Chapter 66 – Calculated Extinction
Sparks danced around Specter's broken body, his armor hissing and releasing vapor from internal damage. The once-untouchable assassin was kneeling—phasing in and out uncontrollably.
Kael-X stood still, eyes glowing like twin suns buried in obsidian. His breath came slow. Controlled.
The four shadow beasts circled like predators.
Nyx, low and silent.
Oblivion, tall and menacing.
Umbra, shifting forms like liquid void.
And Veyron, floating calmly, arms crossed, eyes aglow with swirling purple runes.
"The tide turns, as even ghosts fear the dark," Veyron said, voice ringing in Kael-X's head like the whisper of an ancient storm.
Specter stood, staggering. His visor was cracked.
"You are... the anomaly," he said. "Your existence distorts patterns. My calculations… have failed."
Kael-X gave a dry chuckle. "I'm not here to fit into anyone's patterns."
Specter's core began to pulse violently. A loud warning beeped from his chestplate.
He was charging something.
"Self-destruct protocol," Veyron stated, "Though I suspect it's more than a simple explosion. He's trying to take you with him to the void between dimensions."
Kael-X's eyes narrowed. "Then we'll send him there first."
Veyron raised one arm, speaking in riddled tongues. Arcane symbols spun around his fingers.
"From the edge of thought, from the silence of the abyss… we unmake what should not be."
A portal split open above Specter.
A massive eye—unblinking, emotionless—glared down from beyond reality.
Oblivion roared, a sound that fractured the very air, and lunged.
Specter tried to phase—
Nyx locked him in a stasis field.
He tried to fire a last energy burst—
Umbra swallowed the shot with its shifting body.
And then—
Veyron's magic descended like a guillotine of silence.
The ground cracked. Reality folded inward.
Specter screamed, not in fear—but in disbelief.
BOOM.
He was gone.
Swallowed into nothing.
Silence followed.
Kael-X exhaled deeply. "Was that… finally it?"
"For now," Nyx replied, its voice like the wind through ancient ruins.
"They will come in numbers next time," Umbra warned.
Veyron smirked, hovering beside Kael. "And we shall teach them that numbers mean nothing… to shadows that think."
Kael-X looked to the distant horizon. The battle was over.
But the war had just begun.
Continued — Chapter 66: Calculated Extinction
Kael-X stood in the debris, chest rising and falling slowly as silence returned. The cityscape around them was shattered, buildings either caved in or hollowed by the aftershocks of power. His shadow beasts circled back to him, one by one.
"That was no ordinary assassin," Umbra murmured, folding into Kael-X's shadow. "He was a fragment of something… greater."
Kael-X's eyes flicked upward, scanning the skies. "Then the real monster hasn't shown up yet."
Veyron floated around, fingers tracing glyphs in the air that vanished the moment they formed. "Fragments, pieces, scattered chessmen… someone out there is playing the long game. Specter wasn't just a piece. He was a message."
Kael-X clenched his fists, blood still dripping from his side. The sniper's bullet had grazed him earlier—he could still feel the heat burning in his veins. That wasn't just technology. It was engineered. Personal.
"It's not over," Nyx spoke calmly. "They are testing you. Watching. Preparing."
"Let them," Kael-X muttered. "Let them watch me burn down their plans one by one."
Oblivion grunted in approval, its massive form towering behind him. Its dark tendrils coiled inward as if preparing for another battle.
Suddenly, a strange vibration passed through the ground.
Kael-X's instincts flared. "Everyone—scatter!"
The beasts vanished into shadow as a colossal pulse of energy erupted from underground. A dimensional rift cracked open a few meters ahead. The sky dimmed, turning purple and green.
From the rift… a voice came. Metallic, ancient, and commanding.
"He has awakened too early. The 'Fourth Cipher' should not yet walk. Terminate the Echo."
Kael-X flinched. "Echo?"
Veyron's eyes darkened. "They're referring to you, Kael-X. You are the Echo… of something ancient."
Kael-X took a step forward, his boots crunching glass. "Then let them hear the sound of their own end."
Without warning, a humanoid figure began to emerge from the rift, its body layered in chrome and violet crystals, eyes glowing with linear codes.
Veyron grinned as magic circled his hands. "Ready for round two?"
Kael-X wiped blood from his mouth. "No… this is a new war."
The rift widened. Thunder cracked.
Continued — Chapter 66: Calculated Extinction (Part 2)
The being fully emerged from the rift.
Towering.
Silent.
Its body shimmered like it was half-code, half-flesh—a hybrid construct of cybernetics and void matter. Its face was a smooth obsidian mask, no mouth, only a single vertical slit for an eye that glowed crimson. All around its presence, reality seemed to flicker, glitching in small distortions.
Kael-X's eyes narrowed. "Another trick of Zypheron?"
Veyron floated beside him, arms crossed. "No… this one doesn't belong to them. This is beyond Zypheron-5. This thing is… a Collector."
"A Collector of what?" Umbra's voice was a mere ripple in Kael-X's shadow.
"Futures," Veyron whispered, "It erases anomalies that disturb the timeline. You, Kael-X, are one such anomaly."
The Collector raised a hand, and the earth froze. Not literally—but everything stilled. The air stopped moving. The dust hung suspended. Even Kael-X's breath slowed. Time itself stuttered.
Kael-X forced his legs to move. "You want to erase me? You'll have to dig through a graveyard of your kind first."
"How dramatic," Veyron said, a grin in his tone. "Very Echo-like."
Oblivion surged forward, dark energy bursting around its form. "Let me crush the future-taker."
But the Collector simply blinked—and Oblivion was launched back, skidding across broken concrete and shattering a wall.
Kael-X didn't wait. He dashed forward, body flickering from Compound-X boosts, a trail of afterimages forming behind him. He swung—his blade laced with shadow essence—but the Collector caught it with a single hand.
Kael-X's eyes widened.
Veyron raised both hands, and the sky twisted. Reality bent, forming runic symbols that rained down void magic in torrents. "You're not the only one who can bend time, Collector."
The Collector's head turned slightly. A pulse of anti-magic flared—and half of Veyron's attack disintegrated mid-air.
"Oh," Veyron muttered, "this one's a problem."
Umbra shot out, tendrils striking from underground like shadow serpents, latching onto the Collector's limbs. At the same time, Nyx stepped from a veil of mist behind the being, slashing at its spine.
The Collector winced, barely.
Kael-X took the opening.
He struck.
A full-force slash with all four beasts aiding his momentum, and—
BOOM!
The shockwave shattered what remained of the nearby skyscraper.
But when the smoke cleared…
The Collector still stood.
Slightly scratched.
Its red eye glowed brighter.
Kael-X staggered. Blood dripped from his mouth again. "How… strong is this thing?"
Veyron landed beside him, panting. "This wasn't meant to be a fight… it's a warning."
Kael-X clenched his jaw. "Then let me send a message back."
He raised his hand—called his beasts close. Umbra. Nyx. Veyron. Oblivion.
Their auras merged, swirling dark energy forming a single, massive vortex around Kael-X.
His eyes glowed black with red lightning.
"I am not an Echo," he growled. "I am the glitch in your system. And I won't be deleted."
Next: Chapter 67 – Codebreakers
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