The chrome sphere didn't move like a ship. It didn't have thrusters or warp-trails. One moment it was at the edge of the solar system, and the next, it was parked ten miles away from the Mercy of Silence, reflecting the golden light of the sun like a perfect, mocking mirror.
The bridge of the Mercy went dead.
The lights flickered out. The holographic displays dissolved into static. Even the High-Artificers slumped in their seats, their neural-links severed by a presence that didn't just hack the system—it ignored it.
"Sully?" Kane called out into the dark.
"I... I can't feel the ship, Sarge," Sully's voice was a ragged whisper. "It's like the Mercy just forgot how to exist. My Ranks... I can't see my stats. They're gone."
Kane stood up from his throne. Unlike the others, his power didn't come from the System. It came from the Hunger. His silver hair caught the faint, dying light of the Dyson-Ring, and his obsidian skin began to pulse with a low, violet throb.
"Elara," Kane growled, looking at the terrified High-Artificer. "Is that your 'Arbiter'?"
"It is the Eye of the Law," Elara rasped, her four hands clutching her throat. "It does not fight, Earth-Man. It simply... corrects. You are a 'Glitch.' And the Eye is the 'Delete' key."
A voice didn't enter the room. It entered their DNA. It was a sound like a billion bees humming in perfect unison, a frequency so high it made Kane's teeth ache.
[ENTITY: SOL-LOT-04E-KANE] [STATUS: SYSTEM-BREAKER / VOID-CARRIER] [VERDICT: UNRECOVERABLE DATA. INITIATING FORMAT.]
A beam of white light—purer than anything the Consortium had ever fired—shot out from the chrome sphere. It didn't hit the Mercy like a shell; it hit it like a thought. The hull of the five-mile-long cathedral-ship began to turn into white dust, drifting away into the vacuum.
"Sully! Get to the escape pods! Now!" Kane roared.
He didn't wait. He launched himself through the viewport, shattering the reinforced glass. He didn't need a suit. He wrapped himself in a shroud of Void-Hunger, his body becoming a black streak against the white light of the Arbiter's gaze.
"You want to format me?" Kane screamed, his Void-Cleaver growing to ten feet in length, dripping with liquid shadow. "I'm the virus that's gonna crash your whole damn hard drive!"