Daniel Voss did not hesitate.
He charged.
The pipe left his side in a blur of white-gold and violet-black as he sprinted straight into the heart of the three Outpost Killers. Immune All burned around him like an invisible fortress — every stolen knife, every duplicate punch, every gravity-enhanced fist slammed against it and shattered like glass on diamond.
The half-shaved leader's six floating blades spun forward in a lethal storm. They struck Daniel's chest, shoulders, and throat… and simply disintegrated on contact, melting into harmless red sparks.
The wiry man's duplicates swarmed him from all sides. Ten corrupted copies landed perfect synchronized strikes — elbows, knees, stolen reality-weaver slashes. Every blow rebounded as though they had punched a mountain. The duplicates flickered and screamed as feedback tore through their shared system.
The brute roared and brought both wrecking-ball fists down in a double overhead smash that should have cratered the concrete. Daniel didn't even raise the pipe. The gravity wave broke across Immune All and exploded outward, knocking the brute ten meters backward into a shipping container.
Nothing touched him.
Pestilence Type 3 awakened in full.
Violet-black lightning erupted from Daniel's skin in a radial storm, spreading across the warehouse floor like living veins. The tendrils did not kill on contact this time.
They infected sanity itself.
```
[Core Passive Escalation: Pestilence Type 3 – "Plague Sovereign"]
New Vector Unlocked: Sanity Erosion Aura (permanent while active)
Effect: All entities within 50 m radius (except bearer) suffer escalating sanity drain
Rate: 4% per second (accelerating)
Side Effect: Hallucinations, paranoia, and memory bleed for non-Chosen targets
Chosen-0007: Complete Immunity
```
The three Outpost Killers felt it first.
The leader's eyes widened as her red interface flickered and glitched. "What the— my head— they're still screaming— the people I killed are still screaming—!" Her floating knives dropped from the air as her hands began to shake uncontrollably. Sanity: 100% → 73% → 51% in under five seconds.
The wiry man's duplicates started glitching, melting into one another as he clutched his temples. "No no no — I absorbed them! They're supposed to be gone! Why are they still talking?!" Sanity: 100% → 44%. One duplicate turned on the others and started stabbing wildly at nothing.
The brute staggered, massive fists shrinking as his stolen gravity collapsed. "I… I can see their faces… every outpost we burned… they're smiling at me—" Sanity: 100% → 29%. He dropped to his knees, clawing at his own eyes.
Vannia, still fighting on the edge of the aura, felt the edge of it brush her. Her silver shimmer dimmed for a heartbeat as phantom whispers of her parents' final smiles clawed at the back of her mind. She gritted her teeth and forced the Echo of the Lost passive to flare brighter, pushing the drain back.
Mia remained unconscious on the ground — protected only by distance and her own dormant system — but even she twitched as faint violet tendrils crawled across her arm.
Daniel kept walking forward, untouched, unstoppable.
The leader tried one last desperate attack — vanishing in a flicker of stolen reality-weaver power and reappearing behind him with a corrupted blade raised for a killing strike.
Daniel didn't turn.
The blade shattered against his back like cheap glass.
He simply looked over his shoulder.
"You wanted to harvest Chosen power," he said, voice calm and cold. "Now feel what real power costs."
The leader screamed as her sanity plummeted to 12%. She dropped the broken knife and collapsed, clawing at invisible ghosts of every system user she had ever murdered.
The wiry man's remaining duplicates dissolved into screaming static.
The brute curled into a fetal position, sobbing and laughing at the same time as his mind fractured under the weight of every soul he had harvested.
Daniel stopped in front of the three broken killers, pipe resting lightly across his shoulder, Pestilence Type 3 still radiating outward in slow, patient waves.
The warehouse fell almost silent except for the killers' broken breathing and the low, wet sounds of sanity collapsing.
Vannia rushed to Mia's side, checking her pulse, silver aura shielding her sister from the worst of the aura.
Daniel looked down at the half-shaved leader — the woman who had been moments away from harvesting Mia's system.
"Any last words?" he asked quietly.
The leader's eyes were wide, pupils dilated with terror. A single tear cut through the blood on her face.
"I… I just wanted to be the strongest…"
Daniel raised the pipe.
The final strike was mercifully quick.
The other two killers did not even try to run.
When it was over, the warehouse was quiet once more.
Only three Chosen remained standing — one unconscious, one weeping silently over her sister, and one who could no longer be touched by anything the Backrooms threw at him.
Daniel exhaled slowly, Pestilence Type 3 retracting back into his veins like a loyal serpent.
The Outpost Killers were gone.
But the Backrooms had just learned that some humans were far more dangerous than entities.
And that Chosen-0007 had stopped holding back.