Dammit, dammit, dammit.

  Two thousand credits richer for exactly three seconds before the universe decided to collect.

  The world had become a mime's nightmare. All action, no sound. Like someone had hit the universe's mute button and thrown away the remote. Even his own heartbeat felt like it was happening in another room.

  Flee. Now. Think later.

  His new powers, barely twenty-four hours old, took over on pure instinct. A puddle of oily rainwater 200 feet ahead became his target. He locked onto his reflection and—

  Shatter.

  Reality fractured into a thousand glass shards.

  For a second that felt way too long, he was everywhere at once. Seeing from every angle. Then reformation slammed into him like a fist to the gut. His consciousness snapped back together as he stumbled onto wet asphalt.

  Behind him, something that used to be an intersection was starting to unravel. The very fabric of the world was fraying, its clean lines bending and twisting into shapes that actively resisted perception.

  He didn't look back. Looking back got you dead.

  Sprint. Find reflection. Jump.

  He leaped into the chrome bumper of a fleeing hover-car, riding its reflection for a precious 150 feet before the vehicle's emergency protocols kicked in. The surface went matte black. Its stealth mode activating.

  Cole materialized mid-air, hit the ground rolling. Already looking for the next jump.

  Through fleeting windows, puddles, discarded bottles, he caught fragmented glimpses of gods at war.

  In a skyscraper's rain-slicked facade, he saw the source of the silence: a figure standing in what used to be an intersection. The Absence Walker didn't look like much, a woman in torn tactical gear that might have been Nexus Dynamics security armor before reality started rejecting it.

  But her shadow…

  Her shadow stood up like shadows absolutely shouldn't—like someone's fever dream had gotten bored of being 2D and decided to try sculpting. It was the absence of light itself. The Nullform grabbed a chunk of street, asphalt, pipes, a section of mag-rail, and hurled it at a building. The projectile made no sound, but Cole saw windows shatter in perfect silence, a mute cascade of glass raining down.

  His next jump took him through a storefront window: JOHN'S CYBERNETICS: UPGRADES WHILE YOU WAIT, abandoned in the evacuation. Through the shop's large display windows and wall of security monitors, he saw Rune Control's response.

  Two figures descended from the ship. The first was massive, seven feet of void-black armor that carried the crushing weight of a starless night. The air around him bent, reality straining to contain something that violated physics. Sequence Three Vacuum Saint of the Void Domain: walking deletion, made flesh.

  The second figure dissolved mid-descent, becoming a cloud of chrome death. They were something between organic and digital, each mote a fragment of distributed consciousness. Sequence Four Swarm Shepherd of the Hive Domain: a million minds thinking as one gestalt.

  Then the pressure hit.

  [ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD DETECTED]

  [SUPPRESSION FIELD ACTIVE - SOURCE: VACUUM SAINT]

  [MOVEMENT SPEED: -75%]

  Cole's next jump failed, the suppression field keeping him in place. His legs buckled as gravity tripled, quadrupled. His chrome spine screamed warnings as its servos strained. Every breath became labor.

  He was an ant caught in amber, watching titans clash overhead.

  The Swarm Shepherd's cloud expanded into a dome over six city blocks, each nanite a tiny blade spinning at supersonic speeds. It should have been a death cage for anything inside.

  The Absence Walker's shadow-self grew, stretching impossibly tall, becoming a fifty-foot scythe of solid nothing. It swung in perfect silence, and where the blade passed, the nanite dome ceased. A perfect arc of nonexistence carved through the swarm. But where she deleted things, dark energy gathered, power drawn from the negative space itself. The shadow grew larger with each erasure, feeding on absence.

  Through the shop's external security camera feed, Cole saw the Vacuum Saint raise one armored hand.

  There was no dramatic gesture, no gathering of power. Reality simply… agreed to be edited.

  A perfect sphere of nothing appeared, expanding through the Hakata Residential Complex. Where six floors of hab-units had been, now there was a smooth, spherical absence. Cole could see straight through to the storm clouds beyond. No debris, no dust, no screams.

  Just gone.

  The neighboring Nexus Dynamics tower shimmered, its corporate-grade reality anchors flaring gold as they fought to maintain structural integrity. The building held, but Cole imagined the energy bill; somewhere, a small fusion reactor just burned out, keeping those shields active.

  The Absence Walker did something unthinkable. She stepped into the sphere of deletion the Vacuum Saint had created, vanishing completely. For a moment, Cole thought she had been destroyed.

  Then she emerged from another hole, one Cole hadn't seen created, three blocks away. She had traveled through deleted space, using absence itself as a domain.

  "Poor Sonya," a voice said beside him.

  Cole nearly jumped out of his skin. An old man sat on the shop's counter, eating noodles from a cup, watching the battle through the window like it was afternoon entertainment. His eyes were completely chrome, but outdated models, the kind from thirty years ago.

  "You can talk? And move around?" Cole gasped. "The suppression field…"

  "Inside the shop's sound-dampening field, yeah," the old man slurped his noodles. "As for the field? I’m retired, not weak. Perks of being an old Void Domain." He gestured at the chaos. "Though we're both probably getting cancer from the reality distortion. You new to Domain life?"

  "First day," Cole admitted, still trying to process the guy's casual attitude. He was treating divine combat like a cheap sports event he had no money on.

  "Figures. First-timers always watch the gods fight. Bad habit." The old man pointed with his chopsticks. "That's Sonya Chen. Used to run security for Nexus Dynamics' monster containment division. Best in the business."

  "What happened to her?"

  "Same thing that happens to everyone who tries to skip steps. She absorbed two Sequence Four monster cores while her own Sequence Five core was only at 87% purification, trying to force her way to Sequence Four. Company needed someone who could protect their assets solo. But jumping Sequences before you're ready?" He shook his head. "You can't pour new power into an unstable soul. The corruption spreads through every augmentation, every neural pathway. Morning prayers can only clean so much. Three weeks ago, she snapped during a containment breach. Deleted half her own security team before disappearing."

  "She's not fighting them," Cole realized, watching her shadow lash out randomly. "She's just… lost."

  "Lost in her own power. Probably thinks she's still fighting monsters, protecting the company. The mind breaks before the body does at that Sequence."

  The battle outside intensified. The Swarm Shepherd had reconstituted into something massive, a giant made of shifting chrome, each movement perfectly coordinated across a million bodies. It reached for the Absence Walker with hands that could crush buildings.

  Sonya's response was to begin deleting parts of herself, her form flickering between existence and void. Each deletion pulled more energy from negative space, her shadow growing more solid, more real than her actual body. She was becoming the absence itself.

  "This happen often?" Cole asked.

  "At this Sequence? Not particularly—at this point, most have enough sense not to push this fast. Luckily, the city has contingencies." The old man finished his noodles. "Watch, this is where it ends."

  The Vacuum Saint hadn't moved during the entire battle. Now, he brought both hands together, and the world went dead still.

  A sphere of absolute void expanded from the Saint's position. This erasure was quieter, more thorough than the violence that preceded it. It grew slowly, peacefully, and where it touched, things simply weren't anymore.

  Sonya seemed to see it coming. For just a moment, her shadow stopped thrashing. Cole caught a glimpse of her face through a reflection: human, terrified, aware of what she'd become.

  She raised both hands, pulling all the negative energy she'd gathered into herself. The darkness condensed, compressed, became something beyond negation.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Then she screamed—Cole couldn't hear it, but he felt it in his bones—and released everything skyward. A beam of pure negative energy erupted toward the overcast sky, a column of absolute void that devoured the daylight. This hungry patch of star-filled night sky tore a hole through the middle of the day, which immediately began healing itself.

  "There's your lesson, kid," the old man said, standing and tossing his empty cup in a recycler. "Sonya was one of the best. Professional monster hunter, tactical genius, had everything Nexus Dynamics could provide. Still… lost herself."

  "How do you—how does anyone survive this?"

  "Everyone thinks they can chase power carefully, that they'll be the one to keep their head. Sanity isn't a guarantee. It's a resource. And you burn through it fast on the climb." He shook his head. "You want my real advice? Stay a Six. Maybe push for Five if you've got a good crew and a strong stomach. Live a long, boring life. It's the only smart move in this game."

  "The moment you start thinking that's not enough, that you need to go higher, faster?" He gestured at the smooth crater outside where Sonya had been. "That's your future."

  "And even that's no guarantee," he added, his voice low. "I've seen careful hunters snap just like the climbers. In this city, you only get two endings." He pointed a thumb at the crater. "You're either the one in the hole, or you're the one holding the shovel. That's it."

  "After seeing that… I can't stay weak. I can't be someone who gets wiped from existence in the blink of an eye." Cole’s voice hardened. "I need to become strong enough that I'm not just collateral damage in someone else's breakdown."

  The old man studied him for a long moment. "That's what they all think, at first," he said, his voice devoid of hope. "That power will keep them safe."

  "Maybe. But the alternative is waiting to die." Cole met his gaze. "At least if I'm climbing, I'm doing something."

  The old man walked to the door, paused. "Well, then, welcome to the Domain life, kid. Try not to become a statistic."

  Ten minutes of watching cleanup crews work. Sweep the bodies. Stabilize reality. Pretend hundreds hadn't just been deleted. As if Sonya Chen hadn't been a person with a name, a job, probably a family. Just another day in Forge City.

  He looked at his silver-blue rune, the mark of his ascension. Hours ago, it had been his greatest achievement.

  Now he understood the truth. He wasn't a warrior who'd claimed power. He was a firefly celebrating its new light while dragons flew overhead, wondering if he'd make a good snack or was too small to bother eating. He had won his recent bounty through a desperate trick and a lot of luck. Against a true professional, against someone like that silent, void-black Enforcer—he wouldn't have lasted ten seconds. His gear was trash; his powers were unstable.

  That had to change.

  He pushed himself to his feet, his boots crunching on the shattered glass of the shop's window, and walked back out into the street. The scene was a mess of emergency crews and people frantically searching for loved ones lost in the carnage. On the concrete, silhouettes of pure shadow were burned into the ground where bodies should have been. His focus had narrowed to a single, burning point: survival, on his own terms.

  He hopped back on his motorcycle, the engine's roar a familiar comfort. The bike's haptic feedback system purred to life, syncing with his neural implants to display navigation overlays directly in his vision. He pulled out of the area, getting on his Neuro-Link and pinging the only contact he knew he could trust with this.

  "How is it going? Second day treating you well?" Kai asked, his voice laced with weary amusement.

  "It's been an interesting day," Cole said, getting straight to the point. "Hey, I came across a weapon of the Flesh Domain, Sequence Five, I think. I need to sell it, but only to someone who won't turn around and give it to the next idiot with enough credits."

  Kai let out a low whistle. "A living weapon? Do you have any idea what kind of heat you're holding? The Directorate executes people for trafficking that shit. Where the hell did you score a piece like that?"

  "From some idiot non-Domain bounty who tried wielding it. Guy named Jack Stevens. The weapon was eating him alive, literally. Had to put him down before it consumed him completely." Cole replied.

  Kai was silent for a moment, then a chuckle rumbled over the comm. "Alright, you've got principles. That's rare. And stupid. But rare." An impressed eyebrow was practically audible in his voice. "Sending you the coordinates now to a Chrome Doc I know. His name is Albert. Good guy. Ex-military surgeon. Did three tours in the third Rift War. He knows the value of keeping dangerous things out of the wrong hands."

  "Thanks, I appreciate it."

  "My pleasure. And Cole? Stay safe out there," Kai said, his tone softening for a second before the line went dead.

  On his Neuro-Link, Cole saw the message with the coordinates attached and headed that way, weaving through the dense traffic of the city's lower tiers. Hover-cars glided overhead on designated mag-lanes while ground traffic, bound to the scarred asphalt, crawled through streets thick with steam from the underground thermal plants.

  He eventually arrived at an inconspicuous shop tucked between a burger shop and a synth-parts recycler. The sign just read 'Albert's Augments & Upgrades.' No holo-displays, no flashing neon, the kind of place that survived on reputation rather than advertising. The man behind the counter was over six feet tall, longish black hair that spiked up, with teal-green eyes and a muscular build. He looked about early 30s, but who knew, these days, with synth-skin that could make you look any age. He was meticulously cleaning a laser scalpel with a tiny pick, his movements precise and economical.

  "Albert?" Cole said, placing the twitching, corrupted weapon on the counter with a wet slap. The flesh weapon was still trying to bond with something, tiny tendrils reaching out before recoiling from the sterile metal surface. "Kai sent me. I heard you were someone I could sell this to."

  The man raised his eyebrows, his chrome hands examining the weapon without touching it, his expression a mix of curiosity and disgust. "Sequence Five Chimera corruption. Neural bonding filaments still active." He looked up at Cole. "You must be Cole. Call me 'Al.' And 'sell'? Kid, something this hot, you mean 'trade,' right? Credits leave a data trail."

  "No, I mean sell." Cole's jaw was set.

  Al’s gaze flicked up to meet his. "Those eyes of yours, I can spot them from a mile away. BioSight Mark IIs, right?..."

  "And?"

  Al let out a low chuckle, putting down his tools and picking up a half-smoked cigarette from an ashtray shaped like a human skull, real bone by the look of it, and took a long inhale before breathing out a cloud of grey smoke. "And you need to do better research. You're of the Lucent Domain, aren't you? Been using your power much?"

  "Quite a fair bit, actually." Cole admitted.

  "Well, you're lucky. With those bargain-bin eyes, their refresh rate is probably so slow you're getting sensory tearing and ghost images every time you jump. I'm guessing you're seeing about a dozen different versions of yourself right now, half of them delayed by microseconds?"

  Cole blinked in surprise. "How did you—"

  "Because I've replaced three sets of eyes this month for new Lucent’s. You're all making the same mistake." Al continued, "They're burning out your optical nerve. You will definitely lose sight in them if you don't rematerialize inside a wall first. I recommend the Zyntech 10-20 Prism Optics."

  Eyeing the price tag on a display case, Cole looked at another pair, a bit cheaper. "Why not the Vertex 540?"

  Al looked at him. "They're not bad, but the Zyntech are specifically designed for high-end refraction abilities. They'll drastically reduce those kaleidoscope issues I’m sure you're having. Plus, they're modular. Future upgrades are a matter of switching out parts, not a full re-install. The Vertex? You'll be back here in eight months when they burn out, paying for another surgery. The Zyntechs will last you to Sequence Three, minimum."

  Cole looked at him for a second, wondering if he was getting swindled.

  But Kai sent me here, he thought to himself.

  Cole decided to trust Al. "Anything else you'd recommend?"

  A smile came across Al's face. "Smart. Most guys would be giving me the middle finger by now. Let me guess, you just saw what Sequence Fours can do, didn't you? That Absence Walker situation?"

  "How did you know about that?"

  "Half the city felt that reality distortion. Plus, you've got that thousand-yard stare every newbie gets after seeing their first god-fight." Al pulled out a tablet, swiping through inventory.

  "These aren't life-savers like the optics, but if you want to be a step ahead in the game, they're essential. This Orion Fracture Core is a chest implant that splits your divine energy into multiple frequencies to sustain your shards longer. Right now, you probably can't maintain your shatter for more than, what, thirty seconds? This'll triple that. And these Zeta Reflection Array nodes are micro-panels I can implant along your skin that will help you sync with and draw power from nearby reflective surfaces. Think of them as signal boosters for your Domain."

  "And then," Al said, his voice dropping as he reached under the counter, pulling out a reinforced case that required his thumbprint and retinal scan to open, "there's the main event."

  He placed a matched pair of shortswords on the counter. Cole glanced at the paired swords, made from crystallized monster-eye lenses with chrome-circuit inlays.

  Al continued, his voice filled with reverence. "The blades are semi-transparent and prismatic, creating rainbow light trails when swung. Each strike leaves brief 'afterimages' in the air that can become solid for a split second. You can throw one blade and have it emerge from any nearby reflection. Stab them into surfaces, and they turn that area into a temporary mirror gate. They can even 'record' an attack pattern and replay it as a series of mirror echoes. Made from a Dimensional Horror’s eyes— Sequence Four monster that could exist in multiple dimensions simultaneously. Took a full team of Sequence Fives to bring it down."

  "They're called the Twin Fractal Blades." Al continued, "Previous owner was a Sequence Four Perception Terrorist who… well, let's just say she won't be needing them anymore."

  Cole let out an appreciative whistle, his eyes tracing the intricate geometry of the crystals. When he looked at them from different angles, he could swear he saw different versions of himself reflected, each one wielding the blades differently.

  "What I brought in enough to cover all of this? My cash flow isn't exactly heavy at the moment."

  Al let out a laugh. "The Flesh weapon will cover the implants, sure. I know a Forge Path user who needs it for research—trying to create antibodies for corruption. Legal, technically. But the blades? You're about 40,000 credits short."

  Cole let out a low groan. "I got a big job coming up. I can put up my motorcycle as collateral. It’s older, but to a collector it’s worth about 15,000 credits."

  Al looked at Cole, then glanced through the window at the vintage bike outside. "That's a Tsunami X90. Pre-war, combustion engine. They don't make those anymore." He was quiet for a long moment, then sighed. "I really need to stop helping out strays Kai sends my way. But at least you're a decent stray. He told me you asked for someone who would make sure this weapon ended up in the right hands. That shows character. Plus, you didn't try to haggle or bullshit me about what you're carrying. I respect that."

  Al stubbed out his cigarette. "Your lack of a shitty attitude sold me. So sure, kid. But here's the deal, you miss a payment, I don't come for the bike. I come for the implants. While you're wearing them. We clear?"

  "Crystal," Cole replied.

  "Good. Now, fair warning, this is going to hurt. The eyes are the worst part. I'll need to disconnect your current optics while you're conscious to make sure the neural pathways sync properly with your Domain."

  "How bad are we talking?"

  "Ever had your brain interpret every color as pain? That kind of bad." Al gestured to the surgical chair, its chrome surface reflecting a dozen anxious versions of Cole.

  "Hop on. Let's get you upgraded. Oh, and kid? You might want to bite down on something. The anesthetic doesn't work on Domains like it should. Something about divine interference with the nervous system."

  Cole settled into the chair, watching Al prep his tools, each one gleaming with the kind of care only ex-military showed their equipment. "Any advice for someone just starting out?"

  Al paused, considering. "Yeah. Don't chase Sequences. I've installed augments in too many kids who thought hitting Sequence Five would solve their problems. All it did was make them bigger targets with prettier corpses."

  The surgical arms descended from the ceiling, their needles gleaming with bio-compatible chrome.

  "Now," Al said, his voice shifting to clinical professionalism, "let's make sure you survive long enough to pay me back."