bent around it. The air felt thick. Heavy.
I approached. The stasis field hummed. A terminal beside it glowed.
[CAUSALITY BANK VAULT 001]
[ASSET: NULL CORE (FOUNDATIONAL)]
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
[STATUS: SECURE]
[ACCESS: ADMINISTRATOR TIER 9 OR HIGHER]
[/SYSTEM]
I didn’t have Tier 9 clearance. I had a Conduit Frame.
I pulled the Frame from my pack. Held it near the stasis field. The dark alloy resonated. A low thrum filled the vault. The stasis field flickered. Rippled.
The Frame was the key.
The field collapsed. The Null Core dropped into my hand.
It was cold. Heavier than it should be. The moment I touched it, my Audit Vision exploded with gold lines. Then the lines froze. Locked in place. Nothing moved. The very concept of change stopped within three meters of me.
[CORE ACQUIRED: NULL CORE (LEGENDARY)]
[DESCRIPTION: FOUNDATIONAL WEAPON COMPONENT 1/5]
[EFFECT: CAUSALITY DEADLOCK FIELD ACTIVE (5M RADIUS)]
[NOTE: NOTHING CHANGES WITHIN THE FIELD. NOT EVEN TIME.]
[WARNING: CHRONAL DYS-PHASIA DETECTED. SENSORY CAUSALITY DESYNCED.]
[/SYSTEM]
The world outside the five-meter bubble blurred. Colors smeared. Sounds stretched and compressed.
Then the first symptom hit.
The Collectors edited into the room. But they couldn’t edit inside my bubble. The Deadlock Field stopped them. They stood at the edge, static forms shifting in frustration.
They raised their hands. White beams lanced toward me.
The beams hit the Deadlock Field. They didn’t stop. They slowed. Molasses. Each photon crawled through thickened space. I had time to step aside.
The Collectors understood. They couldn’t use their admin powers here. They were forced to fight by physical laws.
One Collector formed a weapon from static. A spear of corrupted data. It stepped into the bubble.
Its movements slowed. But so did mine. Time was equal here.
It thrust the spear. I dodged. The spear moved like it was underwater. I grabbed the Frame. Swung it like a club.
The metal connected with the Collector’s form. A sound like shattering glass. It stumbled back. Out of the bubble. Regained its speed.
I needed to leave. Now.
I ran for the shattered door. The Deadlock Field moved with me. A bubble of frozen causality in a changing world.
I emerged into the square. Chaos. Marcus and Lara were holding off reinforcements. The Rival was on the ground, clutching his head. Probability manipulation backlash.
The Collectors edited outside my bubble. They fired beams. I kept moving. The beams slowed in the field. I weaved between them.
Then I saw the Patriot Guard reinforcements. A full squad. Ten men. They saw me. Saw the Core in my hand. Their priority changed.
They opened fire.
Bullets entered my bubble. They slowed. Hung in the air. I could see them spinning. I walked past them.
The Collectors wanted the Core. The Patriot Guards wanted me. I stood between them.
An idea formed. A terrible, efficient idea.
I turned. Ran not away from the Collectors, but toward the Patriot Guard squad.
“What is he doing?” Lara yelled.
I ran right into the middle of the guards. The Deadlock Field enveloped them. Their movements slowed. Their shouts deepened. Their bullets hung in the air around us.
The Collectors edited behind me. They raised their hands to fire. They didn’t care about the guards. The guards were obstacles.
I dropped to the ground.
The Collectors fired.
The white beams hit the slowed Patriot Guards. The men had no time to scream. Their bodies unwrote. Molecule by molecule. They ceased to exist.
The Collectors stepped over their ashes. Focused on me.
I was already moving. Rolling. Grabbing the Rival. Dragging him with me.
“The Frame,” I gasped. “It’s a beacon. It’s drawing every chronophage in the sector.”
The sky darkened. Not with night. With bodies. Hundreds of chronophages descended, drawn to the stable reality of the Deadlock Field.
The Collectors looked up. For the first time, they hesitated.
The swarm hit them.
It was a feeding frenzy. The chronophages tore into the static forms. The Collectors fought back. Beams of white energy carved through the swarm. But there were too many.
“Now,” I shouted. “Run!”
We ran. Marcus and Lara covered our retreat. We didn’t look back.
We didn’t stop until we reached the riverworks. An old filtration plant. We barricaded ourselves inside.
Safe. For now.
I placed the Null Core on a rusty table. The Deadlock Field shrank, stabilizing to a one-meter radius around it. The world outside returned to normal speed.
The Rival sat up. Rubbed his temples. “That was insane.”
“It worked,” Lara said.
Eli scanned the Core. “The Dys-phasia. What does it feel like?”
I tried to explain. “I hear effects before causes. I saw the door explode in my mind before it happened. It’s like the universe is giving me spoilers.”
A spike in my temple. A second later, the Rival said, “Your nose is bleeding.”
I wiped it. Blood. A trade for power.
Marcus approached the Core. Reached toward the Deadlock Field. His hand slowed. He pulled it back. “Nothing changes inside. That means no healing. No cell regeneration. If you’re wounded inside that bubble, you stay wounded.”
A major weakness.
I checked the system log.
[OMEGA-NULL PROTOCOL PROGRESS]
[COMPONENTS ACQUIRED: 2/5]
[NULL CORE: SECURED]
[CONDUIT FRAME: SECURED (LOCATION TRACKED)]
[REMAINING PARTS: TRIGGER MECHANISM, FOCUSING ARRAY, EXECUTION PROTOCOL]
[TIME REMAINING: 71:12:44]
[/SYSTEM]
We had the first two parts. Three to go.
Eli pulled up the map. The next component glowed in the quarantine zone. The Trigger Mechanism.
“It’s in the old medical research lab,” he said. “The place they used to study temporal diseases.”
The Rival frowned. “That zone is sealed for a reason. The diseases aren’t biological. They’re causal. You catch a paradox like a cold.”
Another risk. Another challenge.
I looked at the Core. Then at my team. Marcus, steady. Lara, lethal. Eli, brilliant. The Rival, knowing.
We had a gun to build. A god to kill.
Then my Audit Vision flickered. The gold lines, frozen by the Core, suddenly showed me something new. A calculation from the Outer Administration. A data packet I wasn’t meant to see.
It wasn’t about one Arch-Consumer.
It was about seven.
The Arch-Consumer wasn’t a singular entity. It was a classification. And seven were scheduled for manifestation across the planet. Our sector was just the first.
The System wasn’t trying to stop them. It was managing their arrival. Calculating the optimal loss.
We weren’t building a gun to kill a god.
We were building a gun to kill seven.
The mission just changed.