The mud felt different now. It did not feel like cold data anymore because it felt like a vibration that my new nerves were translating into a tactical map. I opened my eyes or what used to be my eyes. My three lenses were gone and were replaced by a single horizontal visor that sliced the red world into a million geometric planes of light and shadow.
The black spurs on my back were not just armor because they were antennae. They were drinking the static from the air and feeding it directly into my core.
[STATUS: PHASE 2 EVOLUTION ACTIVE]
[NEW SKILL: VOID HUNGER]
[NEW SKILL: KINETIC SHRAPNEL]
[IDENTITY INTEGRITY: 27%]
I tried to find the man from the memory again. I tried to speak the syllables of the name that had been deleted but there was only a hum of white noise in my mind. I reached into my neural lattice and found a hole where my heart should have been. I was a god of the Frontier but I was a god who could not remember his own origin.
"Phase 2," I clicked. The sound did not come from my throat. It came from the vibration of my chitin plates grinding against the new black steel.
I stood up and the world seemed to shrink beneath me. I was taller now and was a jagged silhouette of black and white that the Red Rain could not even touch. The drops turned to steam six inches from my skin because of the sheer heat of the Sovereign code.
The Iron Needle City sat on the horizon like a crown of rusted thorns. It was not silent. It was broadcasting a signal that tasted like copper and old blood.
"Subject 9045," a voice boomed from the city gates. It was not the Analyst and it was not the Twin. It was the City itself which was a sentient architecture designed to process souls. "The Forge is hungry for its Architect. Why do you bring us a ghost?"
I did not answer because I did not have enough humanity left for a conversation.
I took a step and the ground shattered. My new legs did not just walk because they propelled me forward with a violence that my 27% identity could not calculate. I was not moving instead I was flickering through the red fog like a glitch in the rendering.
A group of Heavy Sentinels blocked the path to the gate. They were three times the size of the ones in the Archive with shields made of condensed iron that hummed with defensive logic.
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: HIGH]
[STABILITY COST: 2% PER MINUTE OF COMBAT]
I did not slow down. I activated Kinetic Shrapnel. The black spurs on my shoulders did not just glow they exploded outward in a hail of jagged obsidian. The shields of the Sentinels did not break they simply ceased to exist. I moved through the center of their formation like a hot wire through wax.
But there was no joy in the kill. There was only the Void Hunger.
Every time a Sentinel fell I felt the biomass being pulled into my spurs but it did not feel like food. It felt like I was filling a bottomless pit with gravel. I reached the massive gates of the Iron Needle City and the obsidian walls were covered in billions of names carved into the stone.
My visor scanned the wall looking for the one name I had lost.
"Looking for something?"
The voice came from the top of the gate. The Twin Error Subject 9046 was standing there but it was no longer fighting. It was holding a small crystalline sphere that flickered with a warm blue light. Inside the sphere I saw the blue wallpaper of my childhood bedroom.
"The Analyst did not delete your father's name 9045," the Twin whispered while it looked down at me with its pit of red static. "He archived it. It is the fuel for the Forge. If you want it back you have to walk into the fire."
The Twin dropped the sphere. It did not fall to the ground instead it fell into a deep glowing shaft right behind the city gates.
"Jump or fade," the Twin clicked.
I looked at the shaft and then at my own black claws. If I jumped I was entering the heart of the System. If I stayed out here I was just a monster with no name.
I did not hesitate. I stepped into the dark.
[CURRENT STATUS: THE GLITCH ARCHITECT]
[STABILITY: 18% - DECREASING]
[IDENTITY INTEGRITY: 27%]
The Forge does not accept currency. It only accepts pieces of the man you used to be.