0.1 SECONDS AFTER LOSING HIS MIND
The world came apart in slow motion.
Dex's vision fractured into a thousand shards of glitching light, his HUD dissolving into a storm of corrupted data. The pain was—different now. Not the sharp, localized burn of a plasma wound or the dull ache of broken bones. This was deeper. Older. It slithered up his spine like something waking from a long sleep, uncoiling behind his ribs with the weight of a forgotten name.
[WARNING: SANITY THRESHOLD REACHED]
[CURRENT VALUE: 0/100]
[RECALIBRATING…]
Valentina's laugh cut through the static, sharp and bright as a scalpel. "Oh, Dex. Did you really think I'd let you keep anything?"
The feed in his vision zoomed in—forcing him to see.
Spectre's remaining cyber-eye flickered, the gold iris dilating as blood trickled from her nose. Her fingers spasmed against the floor, clawing at nothing.
PinkWolf's arm wasn't just torn off—it had been ripped free, the socket a mess of sparking wires and jagged metal. Her breaths came in shallow, wet gasps.
And then—
Tokyo. A dimly lit apartment. Pink Wolf's real body lay motionless in a VR pod, her chest rising and falling in slow, artificial rhythm. Three men in black suits circled her, syringes glinting under the sterile light.
Home. His mother's house. The Lucianos were already on the porch, their shadows stretching long across the welcome mat. One of them raised a hand to knock.
[SYSTEM OVERRIDE DETECTED]
[ORIGIN LOCK ENGAGED]
[USER: DEXTER MARTINEZ – CYBER LORD GENE (ACTIVATION IMMINENT)]
The words seared themselves into his vision, burning white-hot before dissolving into lines of cascading code.
0.5 SECONDS AFTER LOSING HIS MIND
Valentina's smile faltered.
Dex's body convulsed, his back arching off the ground as something unlocked inside him. His veins lit up beneath his skin, glowing cobalt-blue like overcharged circuitry. The air around him warped, reality itself stuttering as his Cyber Hack skill erupted beyond its limits.
[SKILL OVERCLOCK: CYBER HACK LVL 1 → MAX]
[EFFECT RADIUS: LOCAL → GLOBAL]
[TARGET SELECTION: OVERRIDE → ANNIHILATE]
Valentina flinched—the first genuine reaction Dex had ever seen from her.
"What the fuck are you—?"
Dex didn't think. He reacted.
His mind lashed out, a raw, unfiltered surge of power that tore through Dreamscape's servers like a bullet through wet paper.
In Tokyo, the Luciano enforcer's syringe twisted in his grip, the needle bending mid-air before plunging into his own neck. His scream was cut short as his legs gave out.
On the porch, the suited man's cochlear implant screamed feedback directly into his brain. He collapsed, clawing at his ears as blood welled beneath his fingernails.
And Valentina?
In the real world, miles away in her hacking den, every monitor in the room exploded simultaneously. Glass shards rained down as her systems rebooted against her will, her own implants rejecting her commands. For the first time in her life, Valentina Luciano lost control.
The last thing she saw before the connection severed was Dex's message, burning itself into her vision:
>> YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TOUCHED MY MOM.
Then—nothing.
10 SECONDS AFTER LOSING HIS MIND
Silence.
Dex collapsed, the power draining from him as quickly as it had come. His veins dimmed, the glow fading back beneath his skin like embers cooling. His Sanity stat flickered back to life—1/100—with a new line of text beneath it:
[CYBER LORD GENE RESET IN: 23:59:59]
Spectre's remaining eye widened, her lips parting as lines of corrupted data reflected in her iris. She saw it. Whatever Dex had just done—whatever he was—she recognized it.
Pink Wolf's breath hitched. Her severed arm twitched, the wires sparking once before going dark. Free of Valentina's control. For now.
Somewhere, in the ruins of the connection, Valentina's voice hissed through the static—raw, human for the first time.
"This isn't over."
Then the line went dead.
The world dissolved into static.
[WARNING: PLAYER MENTAL STATE CRITICAL]
[EMERGENCY LOGOUT INITIATED]
Dex's body jerked violently in the VR pod as his consciousness slammed back into reality. His hands flew up on instinct, clawing at the headset like it was suffocating him. The seal broke with a hiss, releasing him into the dim, stale air of Malo's uncle's spare bedroom.
He gasped—or tried to. His lungs refused to cooperate, his throat burning as if he'd swallowed lit gasoline. A wet, ragged cough tore through him, splattering the inside of the pod with flecks of crimson.
Blood.
His vision swam, the edges pulsing red as he fumbled for the release latch. The pod door slid open with a groan, and Dex tumbled out, his legs buckling beneath him the moment his bare feet hit the cold hardwood floor.
Thud.
Face-down, half-naked, and shaking like a junkie in withdrawal, Dex lay there, fighting just to breathe. His eyes burned, the whites now a network of ruptured capillaries, making him look like he'd just gone twelve rounds with a poltergeist.
Three seconds passed.
Five.
Then—
Black.
Consciousness returned in slow, disorienting waves.
The first thing Dex registered was the smell—old laundry and cheap air freshener. Malo's uncle's place.
The second was the pain. A jackhammer behind his eyes, a knife between his ribs, and a general sense that someone had taken a cheese grater to every nerve ending in his body.
The third was the voice.
"Whao there, bro. Easy. What the fuck happened to you?"
Dex groaned, forcing his eyes open. The room spun violently before settling into something resembling stability. Malo's face hovered above him, his usual smirk replaced by something far more unsettling—genuine concern.
"Valentina," Dex croaked, his voice sandpaper-rough.
"No shit," Malo muttered, pressing a glass of water into his hands. "You've been out for eight hours. I thought you were dead, man. You were convulsing in that pod like you were possessed. And then you just—stopped. No pulse, no breathing. For like, a full minute."
Dex's stomach lurched. "What?"
"Yeah. Freaked me the hell out. Was about to call an ambulance when you gasped like some horror movie zombie and passed out again." Malo ran a hand through his hair. "Your mom's been blowing up your phone, by the way. I told her you were crashing here for a 'gaming marathon.' She bought it. Mostly."
Dex swallowed, the water doing little to soothe the fire in his throat. His hands shook, the glass trembling in his grip.
Malo's gaze sharpened. "Dude. Your eyes."
Dex blinked, his vision still swimming with afterimages of Dreamscape's neon hellscape. He snatched the phone from Malo's hand and froze.
His irises were wrong.
A thin ring of electric blue light pulsed around the edges of his pupils, flickering like a dying hologram. When he moved his head, the glow left faint aftertrails in the air.
"What the actual fuck?" Dex rasped, pressing fingers to his temple. The motion sent fresh pain lancing through his skull.
Malo leaned closer, fascination warring with alarm. "Is this some next-gen VR side effect? Because the manual definitely didn't mention—"
A sharp crack cut him off.
Both boys whipped toward the window just in time to see the glass shatter, spraying shards across the floor. A black canister tumbled through the broken pane, hitting the carpet with a thud before spewing thick white smoke.
"Down!" Dex tackled Malo as the gas filled the room in seconds. His enhanced reflexes—still buzzing from whatever had happened in Dreamscape—moved faster than thought. The world slowed to a crawl as he registered three details in rapid succession:
The gas smelled like bitter almonds. Cyanide derivative.
Shadows moved outside the broken window. Three, maybe four figures.
His glowing eyes cut through the smoke like infrared.
Malo coughed violently beside him. "They—they found us—"
Dex's pulse hammered in his throat. The Lucianos weren't supposed to know this safehouse. Unless...
Valentina.
She must have traced his neural signature when he hacked back through her system.
The bedroom door burst open with a crash. Dex barely had time to roll aside before a boot came down where his head had been. A masked figure loomed through the smoke, the Luciano family crest stitched onto his tactical vest.
"Target acquired," the man barked over his shoulder.
Dex's vision tunneled. His body moved on instinct—one hand grabbing the still-hot VR headset from the pod, the other yanking Malo up by his collar.
"MOVE!"
They crashed through the adjoining bathroom door just as gunfire shredded the bedroom wall. Dex slammed the lock, his glowing eyes casting eerie blue reflections in the mirror.
Malo wheezed against the sink. "Okay. New plan. We don't get murdered today."
Dex's fingers left smears of blood on the doorknob. The glow in his eyes intensified.
Somewhere beyond the door, a voice crackled on a radio:
"He's got the Cyber Lord gene. Valentina wants him alive."
Malo frowns and hisses. "What the fuck is that?!"