Caelum stood in the center of the capital, yet no one—not even the high-level guards—could see him. His body was wrapped in a cloak of shifting silver data, vibrating at a frequency that made him invisible to the System's optical sensors.
"The three Central Nodes," Caelum whispered, looking at the floating pillars of light that powered the city's firewall. "If I corrupt these, the Creator loses his eyes on this sector."
[SYSTEM_SCAN: NO_THREATS_DETECTED]
Caelum walked past a squad of elite Executors who were searching for his 'corpse'. He reached the first node—a massive crystal pulsing with golden energy. He didn't use a blade this time. He simply placed his hand on the crystal.
[AUTHORITY_OVERRIDE: INITIATING_SILENT_CORRUPTION]
The gold light inside the crystal began to turn a sickly, oily black. But to anyone watching, it still looked gold. Caelum was 'Ghosting' the data, making the system think everything was normal while he was actually tearing it apart from the inside.
"First node down," Caelum smirked.
Suddenly, a strange ripple moved through the air. A figure in a white robe, carrying a staff that looked like a lightning bolt, appeared near the node. It was a High Priest of the Server, a level 99 entity. The Priest stopped, sniffing the air. "There is a scent... like a broken line of code. Something is here."
Caelum didn't move. He knew that any sudden shift in his silver mana would create a 'Data Spike' that the Scepter could track. Instead, he channeled his Phantom Admin Authority into the ground.
[SKILL_ACTIVATED: SILENT_ECHO]
Suddenly, a massive surge of false data erupted from the other side of the throne room. To the Priest's sensors, it looked like a massive breach was happening near the palace gates.
"There!" the Priest roared, turning his back to Caelum and sprinting toward the fake signal with incredible speed.
Caelum let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "That was too close." He turned back to the Central Node. The oily black corruption was spreading deeper into the crystal's core. But he noticed something strange. Inside the corruption, a set of coordinates began to glow—[SECTOR_0: THE_PRIME_CORE].
"Master, can you hear me?" A faint, glitchy voice echoed in his ear. It was Kira, but her signal was weak. "The guards... they are rounding up everyone with a 'Glitch' history. They're calling it the 'Great Sanitization'."
Caelum's fist clenched. The silver aura around him flared, nearly breaking his invisibility. "The Creator isn't just trying to find me. He's trying to delete the evidence of my existence by killing everyone I've touched."
"We're hiding in the lower tunnels," Kira continued, the sound of metal clashing in the background. "But Elara... she's exhausted. Her mana is at 5%. Master, if you don't come soon..."
The signal cut off.
Caelum looked at the black-veined crystal in front of him. He could either stay and finish corrupting the nodes to cripple the system, or he could rush to save his Council.
"I won't let another file be deleted," Caelum whispered. Instead of running, he reached into the Node and pulled out a handful of the corrupted energy. It burned his silver skin, but he didn't flinch. He began to shape it into a new weapon—not a sword, but a Data-Scythe.
"If the system wants to sanitize this world," Caelum's eyes turned a lethal, cold silver, "then I'll start by deleting the cleaners."