Chapter 60: The Hostage Server
The glass doors of the massive blue elevator shattered completely as Belida kicked them outward. The giant knight stepped out first, his black greatsword raised defensively. Kanos followed slowly, walking past the broken glass. His boots clicked against an invisible floor.
They were no longer in a building. The eighth floor did not have walls, a ceiling, or a floor. It was an endless, incredibly vast void completely filled with floating streams of glowing blue and gold text. Millions of data lines flowed silently through the dark air like rivers of pure light.
Right in the dead center of this endless void floated the Yomalvara Core. It was a gargantuan, highly complex crystal structure shaped exactly like an inverted pyramid. Thick cables of light connected the pyramid to the surrounding void, pulsing rhythmically like a massive, mechanical heart.
The remaining eighty Null Hounds spread out defensively around Kanos. The beasts growled aggressively, their anti magic auras aggressively fighting back the suffocating pressure of raw data filling the void.
A bright golden light suddenly flashed right in front of the inverted pyramid. The light rapidly condensed, forming the projection of an impossibly tall, perfectly proportional human figure. The entity had long glowing white hair and wore a simple golden robe. It radiated an aura of absolute authority.
"Kanos," the entity spoke. Its voice was not loud, but it echoed directly inside their minds, bypassing their ears entirely. "I am the Architect. You have gone far enough. Your unauthorized edits have caused a 43 percent drop in lower district server stability."
Sili dropped his leather bag. The skinny broker fell to his knees, completely overwhelmed by the sheer presence of the system’s creator. Papuyu stared at the entity with empty eyes, her hands trembling slightly as she gripping her daggers. Even Belida took a slow step backward, feeling his heavy shield aura flickering erratically just from standing near the projection.
Kanos did not bow. He did not step back. He simply stared at the Architect with cold, exhausted eyes.
"Your server stability is none of my business," Kanos answered flatly. His raspy voice sounded incredibly weak compared to the booming echo of the entity, but it carried an absolutely unbreakable will. "You threw me to the bottom of the abyss because my class did not fit your neat little spreadsheets. You tried to format me. Now I am here to format you."
The Architect shook its glowing head slowly. "You are dying, Illustrator. Your physical vessel is completely broken. Your mana network is heavily scarred. You have exactly four health points remaining. One wrong step and your existence ends naturally."
The entity raised a glowing hand. A small golden platform materialized right in front of Kanos. On top of the platform sat a highly ornate, glowing silver ring.
"I offer a patch update," the Architect said calmly. "Put on the ring. Your anomaly status will be legally registered. Your body will be completely healed. You will be given a Number Caste title and a permanent residence in the upper city. All hostility will cease immediately."
Belida looked at the glowing ring, then looked at Kanos. The giant knight knew Kanos was practically a walking corpse right now. The offer was a literal lifeline.
Kanos stared at the silver ring. He looked at his own right arm, heavily bandaged and completely paralyzed. He looked at Belida’s body, completely covered in brutal new scars. He looked at Papuyu, who was coughing up blood from internal injuries. He looked at the terrified Sili.
Kanos laughed. It was a very quiet, incredibly cynical laugh.
"You treat my life like a bug fix," Kanos muttered coldly. He raised his uninjured left foot and aggressively kicked the golden platform away. The silver ring fell into the endless void below. "I am an artist. I do not accept cheap revisions from a bad client."
The warm, glowing aura surrounding the Architect instantly vanished. The entity’s face twisted into an expression of pure, unadulterated coldness.
"Negotiations terminated," the Architect stated flatly. "Initiating total area format."
The entire void suddenly flashed blindingly red. Hundreds of thick, highly concentrated erasure beams erupted directly from the inverted pyramid crystal. They shot through the air, completely locking onto Kanos and his crew.
"Defend!" Kanos roared.
The eighty Null Hounds leaped into the air simultaneously. They formed a massive wall of dark violet smoke in front of the group. The red erasure beams slammed into the beasts. The hounds desperately swallowed the destructive code. The sound of static feedback was absolutely deafening. But the attack was way too concentrated.
One by one, the Null Hounds violently exploded into thin air. Their dark violet smoke was entirely overridden by the sheer volume of the core’s formatting wave. The ten remaining Black Golems stepped forward, trying to block the light with their giant stone bodies. The void stone armor melted rapidly, turning into gray ash under the extreme heat of the deletion beams.
Kanos’s army was being wiped out in seconds.
He had no charcoal left. He had no shadow ink left. His right hand was completely useless. The red light was already burning the edges of his gray cloak.
Kanos dropped to his knees. He grabbed a shattered chunk of void stone from a destroyed golem lying on the floor. The sharp stone easily cut his left palm. Kanos squeezed his fist tightly, letting his own warm blood completely coat the sharp piece of anti magic rock.
He dragged his bleeding left hand directly across the invisible floor beneath him. He poured his absolute final drop of life force into his fingers.
He did not draw a weapon. He did not draw a monster. He drew a highly complex, chaotic chain of viral logic loops. He drew a connection line.
"Bind," Kanos whispered with a bloody mouth.
He aggressively slammed the bloody piece of void stone down, perfectly connecting his chaotic viral sketch directly into the glowing blue data stream flowing through the floor toward the central pyramid.
The reaction was instantaneous.
The raw, corrupted anomaly code infused with Kanos’s blood shot through the data stream like lightning. It slammed directly into the base of the inverted pyramid crystal. The massive Yomalvara Core violently shuddered. The pristine blue and gold lights inside the crystal instantly turned a sickly, bruised violet color.
The red erasure beams immediately stopped firing.
The Architect’s projection glitched terribly. Its voice distorted into a chaotic mess of robotic noises. "Warning. Core infection detected. Fatal logic loop establishing."
Kanos collapsed onto his side, panting heavily. He coughed up a terrifying amount of dark blood. His vision was almost completely black. He looked up at the glitching entity with a triumphant, deeply terrifying smile.
"I just linked my corrupted status directly to your main core," Kanos wheezed out. "If I die right now, the fatal error will completely override your entire server. The whole city drops dead with me."
The Architect froze entirely. The system was trapped. It could not delete Kanos without deleting itself. The absolute god of this world was currently being held at gunpoint by a half dead human with a broken arm.
"What are your terms?" the Architect finally asked. Its voice was completely stripped of its previous arrogance.
Kanos closed his heavy eyes. The smile never left his bloody face.
"First," Kanos whispered quietly into the silence of the void. "You are going to open a permanent door to the surface for my crew."
The standoff was completely won. Kanos had just successfully taken the entire world hostage.
