The Citadel groaned. It wasn't the sound of wind against glass, but the literal protest of the building's foundations as Tobi funneled nearly a quarter-million simultaneous connections through his own nervous system.
[System Warning: Physical Integrity at 4%.]
[Warning: Cognitive Dissociation Imminent.]
[Status: You are currently the primary DNS for 112,000 users.]
Tobi's skin wasn't just glowing; it was vibrating. Every time a mother in Surulere sent a message to her son, or a doctor in Ikeja accessed a medical file through the Apex-Net, Tobi felt a jolt of raw data spike through his spine. He was no longer just a man; he was a bridge.
"Tobi, let go!" Ama screamed, her voice barely piercing the roar of the data-wind swirling in the rooftop hub. "You're going to burn out! The connection is too heavy!"
"Five... more... minutes," Tobi gasped. His eyes were pure white now, streaming tears of glowing blue liquid. "The hospitals... they're still... syncing..."
Suddenly, the sapphire beam of light shooting from the rooftop dish flickered. A jagged streak of red static tore through the blue, and the temperature on the roof plummeted.
[Alert: Intrusion Detected.]
[Source: The Glitch.]
[Status: Inside the Citadel Firewalls.]
"He's here," Tobi whispered.
He didn't come through the doors. He didn't even come through the windows. The air in front of Tobi simply fractured, like a broken mirror. From the shards of reality stepped a figure that looked like a man but moved like a corrupted video file. He flickered, his limbs stretching and snapping back into place, leaving trails of after-images behind him.
The Glitch.
"You're a fool, Tobi," The Glitch said. His voice was a terrifying overlay of a thousand different pitches. "You're holding the door open for an entire city, and you didn't leave enough strength to lock your own house."
The Glitch raised a hand, and the server racks around the roof began to melt, their metal turning into a black, oily sludge that defied gravity.
"Silas says goodbye," The Glitch hissed. He lunged.
Because Tobi was anchored to the Hive Mind, he couldn't move his physical body to dodge. He was a stationary target. The Glitch's hand now a jagged blade of corrupted code swung toward Tobi's throat.
[Skill Activation: 'The Last Stand' Passive.]
[Effect: Redirecting 10% of outgoing bandwidth to Physical Defense.]
A shimmering shield of binary code flared to life in front of Tobi. The Glitch's blade hit the shield with the sound of a thousand screaming hard drives. The impact sent a shockwave through the roof, shattering every window on the top three floors.
"You... can't... win," Tobi wheezed, the effort of maintaining the shield and the city's internet simultaneously causing his nose to bleed again. "I have... 112,000 hearts... beating with mine. How many... do you have?"
"I don't need hearts," The Glitch sneered. He began to flicker faster, becoming a blur of red static that surrounded Tobi. "I only need one delete key."
The Glitch began to phase through Tobi's shield, his body becoming "intangible" by exploiting a lag in the System's local processing. He was literally moving between the frames of reality.
"Ama!" Tobi shouted. "The... the backup drive! Connect it to the main uplink!"
"Tobi, that's a dead-end drive! It has no storage!"
"Just... do it!"
Ama scrambled across the roof, dodging flying debris, and slammed the heavy industrial cable into the port.
[System Notification: External Loop Detected.]
"Now!" Tobi roared. He didn't use a skill. He did something far more dangerous. He opened his mind not to the Hive, but to The Glitch. He pulled the assassin into the connection.
"What are you doing?!" The Glitch screamed as he was suddenly sucked into Tobi's consciousness.
"You want to see what a hundred thousand lives feel like?" Tobi's voice was no longer human; it was the collective roar of a city. "Feel the weight of Lagos!"
Tobi funneled the entire "traffic" of the Apex-Net every video, every call, every desperate prayer for light directly through The Glitch. The assassin wasn't built for volume; he was built for precision. Under the weight of a million gigabytes of raw human emotion and data, The Glitch's form began to shatter.
"Too... much... data..." The Glitch's voice fractured and died.
With a final, violent burst of blue and red light, The Glitch exploded into a cloud of harmless pixels. The red static vanished. The air returned to its normal temperature.
[System Notification: Hunter 'The Glitch' PERMANENTLY DELETED.]
[XP Gained: 200,000.]
[Level Up: Level 26.]
Tobi fell forward, the sapphire beam of light finally winking out. The Citadel went dark.
For a moment, there was absolute silence on the roof. Then, from the streets below, a sound began to rise. It wasn't the sound of panic. It was a cheer. A massive, roaring sound of a hundred thousand people who had seen the light and knew who had given it to them.
Ama rushed to Tobi, pulling his head onto her lap. "Tobi? Tobi, look at me!"
Tobi's eyes slowly returned to normal. He looked up at the stars, which were now visible over Lagos for the first time in decades because of the blackout.
"Did... did the sync finish?" he whispered.
Ama looked at her tablet. "100%. Every Apex-wallet is updated. The currency is stable. Tobi... you did it. You broke the De-sync."
Tobi closed his eyes, a tired smile on his face. He could feel it now a new notification, but not from the System.
[Message Received: UNKNOWN SENDER.]
[Text: 'You've won the battle, boy. But the Consortium has just declared you a Global Terrorist. See you in the New World. - Silas']
"Let him come," Tobi whispered as he drifted into a deep, well-earned sleep. "We're ready."
[End of Chapter 24]