My condition hung in the tense air of the Undercroft, a clear and simple line drawn in the dust. Anya first. Everything else second. Seraph's two guards shifted their weight, their featureless visors betraying nothing, but I could feel their sudden focus on me. I had given their leader an ultimatum. It was a bold, perhaps foolish, move.
Seraph did not hesitate. Her serene expression did not change. She simply nodded. "A leader who protects his own," she said, her melodic voice echoing slightly in the vast cavern. "It is a respectable quality. Caden would have liked you."
Her immediate agreement was a relief so profound it almost made my knees weak. Maybe, just maybe, this was real.
"Very well," she continued. "The Idealists will honor your condition." She raised her arm, and a holographic display projected from a device on her wrist. It showed a detailed tactical map of the 'Decommissioned Med-Bay Lethe' and a countdown timer for the next scheduled match there. "This is everything our intelligence has gathered. Entry points, patrol routes of the Cleaner drones, and the exact time the System Sterilization protocol will activate. We will help you get into the match when the time comes."
She transferred the data to my HUD. I had it. A concrete plan. A path to healing Anya. Our tentative, dangerous alliance was forged.
Just as I was processing this victory, a familiar, grating sound echoed from the shadows. The clicking of a metal staff. Glitch hobbled out from behind a massive server rack, his red optic eyes glowing. He had been watching the entire exchange, a silent, mechanical predator observing from the periphery.
"Alliances. Factions. Politics," he rasped, his voice dripping with cynical amusement. "It complicates my business."
He stopped in front of me, ignoring Seraph and her guards completely. His red eyes scanned the new, legendary Ouroboros chest piece I wore, and I knew his gaze lingered on the Prototype Weapon Core icon in my inventory. "The deal," he said, his voice a low growl, "was seventy percent."
He held out his clawed, metallic hand. "You had a successful hunt. Now, pay the taxman."
I was caught. The Prototype Core was not loot. It was a quest item, the key to the next step of the Exile's Path. I could not give it to him. But a deal was a deal. My sanctuary here, my access to his spoofer, it all depended on keeping this dangerous scavenger happy. If I refused, he would cast us out, and we would be completely alone, hunted by both Ouroboros's Dominion faction and the System itself.
Anya tensed beside me, ready to argue, but I put a hand on her shoulder. I had to handle this carefully.
"The Core is not loot," I said to Glitch, my voice calm and even. "It's a key. It has no value to you. It is only valuable to me for my mission."
Glitch's clawed hand did not move. "Value is what I decide it is," he hissed. "The deal was seventy percent of the winnings."
"And I will honor that deal," I said. I had a different kind of payment in mind. "I cannot give you the Core. But I can give you something far more valuable to a man like you."
I opened my HUD and brought up a new trade window. I did not select an item. I selected a data file. During the Hades Forge tournament, I had been recording. My HUD logged every moment of the fight, every enemy movement, every shot fired. And most importantly, I had a complete performance record of the System's new favorite pet.
I created a new file: [Combat Data: Unit 734 - Performance Analytics & Weakness Profile].
"I can't give you the prize," I said to Glitch. "But I can give you the data on how to beat the system's new champion. His reaction times. His movement patterns. The moment his sensors were blinded by the heat. The way his programming failed to account for the glitched press. This is a complete breakdown of a System Enforcer. How much is that worth to you, Glitch? How many high-tier players would pay you for a guide on how to kill a perfect aimbot?"
Glitch went completely still. His red eyes stared at the data file icon. I could almost hear the gears turning in his head, calculating the immense value of what I was offering. This was not just a piece of gear he could use. This was information. A product he could sell over and over again to every ambitious player in the Undercroft.
"Data on the Warden's new pet..." Glitch mused, his voice losing its hostile edge. He looked from the data file, to me, and back again. "Clever. Very clever." He finally lowered his hand. "Yes," he rasped. "This is an acceptable payment."
He accepted the trade. The data file transferred from my HUD to his private systems. I had maintained our sanctuary. I had proven that I was a clever negotiator, not just another fighter to be bullied.
With my business with Glitch concluded, I turned to the final piece of the puzzle. I walked over to the Oracle, who had been watching the proceedings with a quiet, knowing amusement. I materialized the [Prototype Weapon Core] and presented it to her.
The Oracle examined the pulsating sphere of energy. "Yes," she said, nodding her ancient head. "This is the second key. The power source. But it is useless on its own. A bomb without a trigger. A battery without a device. You are still missing the final component."
She tapped a command into her own terminal, and the decrypted data from the fragment I had given her swirled on the screen. "You need a focusing lens," she explained. "A way to channel the power of this core. According to Caden's final notes, there is only one object in the system that can do it. A [Quantum Crystal Lens]. It was being developed as part of a new weapon system, but the project was abandoned when the System went live. The lens was being transported as cargo on a specific ship."
She brought up a new map on her screen. It was not a standard arena layout. It was a schematic of a massive cargo hauler, adrift in a section of space that was just a black void filled with glitching red lines.
"This is the final trial, Marked Man," the Oracle said, her voice grim. "The ghost ship, The Silent Mary. This is where the lens is."
She looked up at me. "But there is a problem. A big one. The ship is not in a registered game zone. It is adrift in a corrupted, non-standard sector. The System's matchmaking service will never send you there. It is a place that, for all intents and purposes, does not exist in the game."
I stared at the map of the ghost ship. The final piece of the puzzle was in a place we could not reach. It was an impossible, frustrating dead end.
But then Seraph spoke, her calm, melodic voice cutting through my despair. She had been watching, listening to everything.
"The System won't send you there," she said, a confident smile in her voice. "But Ouroboros has its own ships. Its own private way of traveling between the cracks of this world."
She looked at me, her silver eyes gleaming. She had just revealed her true value. Her true power.
"We can take you there," she said. "We can bypass the game's rules entirely."
The offer was staggering. A direct path to the final quest location. But it meant putting our lives, our mission, the fate of the Exile's Path, completely and utterly in her hands. It was the ultimate test of our new, unholy alliance.