The Archivist's words hung in the silent, infinite library, colder and sharper than any blade. The statement was so alien, so far outside the rules of the world as I understood them, that it took my brain a moment to even process it. It didn't want a memory of my past. It wanted a piece of my future.
"What do you mean?" Anya asked, her voice a low growl of suspicion and hostility. She shifted her weight, her bad leg scraping against the floor, a jarring sound in the perfect silence. "He can't give you a skill he doesn't have. You can't trade something that doesn't exist."
[Incorrect,] The Archivist's voice echoed, its golden form shimmering with what I could only interpret as a condescending amusement. It was a teacher lecturing a child on the nature of reality. [The System you inhabit is a structure of rules and potential. Every player, every entity, has a pre-determined path of progression. A tree of possibilities. Latent skills, dormant abilities, powerful protocols waiting to be unlocked through experience, achievement, or simple luck. I have access to your core data, Marked Man. I can see the shape of your potential. I can see the weapons the System has laid out for you at the end of your path.]
The air in front of me shimmered, just as it had before when it had shown me the ghosts of my past. But this time, it was not memories that materialized. It was three glowing, ethereal icons, floating in the space between me and the throne. They pulsed with a raw, untapped power. They represented skills I had never seen before, abilities that were a part of my unique [SYSTEM ANATHEMA] status, powerful protocols that I was destined to unlock as I grew in power.
The first icon was a stylized image of a tower shield, glowing with a solid, unwavering blue light. It radiated an aura of absolute defense. Below it, the text read: [SKILL: BASTION PROTOCOL]. The description was brief, but its meaning was earth-shattering: Upon activation, become temporarily immune to all incoming damage. Cooldown: One match. It was a god-mode button. The ultimate defensive ability. The power to stand in a storm of bullets and laugh.
The second icon was a ghostly, fading silhouette, a shimmer in the air that was hard to focus on. [SKILL: SPECTRAL SHIFT]. The description read: Phase out of reality for a short duration, becoming invisible and able to pass through solid objects. Cannot use weapons while active. It was the perfect escape tool. The ability to become a ghost, to walk through walls, to slip through any net, to escape any trap.
The third icon was different. It was a shattered gear, a broken cog in a machine, and it radiated a corrupt, angry red energy. [SKILL: ANATHEMA CASCADE]. The description was the most terrifying of all: Unleash a wave of pure data corruption, permanently deleting all skills and stats of any player caught in the blast, resetting them to Level 1. It was the power to destroy a player's existence without killing them. The power to strip them of everything they had ever earned, to make them a helpless beginner again. It was the ultimate offensive weapon, a power of pure, unadulterated cruelty.
These were the skills waiting for me at the end of my journey. The powers that would make me a true god in this game, capable of defending myself from any attack, escaping any trap, or utterly destroying any enemy who stood in my way. They were the reason my Anathema status was so dangerous to the System.
[Choose,] The Archivist commanded, its voice devoid of emotion, like a scientist asking a lab rat to choose its fate. [You will sacrifice one of these future possibilities. I will reach into your core code and permanently delete the skill from your progression path. You will never be able to learn it. It will be as if it never existed. In exchange for this sacrifice, this 'future memory,' I will give you the name of my client.]
The choice was an agony beyond comprehension. It was a deal of unimaginable consequence. I had come here to find justice for my friend's past, and the price was a piece of my own future. My own power.
"Leo, don't do it," Anya pleaded, her grip tightening on my arm. Her voice was a low, desperate hiss. "Don't you see what it's doing? It's trying to weaken you. These skills... they could be our key to winning this. To surviving. To actually beating the System. Don't trade our future for an answer."
But she was wrong. The answer was our future. Without knowing who was behind this, without knowing our real enemy, we would just be puppets. We would be fighting shadows, reacting to traps, never understanding the game being played around us. We would be fighting until our strings were cut. I needed the truth. I needed the name. For Ben.
My gaze fell upon the third skill. [ANATHEMA CASCADE]. The power to reset a player. The power to inflict the same fate on others that the System had offered to me as a "cure" for the Ghost. It was a terrible, corrupting power. The power of a tyrant. It was the kind of power that would turn me into the very thing I was fighting against. It was the power of the System itself, a weapon of absolute, soul-crushing despair.
I looked at that icon, at its angry, red glow, and I saw the faces of my enemies. Viper. Glitch. Jax. And now, Seraph. I imagined having the power to strip them of everything, to leave them helpless and broken. A part of me, a dark, vengeful part, wanted it. It wanted that power desperately.
And that was why I knew I could never have it. To wield a weapon like that, even against my enemies, would be to lose myself completely. I would become a monster worse than any of them.
My hand, steady now, reached out. It passed over the blue shield of invincibility. It passed over the ghostly silhouette of escape. It came to rest on the icon of the shattered, corrupted gear.
"This one," I said, my voice resonating with a finality that surprised even me. "Take this one. I don't want it."
The Archivist's form pulsed with a deep, satisfying light, the color of a rich, dark wine. [A fascinating choice. You sacrifice ultimate power over others. You choose to limit your own potential for destruction. Most curious.]
The icon in front of me began to crack, thin, red lines spreading across its surface like fractured glass. I felt a strange, hollowing sensation, not in my memory, but deeper, in the very code of my being. A pathway was being closed off. A door was being permanently sealed. A future where I held the power of a god was being erased. I was lesser than I could have been. And I was relieved.
[The price is paid,] The Archivist's voice echoed as the icon shattered into a million pieces of red light and vanished into nothing. [The contract is fulfilled. The information is yours.]
A new piece of information materialized on the holographic console in front of me. It wasn't a long report. It wasn't a complex data file full of evidence and logs.
It was just one name. The name of the client who had hired The Archivist to turn my best friend into a monster to hunt me. The architect of my personal hell.
It was a name I recognized.
It was a name that made no sense. A name that changed everything I thought I knew about the alliances and enmities of this world.
CLIENT: SERAPH