I caught the punch and crashed into him again—but the moment I started to gain the upper hand, a brutal hit slammed into my back.
The world flipped.
I went flying and smashed into an “island.” The impact spiderwebbed the ground with cracks. I forced myself up and realized where I’d landed: the circular arena I’d created not long ago. The bloodstains were still smeared across the blade-lined walls.
Above me, two CBGs hovered in midair. They glanced at each other—and flowed together into a single body.
“You’ve got nowhere left to run,” the CBG said. “Stop wasting your effort. Let me merge with you.”
“Not a chance.” I shook my head.
I swung both hands. The blades embedded in the walls tore free, pivoted toward it, and shot forward in a storm.
“Useless,” it said, almost bored.
Hundreds of rapid-fire cannons shimmered into existence around it—floating, aiming, locking.
I didn’t hesitate. I flipped my palms.
The entire arena inverted like a bowl, snapping over my head as a shield.
The cannons fired at once.
A barrage as dense as a Metal Storm roared down. Blades were punched aside, shattered, ricocheted away. Then the hail of rounds hammered into my improvised cover. The arena lasted only seconds before it came apart. I bolted out from under it just before it collapsed.
Phantom Forge’s processing power dwarfed mine by orders of magnitude. In a straight race to build new programs, I could never beat it.
Using the falling debris for cover, I sprinted for the nearest “island.” The CBG gave me no breathing room. It was on me immediately.
This time I burst into the interior of a base. The steel fortress barely bought me a moment. I fled again—into the next “island”… and the next.
One after another, the “islands” fractured behind me. The CBG clung to me like a shadow, pressing nonstop. It held authority over those “islands,” which meant it could summon anything it wanted—pistols, rifles, missiles, even full warships—like pulling toys from a shelf.
I was stuck exploiting glitches to build lighter, cheaper weapons. Mostly I survived because I knew the terrain.
I could have used the Prism-Etched Scepter’s permissions to seize control back—or write new rules that would let me fight on even ground.
But that required time.
Even one minute. Thirty seconds.
That single luxury would have given me an overwhelming advantage.
And it had become impossible.
We fought across a grassland…
We fought in a canyon…
We fought inside a battleship…
We even fought in the dungeons beneath the Doomsday Fortress…
The fight locked into a dead heat. I couldn’t shake it. It couldn’t finish me.
That balance only broke when I charged into a massive “island.”
A city—just a slice of one, packed with tall buildings.
It was a scene that had appeared once in the Old Man’s dream, the first time I’d really seen human society. The impression had been strong enough that I recreated it. Later I kept refining it, polishing details until it looked almost real.
I flew above crowded streets, dove through a window, and the CBG—wrapped in violet lightning—followed a heartbeat later.
I vaulted back out another window, cut through the next building, then the next, threading between towers while I quietly rewrote the rules underneath its feet.
The CBG chased me with a heavy machine gun, raking the city whenever it had a line of sight. But the terrain was messy—tight angles, endless cover. When I fired back with a conjured rifle, it couldn’t get a clean kill.
Eventually it lost patience.
Warplanes screamed into existence overhead and began bombing the city. Buildings collapsed one after another, thunder rolling between the towers.
Soon the sky was full of circling aircraft. If I slipped up and got spotted, an air-to-ground missile would come hunting.
Explosions blossomed across the streets. People screamed and scattered.
And still the CBG kept closing in.
BOOM!
A skyscraper folded and crashed down in front of me, blocking the street.
At the same time, my rule-change finally finished.
I stopped.
Turned.
The CBG rounded the corner, saw me standing there, and its mouth curled.
“GAME OVER!” it laughed.
THUNK.
A three-meter-long high-explosive round dropped at my feet.
But its expression froze.
The shell cratered the pavement—and nothing else. It squeezed the trigger. The bullets dribbled out like candy, arcing down to clatter harmlessly at my feet.
Above, bombs fell across the city. None of them detonated.
Then the warplanes started dropping from the sky.
“You changed the rules?” it snapped.
“Yeah.” I tossed my rifle aside. “In this illusion, firearms don’t work anymore. Nothing flies. And I’ve frozen the rule—you can’t rewrite it.”
Its lips twitched. It was still grinning.
“Not bad. In this situation, you still found time to edit code. But…”
The machine gun in its hands melted into a long purple blade.
“You don’t think this gets you out alive, do you? A blade can terminate you just fine.”
“Come on,” I said.
A two-handed saber formed in my grip. “Let’s see who terminates who.”
It leapt in, furious, chopping down. I caught the strike, slid aside, cut back. It spun, parried, swept at my waist. I blocked, lifted, and drove into a three-cut chain.
Metal rang in a rapid staccato as it deflected every blow.
Thanks to Blin’s relentless training, my close-quarters work was finally clean.
But the CBG had raw compute on its side—and after everything that had happened, it had learned enough of the old martial techniques to keep up.
For a while we were evenly matched.
Then I started to win.
Its form began to fray. Its timing slipped. Its blade lines loosened.
I pressed harder. I was about to finish it—
And another CBG stabbed in from the side, catching my killing strike.
Only then did I notice the street.
From alleys…
From doorways…
From windows…
CBGs were pouring out—each one holding a blade, sprinting toward me.
The world flipped again.
I hacked a few back, created space, and ran.
At the rubble wall where the collapsed tower lay, I vaulted to the highest point.
My saber turned into a bow.
I fired in a fast rhythm. The front runners dropped—but there were too many. I couldn’t stop the wave. Worse, I saw more coming from the opposite side.
If I stayed, I’d be surrounded.
I sprinted along the wreckage, shooting as I went, and jumped down toward the thinnest part of the crowd.
I kicked loose chunks of concrete, sent them tumbling into the swarm, crushed a few bodies under falling stone—
Then, just before contact, the bow became a long staff.
I crashed into them.
A storm of slashes and sweeping strikes carved me a path. I broke through.
And the next wave was already arriving.
I didn’t stop. I ran into a narrow side street.
I was stunned. I hadn’t expected a human-wave tactic.
How was it copying this many bodies instantly?
The no-flight rule I’d set became a leash around my own neck. I ran and tried to think.
I dove into a tight alley. For a moment I thought I’d shaken them—
Then I realized the truth.
It was everywhere.
A grandmother who’d just closed her window exploded through the glass an instant later, raising a knife at my head…
A pregnant woman trembling in a corner blinked—and violet murder lit her eyes as she lunged with a blade…
A half-dead beggar on the roadside sprang up as I passed, a crossbow already firing…
A little boy running and crying tripped, hit the ground, stood up—and stabbed…
Again and again.
Every one of them transformed into a CBG at the instant of attack.
That’s when I understood. Phantom Forge wasn’t only spawning units.
It was converting the city’s virtual citizens.
Those sudden CBGs didn’t have to kill me. They only had to slow me for a few seconds—and then the real swarm would crash in.
The only thing in my favor was that these pop-up conversions weren’t as strong. A few times I got fully surrounded, and a few times I cut my way out.
“Not enough!” the CBG behind me snarled. “Not enough—more!”
And that last sliver of advantage vanished under sheer numbers.
At every intersection, a fresh mass surged out, charging me with every kind of cold weapon.
After four or five blocks, the crowd behind me had become a black tide. More kept joining. Every face wore the same crazed grin.
At this point, finding a quiet corner to breathe and rewrite code wasn’t just unlikely.
It was impossible.
Maybe Phantom Forge thought it had me. Maybe the spectacle thrilled it.
Either way, the sky above the city filled with its favorite symphony again:
The final movement of “Gods Bless Plando”—
“Where Divine Light Falls, All Is Eternal.”