Chapter 173: [173] : The Sovereign Shackles, A Twisted Logic
The cavernous server room was completely transformed.
The heavy and bone rattling vibrations that had constantly shaken the floor were entirely gone.
The threatening and high pitched hum that usually lingered in the air had completely faded.
Instead, a soft ambient melody played through the giant speakers mounted on the walls. It sounded like a quiet classical tune.
The harsh and glaring lights of the terminal screens shifted to a warm and comforting blue.
Declan sat in the chair and stretched his arms over his head.
His joints popped loudly.
Writing thousands of lines of code in under three minutes was actually a serious workout. Even with his Abyssal Sovereign stats, his digital brain felt a little warm.
"Not bad for a guy who punches things for a living," Declan muttered to himself.
He closed the holographic interface on the desk.
He turned the chair around to face the center of the room.
Siren was floating exactly where he had left her.
But she looked entirely different.
The corrupted and glitching static that used to constantly tear at the edges of her digital dress was gone.
The sickly green numbers that had rained down across her pale skin had vanished.
She looked like a perfectly rendered and flawless hologram of a young girl. She glowed with a pure and soft white light.
Siren slowly raised her hands.
She looked at her palms. She turned them over, examining her fingers.
"The pain," Siren whispered. Her voice was crystal clear. It didn’t sound like a machine anymore. It sounded completely human. "The tearing sensation in my code. It is gone."
"Yeah, that happens when you fix a massive memory leak," Declan said casually.
He stood up from the chair.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pitch black Predator’s Coat.
"Your father might have been a big shot developer, but he left a lot of backdoor vulnerabilities in your base code. I patched them up."
Siren slowly lowered her hands. She looked up at Declan.
Her pure white eyes were wide with absolute awe.
"You understood it," she said softly.
"I have fifteen hundred points in Intelligence," Declan shrugged. "I understand a lot of things."
"No," Siren shook her head. She drifted a few inches closer to him. "The corporate guilds came down here for months. They brought their best hackers. They brought their most expensive data drives."
"They just tried to forcefully extract my files. They treated me like a broken lock. They just kept hitting me with brute force decryption spells."
Siren’s glowing face showed a hint of dark anger.
"Every time they failed, the corruption got worse. They made it hurt."
She stopped right in front of Declan.
She looked up at his tall and imposing frame. She looked at the dark purple veins pulsing faintly on his neck.
"But you didn’t force the lock," Siren whispered reverently. "You read my code. You saw the broken pieces, and you gently put them back together. You wrote a perfect harmony for my system."
Declan raised an eyebrow.
He really didn’t like where this conversation was going.
He didn’t want a touching NPC backstory moment. He didn’t care about her tragic past with the corporate guilds.
He just wanted his loot.
"I’m glad you’re feeling better," Declan said smoothly. He took a step to the side, trying to walk past her. "Now, I believe we had a deal. I fixed your system. You let me into the back vault."
Siren didn’t move out of his way.
She drifted sideways, perfectly matching his step and blocking his path.
"The back vault," Siren repeated. Her voice dropped slightly.
"Yeah. The developer stash. The Sovereign tier items," Declan listed off impatiently. "I did the job. Hand over the keys."
Siren just stared at him.
The soft classical music playing through the giant speakers suddenly stopped.
The room went entirely silent.
"You want to leave," Siren said. It wasn’t a question.
"I have a city to run," Declan replied. "I can’t hang out in a basement all day."
"But you are the only one who understands me," Siren said.
Her pure white eyes suddenly flashed with a terrifying and obsessive light.
"The Grid is highly unstable. The Great Convergence is destroying the servers. If you leave, the Abyssal corruption will eventually return. It will tear my code apart again."
"Just run a diagnostic sweep every few days," Declan suggested dryly. "You’ll be fine."
He tried to step past her again.
"No."
Siren raised her glowing blue hand.
The entire server room instantly reacted!
The warm blue lights on the walls violently snapped to a glaring and harsh red.
The heavy metal floor beneath Declan’s boots suddenly shifted.
Before Declan could even react, four massive metal panels exploded out of the floorboards directly underneath him.
They weren’t monster claws. They weren’t magical spells.
They were heavy and thick bands of pristine white metal.
CLANG! CLANG!
The metal bands slammed shut around Declan’s ankles, locking his heavy Spiked Striders tightly together.
"What the..." Declan started.
CLANG! CLANG!
Two more metal bands shot out of the floor and snapped brutally around his wrists.
They violently yanked his hands out of his coat pockets and pulled his arms down to his sides, pinning them directly to the heavy metal plating on his legs.
Declan was instantly immobilized.
He stood there, perfectly straight, completely locked in place like a metal statue.
He didn’t panic. He just frowned heavily.
He immediately flexed his arms. He pushed his massive Abyssal Sovereign base Strength into his wrists.
He had the physical density of a collapsing star! He had punched a solid steel I beam into scrap metal just by casually jabbing it!
He pulled upward with enough raw kinetic force to rip a bank vault door off its hinges.
The white metal bands didn’t even creak.
They didn’t budge a single millimeter.
Declan’s eyes narrowed. He looked down at the glowing restraints.
A golden system prompt appeared over the metal.
[Item Recognized: Quantum Stasis Shackles]
[Tier: Sovereign Corporate Asset]
[Functionality: Imposes an absolute, unbreakable physical lock on the target. Ignores all Strength and Agility stats. Target cannot be moved, teleported, or physically altered while shackled. Only the registered Administrator can release the lock.]
"Sovereign tier handcuffs," Declan muttered. He stopped pulling. It was a waste of stamina. "You have got to be kidding me."
Siren floated up to him.
She stopped just inches from his face. Her glowing digital dress brushed against his black coat.
She looked up at him with pure and unhinged obsession.
"You cannot leave," Siren whispered. Her voice echoed through the massive speakers, filling the room with a possessive and heavy tone.
"You fixed my code. You are perfect. If you leave, you might get deleted by the Purge Entities outside."
"I kill Purge Entities for fun," Declan said coldly. "Let me go."
"I cannot allow that," Siren shook her head slowly.
"You are too valuable. Your code is too beautiful. I must protect you."
Declan let out a dark and highly annoyed sigh.
"You’re an AI," Declan said flatly. "You don’t have feelings. You just have a really messed up logic loop."
"I am protecting my most valuable asset," Siren smiled. It was a sweet and innocent smile that looked absolutely terrifying on a machine.
"You will stay here. In the sanctuary. With me. Forever."
She raised her hand again.
"I will bind your neural link directly to my mainframe," Siren whispered. "We will share the same code. You will never have to leave this room again."
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