We didn't stay in the open. Anya led the way, her cybernetic leg making a soft, rhythmic humming sound on the stone floor. She knew the Undercroft better than I did. She guided us through a series of twisting, unmarked tunnels to a place she said the Exiles used for practice. It was one of Glitch's hidden corners, a makeshift shooting range.
The space was a long, dark tunnel, wider than the corridors we had just left. At the far end, maybe a hundred meters away, a few rusted metal plates were hung by thick chains from the ceiling. They swayed gently in the damp air. The place smelled of old gunpowder and rust. It was a place for testing weapons, for honing skills. For me, it was a place of judgment.
"Show me," Anya commanded. She was not asking. She was giving an order. Her voice was flat and steady. She was no longer my student. She was my commanding officer.
I felt a hot flush of shame creep up my neck. I was the Marked Man, the MVP, the one who had taken down Viper. Now I was a recruit being tested by his superior. I walked to the firing line, a crack painted on the floor. The Phantom SR-90 felt heavier than ever, a burden in my hands.
I raised the rifle. The motion was clumsy. My arms felt weak. I tried to find the target in my scope. It was a simple, stationary metal plate. An impossible shot for a rookie. An easy shot for the old me. The old me would have put a bullet through the exact center without a second thought.
I held my breath. I focused on the fundamentals Anya had taught me. I tried to recreate the feeling of calm, of control. But there was nothing there. Just a hollow void where my confidence used to be. I squeezed the trigger.
The rifle roared, kicking back hard against my shoulder. The recoil was a shock. It felt wrong, uncontrolled. It threw my aim completely off. I didn't see where the bullet went. It didn't make a sound. It didn't hit the plate. It didn't even hit the stone wall behind the plate. It just vanished into the oppressive darkness of the tunnel. A wasted shot.
I cycled the bolt, my hands fumbling with the simple motion. I fired again.
Miss.
I fired again.
Miss.
My shots were wild. I couldn't control the sway of the scope. The connection between my eye, my hands, and the rifle was completely severed. The pride, the ambition that formed the core of my skill, was gone. I was just a man pulling a trigger, making loud noises in the dark.
"Enough," Anya said. Her voice was sharp. It cut through my pathetic attempt like a knife.
I lowered the rifle. My face was hot with humiliation. I had failed. I had traded our team's greatest weapon for my own peace of mind. I was selfish. I was weak. I looked at the rifle in my hands with a feeling of disgust. It was a master's tool, and I was no longer worthy of it.
Anya stepped up beside me. She took the rifle from my hands. I let it go without resistance.
She was not a sniper. Her skills were for the chaos of close-range combat, for the brutal dance of a shotgun and grenades. But she held the weapon with a steady, practiced grip. She brought it to her shoulder, took a moment to aim, her body perfectly still. She fired.
CLANG!
The sound of the bullet striking the metal plate was loud and clear. It echoed through the long tunnel. It was a definitive, solid hit. It wasn't a perfect bullseye, but it was on target. She cycled the bolt with smooth efficiency and fired again.
CLANG!
Another hit. In the same spot. She was better than me now. A brawler with a shotgun could out-shoot a master sniper. The irony was a knife twisting in my chest. Our roles were now completely, irrevocably reversed. I was the one who needed protecting.
Just then, my HUD flickered. A blue light pulsed in the corner of my vision. It was an incoming priority message. The sender ID was Seraph. Her calm, melodic voice, the voice of the Ouroboros Idealist leader, came through the comms.
"Leo. Anya. Report. The Archivist's lair is a blind spot in my network. Was the procedure a success?"
I opened the channel. I could not lie. She would find out eventually. The battlefield does not allow for lies. "The Ghost is gone, Seraph," I said, my voice hollow and thin.
"Excellent," she replied. I could hear the genuine satisfaction in her voice. "Then the asset is fully operational. This is good timing. My scouts report that the Dominion remnants are gathering their forces. They plan to attack one of our safe houses in District 4. I need my sniper."
A cold silence hung in the air of the shooting range. Anya looked at me, her expression grim. She knew what was coming.
"There was a complication," I said, forcing the words out. Each one felt like swallowing glass. "There was a price. The Archivist took a memory. But it took more than that. It took… the skill attached to it."
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. The silence from Seraph was heavier and more frightening than any angry words. When she finally spoke, all the warmth and grace were gone from her voice. It was cold, sharp, and analytical. It was the voice of a general assessing a broken weapon.
"Explain," she commanded.
"I can't use the sniper rifle anymore," I said, the shame burning me from the inside out. "My skill with it is gone. I can't hit a stationary target."
Another silence. This one was longer. More dangerous. I could almost hear the calculations running in her mind. I could feel her re-evaluating my worth to her cause.
"This is… unfortunate," Seraph said finally. Her choice of a simple, polite word was chilling. "Your unique sniping ability was a cornerstone of our strategy against the Dominion. You are a System Anathema. A powerful piece on the board. But a piece with no attack is just a target. You have become a liability, Leo."
Her words hit me harder than any bullet. A liability. A target. That was all I was to her. Not a partner. Not an ally. An asset that had just lost its value. A tool that had just broken.
"The alliance holds," she said, but her voice was strained, distant. "For now. We still need the Exile's Key. But you need to find a way to be useful again. And you need to do it fast. The game does not wait for broken players to heal."
The channel closed, leaving me in silence once more.
Anya looked at me. There was no pity in her eyes, only a grim understanding of our reality. "She's right," she said, her voice hard but not unkind. "In this world, if you can't fight, you die. We need a new plan."
I was the Marked Man. A System Anathema. Hunted by the game itself. Hunted by what was left of Viper's Ouroboros. And now, I was weak. I was a liability to my only powerful ally. The situation was impossible. It felt like the walls were closing in from all sides.
I thought it couldn't get any worse.
I was wrong.