The escape from the library was not a victory; it was a panicked, ignominious flight. Zero didn't stop running until the heavy oak doors of his dorm room were barred behind him. He leaned against the wood, his breath coming in ragged, tearing gasps, his body trembling not with exertion, but with the phantom, electric aftershock of the power he had just unleashed.
He looked down at his left hand. The faint purple glow was gone, but the memory of it remained. It was more than a memory. There was a strange, buzzing echo in his nerves, a low-level hum of residual, chaotic energy that made the fine hairs on his arm stand on end. It was like the feeling of a limb that has fallen asleep, but instead of pins and needles, it was a sensation of coiled, waiting static.
And beneath the buzzing, there was something else. Something far more insidious. A faint, unsettling craving. It was not the gnawing, biological hunger of [Flesh Devourer's Strength]. This was a psychological itch, a whisper in the back of his mind that wanted to feel that surge of power again. The feeling of absolute, neurological dominance. The psycho-addictive feedback loop his System had warned him about.
He had just discovered a new cage.
He pushed himself away from the door, pacing the small, claustrophobic confines of his room like a trapped animal. He was shaken, not by the confrontation itself, but by his own reaction to it. The [Nerve-Wrack Sting] had not been a choice. It had been an instinct, a reflexive, terrified lashing out from the alien parasite in his soul. He had not been in control. For a terrifying, exhilarating moment, the Glitch had been.
This changed everything. His powers were not just a set of tools with dangerous side effects. They were active threats, capable of acting on their own, of twisting his very instincts. They were as dangerous to himself as they were to his enemies.
He sank onto his bed, his head in his hands. The weight of his new reality was a physical pressure, a crushing force that threatened to splinter his sanity. The paranoia that had been a low hum since the alleyway now became a roaring, deafening siren.
Every shadow in his room seemed to writhe with unseen threats. The gentle creak of the old dormitory building was the sound of an approaching assassin. The whisper of the wind against his window was the sound of his name being spoken by his enemies.
He was trapped in a feedback loop of his own making. Marcus's aggression forced him to use his glitched powers. Using his glitched powers made him stronger, but also more unstable, more monstrous. This new monstrosity, in turn, would only provoke a more extreme response from Marcus. It was an escalating, unwinnable war of attrition, and the battlefield was his own soul.
He will not stop, the cold, analytical part of Zero's mind stated, cutting through the panicked static of Ashe's ghost. The library incident will not be seen as a warning. It will be seen as an escalation. He will not send students next time. He will send professionals.
The thought was not a comfort, but it was a clarity. He had been so focused on reacting, on surviving the next attack, that he hadn't seen the larger pattern. He was a rat in a maze, and Marcus was the one dropping the predators in. As long as he stayed in the maze, as long as he played by the rules of this reactive game, he would eventually be cornered and killed.
He could not keep reacting. He could not keep waiting for the next blow to fall. The very act of defending himself was accelerating his own corruption, forcing him to rely on powers that were actively devouring his humanity.
He stood up, the frantic, panicked energy draining away, replaced by a new, chilling resolve. He walked to his desk and pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment and a quill. The movement was deliberate, a ritual to focus his fractured mind.
He was not a rat. He was a trapper. He had been a theorist, a scholar who deconstructed systems to understand them. It was time to stop being the subject of the experiment and become the scientist once more.
He drew a simple, branching diagram. At the top, he wrote the name: Marcus Vance.
Beneath it, he drew three lines.
Resources: Money (House Stillwater). Connections (Academy cronies, undercity contacts). Status (Noble heir).
Motivation: Pride. Insecurity. Escalating hatred.
Weaknesses: Arrogant. Predictable. Over-reliant on hired help. Not a strategist.
He stared at the simple chart, the chaotic, terrifying problem of his own survival resolving into a set of manageable variables. He had been so focused on Marcus's strength—his money, his status—that he had failed to properly analyze his weaknesses. Marcus wasn't a mastermind. He was a spoiled, angry child with a large allowance and a fragile ego. He didn't build traps; he hired thugs. He didn't weave webs; he threw rocks.
And that was his exploitable flaw. His reliance on others.
The thugs in the alley. The boys in the library. They were all just tools. And to defeat the craftsman, you did not break his hammer. You took it from him.
The seed of a proactive plan, the first true strategic thought of his new existence, began to sprout in the barren, traumatized soil of his mind. He would not wait for Marcus's next attack. He would go after the attackers themselves. He would turn Marcus's own weapons against him.
But to do that, he needed information. He needed to know who Marcus would hire next. He needed to step out of the reactive cycle of the academy grounds and into the murky, information-rich ecosystem of the undercity.
He had no money to buy that kind of information. He had no allies. He was a ghost, a non-entity. But he had something more valuable. He had a decade of memories from a future that would never be. He had knowledge.
His mind turned to a specific, shadowy figure from his past life. A cheerful, amoral, and terrifyingly well-connected information broker who operated out of a tavern called 'The Leaky Mug.' A Rat-kin by the name of Kael.
A new line appeared on his diagram, a branch leading out from the central problem. It was a single, hopeful, and incredibly dangerous word: Kael.
Zero looked at his finished diagram, at the simple, logical progression from problem to solution. The paranoia had not vanished. The hunger still gnawed at his gut. The addictive echo of the [Nerve-Wrack Sting] still buzzed in his hand. But they were no longer a paralyzing storm. They were now just… data. Variables to be managed.
He had a new focus. A new mission. He was no longer just a survivor. He was a hunter. And he was about to go looking for a new set of tools.