Kane slammed into the surface of the chrome sphere.
There was no explosion. No impact. It felt like hitting a wall of solid logic. The surface was perfectly smooth, colder than the deepest part of the Void. As Kane's axe struck the chrome, the metal didn't dent—it analyzed him.
[ANALYZING ATTACK... KINETIC... MAGICAL... VOID...] [COUNTER-LOGIC DEPLOYED.]
Suddenly, Kane's own shadow rose up against him. It wasn't a "Skill." The Arbiter had reached into the vacuum and pulled out a perfect, Rank-10 copy of Kane—made of the same silver-veined obsidian, holding the same dual axes.
The Mirror-Kane struck first.
The sound of their blades clashing sent a shockwave through the Aurelia system that knocked the pirate fleet back by a thousand miles. Kane felt his ribs shatter, his Rank-8 body unable to handle the feedback of his own power being used against him at Rank-10 efficiency.
"Is that all you've got?" Kane hissed, spitting out a mouthful of silver blood. "Copying me? That's some Tier-1 bullshit."
He let go of his axes.
He didn't fight the Mirror-Kane. He unzipped his own soul. He stopped trying to be a "Ranked Warrior" and became what he truly was: a hole in the universe.
[SKILL ACTIVATION: THE GREAT DEVOURER - STAGE 1]
The Mirror-Kane swung its axe down toward Kane's skull, but the blade didn't hit bone. It sank into a vortex of absolute nothingness. Kane grabbed the copy's throat, and instead of pushing back, he inhaled.
The Mirror-Kane began to dissolve, its Rank-10 logic being sucked into Kane's Rank-8 belly. It was like trying to swallow a star through a straw.
"You think I'm data?!" Kane roared, his eyes turning into twin singularities. "I'm the Hunger that made the people who wrote your code! I'm the end of the line!"
The chrome sphere began to vibrate. For the first time in an eon, the Arbiter felt a "Glitch" it couldn't delete. The "Data" was eating the "Processor."