System Error: The NPC's Reign of Terror

Chapter 7: A Waltz in Acid Rain

I walked toward my battlefield alone.

Cold determination replaced fear. Old Doc’s warnings about the "Webweaver" were still buzzing in my ears, but the damn ticking of the system countdown was louder, like a sledgehammer pounding against my nerves with every passing second. I had no time for the ghosts hiding in deeper shadows. My prey was just ahead, and I had to kill him.

Otherwise, I was dead.

3:45 PM.

I stood at the highest point of the Seventh Avenue overpass. Below me, the glowing stream of hover-traffic flowed like colored data through the city's veins. The acid rain showed up right on schedule, cold droplets hammering against my "Ghost Coat" with a hissing sound. The air was thick with the pungent stench of sulfur and ozone.

Perfect. My first ally had arrived.

I activated "Data Vision." The world was instantly deconstructed into blue lines and floating tags. The speed, model, and trajectory of every vehicle were clearly marked in my mind, forming a massive stream of dynamic data. Like a god looking down on a chessboard, I waited coldly for the key piece to appear.

3:58 PM.

A lumbering heavy-duty freight truck appeared at the ramp right on time. A line of bright red data tags flashed before my eyes: [Target: HK-344 Heavy Freight Truck] [Status: Normal].

This was it.

My heart began to drum—not from fear, but from a trembling excitement at the prospect of warping reality. My mental energy, like an invisible probe, pierced through the curtain of rain and into the air pressure regulator of the truck's front-left wheel—an electronic component smaller than a fingernail.

[Physical Rewrite].

I didn't crudely blow it up; that would be stupid and would immediately draw "Athena's" attention. I only tweaked a single parameter: the pressure compensation value responsible for increasing grip in the rain. I changed it from "+5%" to "-50%."

A tiny alteration. A fatal error.

The truck rolled smoothly onto the slick curve.

"Execute," I commanded coldly, in a voice only I could hear.Instantly, the air pressure in the truck's front-left tire plummeted! The speeding behemoth lurched downward, its cab veering violently. The driver’s terrified scream was muffled within the cockpit, but it was too late for him to do anything. The slick road, the unbalanced chassis, the incorrect tire pressure... under my precise calculations, every variable converged into an irreversible, catastrophic outcome.

*BOOM!*

A deafening crash of metal tore through the curtain of rain. The heavy truck, like an out-of-control steel beast, slammed into the guardrail, twisting the alloy bars into mangled scrap. The cab crumpled inward as a deluge of cargo spilled from the ruptured trailer, scattering across Seventh Avenue like trash.

Traffic ground to an instantaneous halt.

A cacophony of piercing alarms and blaring horns erupted. I watched the chaos below with cold detachment, as if admiring a masterpiece of disaster I had painted myself. The first step of my plan was a success.

My gaze cut through the rain, locking onto the black armored transport trapped behind the gridlock.

Brute.

Sure enough, the door was kicked open from the inside. A figure more massive than a security bot leaped out. He was clad in a dark red "Berserker" series exoskeleton. Rainwater cascaded down his menacing metal plating, and a single scarlet cybernetic eye scanned the chaos in the gloom like an ominous lantern. He let out an impatient roar, a sound so metallic it drowned out the rain and the sirens.

He slammed a fist into a nearby innocent hovercar, the impact caving the door in.

Violent. Impatient. Exactly as I had predicted.

He barked a few words into his wrist comms, then turned without hesitation and strode toward the shortcut I had meticulously prepared for him beneath the viaduct—a narrow, dark alleyway with zero surveillance.

My slaughterhouse. The prey had entered the cage.Like a cat, I slipped silently down the maintenance access of the overpass, landing at the far entrance of the alley. I pulled up my hood and hid in the shadow of a reeking dumpster, my heart thumping heavy and steady against my ribs.

I drew my cold, large-caliber pistol and chambered the single bullet that would decide my fate. That crisp *click* was Brute's death knell.

The alley was thick with the sour stench of rotting food and the metallic tang of rainwater. Brute’s heavy, metallic footsteps drew closer; each one struck my nerves like a sledgehammer, making the ground tremble. His massive frame nearly filled the narrow passage, his crimson cybernetic eye scanning the surroundings like a searchlight, radiating a beast-like alertness.

He was more cautious than I’d anticipated.

The moment he passed the dumpster where I crouched, I made my move.

I lunged out from the shadows, my muzzle leveled at the right side of his head—at that crimson, fatal weak point. Five meters—the limit Old Doc had warned me about. In my Data Vision, the distance was marked with clinical precision.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl.

Yet, the instant my finger tightened on the trigger, Brute’s crimson eye snapped toward me. His combat instincts were inhumanly fast. Instead of dodging, he let out a feral roar, his massive metal arm sweeping toward me like a falling wall.

Too late!

I had to go all in.

*Bang!*

The gunshot exploded within the narrow confines of the alley. I pushed "Physical Rewrite" to its absolute limit, attempting to force a correction in the bullet’s trajectory to curve it around his arm. But Brute was too quick. The bullet slammed into his metallic forearm, erupting in a brilliant shower of electromagnetic sparks before ricocheting harmlessly away, leaving nothing but a negligible scratch on his heavy plating.

I had failed.

My only bullet, my only chance—wasted.A tide of icy despair washed over me. Brute’s assault didn’t falter for a second. His metal fist, powerful enough to shatter concrete, tore through the air with a scream as it hurtled straight for my face.

The shadow of death loomed over me in an instant.

No! I can't die here!

In that split second between life and death, a shackle in my mind shattered. I stopped thinking about how to fine-tune a single bullet; a wilder, grander idea exploded in my head.

If I could freeze one bullet, why not ten? Why not twenty?

[PHYSICAL REWRITE]!

I pulled the trigger frantically at the empty space before me. *Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!*

No bullets fired, but I could feel my ability being overextended like never before. The world before me began to warp. Countless invisible "bullets" made of pure kinetic energy were forcibly manifested out of thin air and instantly frozen in place.

They formed a fleeting matrix of dozens of stasis fields—an invisible staircase that only I could see.

[DATA CORRUPTION: 2.5%... 3.8%... 5.0%...]

Red system warnings flashed wildly before my eyes. A searing headache struck, and fragmented images flooded my mind: a man in a white lab coat smiling at me, a snow-covered field stained crimson with blood, a young girl singing on a swing...

But I didn't have time for any of that.

Brute’s fist was inches away. Summoning every ounce of strength, I sprang backward, my feet slamming onto the invisible bullet matrix I had just constructed.

It felt bizarre, as if I were stepping on solid ground. Using it as a springboard, I launched myself toward the side wall at an angle that defied the laws of physics, darting like a butterfly between the alley walls.

Brute’s lethal strike grazed my hair and slammed into the wall behind me.

*Boom!*

Debris sprayed everywhere as his fist punched a massive hole through the brickwork.

Now!

In the moment his attack missed, he was frozen in a half-second of recovery lag.I was mid-air, my body tumbling from the massive recoil. I saw it—the deflected round that was my only hope—the EMP armor-piercing bullet. It was tumbling, falling limply toward the ground.

It was the only thing I could see.

I gathered every shred of my remaining psychic energy, weaving it into an invisible thread that coiled tightly around the bullet.

*Stop!*

Less than ten centimeters from the ground, the bullet came to an eerie halt.

Then, with the last of my strength, I mapped out a new, impossible trajectory for it in my mind.

*Go!*

The stationary bullet was suddenly hurled as if by an invisible hand. There was no gunshot, no muzzle flash—only a silent streak tearing through the curtain of rain. It traced an elegant yet lethal arc through the air, curving around Brute’s massive frame like a sentient stinger. Striking from his blind side, it plunged with unerring precision deep into his scarlet prosthetic eye.

*Squelch!*

The sound was faint, yet it exploded in my ears like a thunderclap.

Brute’s massive frame suddenly seized up. He turned his head slowly, in utter disbelief, his remaining organic eye fixed on me, filled with horror and confusion. Electrical sparks flickered wildly within his scarlet prosthetic eye before it died out completely with a final sizzle.

His mouth worked as if to speak, but only a burst of unintelligible electronic static escaped.

Then, his titan-like steel body lost all support and came crashing down.

*THOOM!*

His massive bulk slammed into the waterlogged ground, sending a spray of filthy water into the air and across my face.

I slid down the wall, my legs giving way as I slumped to the ground, gasping for air in ragged lungfuls. The cold acid rain lashed my face, mixing with the warm, iron-scented fluid leaking from Brute’s eye socket. I stared at the motionless steel corpse before me, my mind a complete blank.

I did it.

I killed him.Right then, something next to Brute’s body caught my eye. It was a metal briefcase he had clutched to his chest, guarding it with his life. Now it lay on the ground, exposing the logo on its side.

It was an emblem depicting a compass and a scepter.

Olympus Group.