The weight of Seraph's words pressed down on me like a physical force. A liability. A broken player. She was right. The cold logic of this world was brutal and simple. You are either a weapon or a target. There is nothing in between. I had survived by being smarter, faster, and a better shot than my enemies. My rifle was my shield and my sword. Now, my greatest weapon was useless. My confidence was shattered.
Anya and I stood in the silence of the shooting range. The smell of burnt cordite hung heavy in the air, a scent that used to mean victory but now only smelled of my failure. The two bright, shining marks on the distant metal plate were a testament to her strength. The empty darkness around them was a monument to my weakness.
"What do we do now?" I asked. My voice was quiet, almost a whisper. I felt like a Level 1 player again, lost and terrified in the dusty alleys of Dustgate, armed with nothing but a basic pistol and a universe of fear.
"We adapt," Anya said immediately. Her pragmatism was a rock in the storm of my self-pity. "You lost your primary skill. So we find you a new one. We get you a shotgun, a submachine gun. We train. We fight smarter. You still have your game knowledge. Your mind is the real weapon, Leo. Not the rifle."
Her words were meant to give me hope. They were meant to be a rallying cry. But all I felt was the chilling reality of our situation. Training takes time. The Dominion was already on the move. And the System, the god of this digital hell, was always watching, always waiting for a moment of weakness to exploit. We didn't have time to train. We didn't have a single moment to spare.
Suddenly, a loud, piercing chime echoed through the Undercroft. It was a sound I had never heard before. It was not the sound of a match starting, or a new objective being issued. It was a global, system-wide alert. It was a sound that every single player in the entire game would be hearing at this exact moment.
My HUD lit up, a blood-red notification flashing urgently in the center of my vision. It blocked out everything else.
[SYSTEM-WIDE BOUNTY PROTOCOL INITIATED]
Anya cursed under her breath, her eyes wide. "What is this? I've never seen a Bounty Protocol."
The notification expanded, filling my view with sharp, white text against the red background.
[TARGET DESIGNATION: SYSTEM ANATHEMA - LEO]
My blood ran cold. My heart felt like it stopped. It was a bounty. A public contract. On my head. For everyone to see.
[ISSUING ENTITY: ENFORCER_UNIT_GHOST]
I stared at the name. My breath caught in my throat. Enforcer_Unit_Ghost. The Archivist. The damned, treacherous broker of secrets. It didn't destroy the Ghost. It gave him a body. It gave him a system designation. And now, it had given him a mission.
"No," I whispered. The word was hollow, empty. "It can't be."
The bounty details scrolled down my screen, one horrifying line after another. The rewards were astronomical. They were the kind of prizes that players would kill their own teammates for. Legendary weapon crates. System-level skills I had never even heard of. Enough credits to make a player a king for life. The System wasn't just putting a target on my back. It was painting a giant, glowing bullseye on me and offering the world for my head.
Ouroboros Dominion remnants, independent packs of killers, desperate rookies looking for a shortcut to power… everyone would be coming for me. There would be no more allies of convenience. There would be no more neutral parties. Every player in every match would have one primary objective: kill Leo.
The Archivist didn't just create a new enemy. It turned the entire world against me.
Anya was reading the same alert on her own HUD. Her face was pale. She understood the implications instantly. "The whole game is going to be hunting you, Leo. There's nowhere to hide. Every match will be an ambush."
I was a liability. I was weak. And now I was the most valuable target in the world. It was a death sentence. There was no strategy for this. There was no escape.
Then, a final notification appeared on my screen. It was different. It was smaller, quieter. It wasn't a public broadcast. It was a private message, sent directly to me, bypassing all normal channels. A whisper in the middle of a global scream.
[INCOMING AUDIO MESSAGE FROM: ENFORCER_UNIT_GHOST]
My hand trembled as I hovered my finger over the "play" icon on my HUD. My body screamed at me not to listen. But I had to know. I had to hear him. I pressed the icon.
There was a burst of harsh digital static. Then, a voice filled my ears. It was a cold, synthetic, metallic voice. The voice of a machine, devoid of warmth or human inflection. It was the voice of a System Enforcer. But beneath the robotic filter, I could hear him. I could hear the same seething rage, the same bitter envy, the same deep, personal hatred that had lived inside my head for weeks.
It was the Ghost.
His words were slow, deliberate, each one crafted to inflict maximum psychological damage. They were full of a chilling, absolute promise.
"I remember everything, Leo."
The synthetic voice paused, letting the statement hang in the air.
"I remember the real world. I remember the VR center. I remember watching you, trapped in the code, while you got a body. My body. I remember the envy. I remember you casting me aside in that library. You threw me away like trash."
Another pause. I could feel my own heart hammering against my ribs.
"The Archivist gave me a new body," the voice continued, a hint of something like glee creeping through the robotic filter. "A perfect body. No pain. No fear. No hesitation. Perfect aim. Everything you just lost… I now have."
He knew. Of course he knew. He was probably connected to The Archivist now. He knew exactly what price I had paid. He knew I was crippled.
"You are weak now, Leo. I can feel it through the System. You are a broken asset. A hollow man. I am strong. And I am coming to take what is mine."
The metallic voice dropped to a low, menacing whisper, a sound that would haunt my nightmares forever.
"I'm coming to take my body back."