Chapter 208: Hijack
The vessel reknit itself fast. Too fast.
Cracks in its chest sealed with fresh crystal plating, ribs curling inward again until its torso glowed like a furnace. Abyssal light poured through the seams, and every pulse of that light warped the street beneath it. Asphalt folded upward in jagged spires. Steel buckled sideways as if gravity had forgotten its job.
Selindra’s knuckles were white around her staff. "We can’t destroy it faster than it rebuilds."
Lucen tilted his head, watching the glow spread up its throat. "Then maybe we don’t destroy it."
She snapped toward him. "What—"
[System Prompt.]
[Quest Update: Anchor Elimination]
[Optional Path Unlocked: Anchor Hijack.]
[Warning: High Risk. Abyssal Overlap may destabilize host.]
Lucen’s grin curved sharp. ’Now that’s more like it.’
The Tyrant roared, shoving its arms into the pavement, clawing for purchase. Its head snapped toward the evacuation routes, where hunters and civilians were still fleeing in waves.
Varik stepped forward. His voice was calm, steady, unshaken. "Keep it here."
He blurred, faster than the eye could follow, his blade carving upward in a line that split the Tyrant’s forearm. The cut unmade the limb from elbow down, gone, erased, nothing left but smoke and light.
The Tyrant screamed, staggered, tried to regrow.
Selindra slammed her staff down. A wall of emerald barriers erupted across the avenue, sigils glowing bright as glass. "Evacuation corridor sealed. Nobody else gets through until this thing is down."
Lucen leaned against a shattered signpost, smirking. "Oh, so now it’s until it’s down. Weren’t you just telling me it couldn’t be killed?"
Her glare could’ve stripped paint. "If you’ve got something useful, use it."
’Funny,’ he thought. ’That’s exactly what I was about to do.’
He stepped forward. The rift’s glow painted his coat in violet fire. His system hummed, a vibration in his bones.
[Abyssflare Lance.]
The spear formed, but this time, it wasn’t just a weapon. The glyphs flared wrong, warped by the rift’s resonance, pulling deeper into its light. The lance wasn’t stable flame anymore. It was hunger.
The Tyrant lunged. Lucen threw.
The lance tore through its torso, embedding deep in the furnace glow. The vessel convulsed. The rift above screamed. For one fractured second, the tether lines bent toward Lucen instead of away.
[+18,000 EXP]
His grin flickered sharper. "Oh. That’s new."
The entity’s voice pressed harder, a vibration like a storm in his skull.
Thief.
Lucen laughed under his breath. "Borrower."
The Tyrant staggered, half its chest collapsing inward, but the rift forced it up again. Flesh twisted, wings sprouted jagged and too many, shadows lashing outward in tendrils that smashed through towers like glass.
Selindra’s voice snapped over comms. "Perimeter gone! If it moves north, the whole sector collapses!"
Varik’s blade hummed low at his side. His voice was iron. "Then it doesn’t move north."
Lucen licked soot off his teeth, smirking. "Or, hear me out, what if it moves into me?"
Selindra’s head whipped toward him, eyes wide. "Are you insane?"
’Absolutely,’ he thought, grin curling wider. ’But it’ll be worth the EXP.’
His system chimed again.
[Optional Path: Anchor Hijack Confirmed.]
[Requirement: Direct Contact.]
[Warning: Overlap may result in Corruption.]
[Proceed? Y/N]
Lucen flexed his fingers, eyes gleaming in the firelight. "Yeah. Let’s proceed."
He Riftstepped.
The world fractured. In an instant, he was on the Tyrant’s chest, hand slamming into the furnace glow.
The world detonated.
The instant Lucen’s palm pressed into the Tyrant’s chest, reality tore sideways.
Not out here. Not in the shattered street or beneath the pulsing rift. But inside, behind his eyes, beneath his ribs, wherever his system hid when it whispered in clean white text.
The furnace glow surged into him, and he was somewhere else.
A sky of broken glass. Ground that moved like liquid shadow. The air thick with pressure that pressed teeth into his bones. At the center, the Tyrant loomed, no longer plated crystal and claws, but an outline of abyssal fire, humanoid, towering, faceless save for a maw that stretched ear to ear.
It spoke without sound.
You are not vessel. You are trespass.
Lucen smirked, flexing his hand. Even here, his system flared alive, text burning into the false sky.
[Anchor Hijack: Initiated.]
[Opposition: Abyssal Entity — Tyrant Conduit.]
[Contest Method: Will Override.]
[Warning: Failure = Consumption.]
’Consumption, huh?’ His grin widened. ’Guess that means success = dinner.’
The Tyrant lunged.
It wasn’t claws this time, but pure force, waves of black fire that tore across the glass-sky and made it shatter. Splinters of reality rained down, each one buzzing with warped whispers.
Lucen raised a hand. [Frost Spire.]
A jagged spike of ice erupted upward from the shifting floor, colliding with the incoming fire. The spire didn’t hold long, the flame ate through it in seconds, but the impact gave him room to move.
He Riftstepped.
One blink, and he was above the Tyrant, boots crunching down on its shoulder. He pressed his palm flat against its head.
[Nullbind Grasp.]
Abyssal tendrils erupted from his wrist, coiling around its skull. They sank into the light, throttling its flow. The Tyrant staggered, its maw splitting wider.
You use our tongue.
Lucen laughed, low and sharp. "Correction, I use my tongue. You just lent it to me."
[System Update.]
[Hijack Progress: 14%]
The entity screamed.
—
Outside, the street convulsed.
Selindra threw up three layered barriers just to stop a collapsing tower from flattening her squad. Hunters scrambled below, guiding civilians past wreckage, but their eyes kept darting upward.
Because the Tyrant was thrashing like it had been set on fire.
Its wings flailed, shattering buildings in wide arcs. Its claws gouged trenches into pavement as it staggered. And on its chest, Lucen was clinging like a parasite, his hand inside its glow, abyssal light pouring through his veins like liquid fire.
Selindra’s face was pale. "He’s, he’s trying to override it."
Varik’s eyes never left Lucen. His blade was ready, but he didn’t move. His voice was iron. "If he fails, we cut him down before it spreads."
Selindra’s throat tightened. She nodded once.
The Tyrant roared again, this one layered, like two voices woven wrong.
And Lucen laughed through it.
—
[Hijack Progress: 27%]
[Stability: Decaying. 4%/sec.]
[Corruption Threshold: Rising.]
The Tyrant’s maw split wider, dripping black fire that hissed where it touched the ground. You are not anchor. You are bait.
Lucen bared his teeth. "Call me whatever you want. End of the day—"
[Cataclysm Vector.]
The abyssal landscape fractured as lines of crimson light exploded outward, drawing geometry across the false sky. They bent, twisted, collapsed inward, and detonated straight through the Tyrant’s torso.
It screamed, staggering, abyssal fire gouting from the wound.
Lucen’s system surged.
[Hijack Progress: 41%]
[EXP +12,000]
The surge nearly knocked him off balance, the rush of new mana slamming into his veins like molten glass. He staggered but didn’t let go. His grin widened. "That’s right. Feed me."
The Tyrant’s shape warped. Its maw split down to its chest. More arms tore out of its torso, all reaching, grabbing, clawing at him.
Lucen held tighter. [Riftstep.]
He blinked behind it, palm slamming into its spine this time. [Abyssflare Lance.]
The spear of annihilation rammed through its core, locking it to the ground. The Tyrant writhed, tendrils of fire whipping back at him.
[Hijack Progress: 56%]
The entity’s voice was louder now, nearly breaking him in half. You are thief. You will burn with us.
Lucen spat blood, grinning through it. "Maybe. But I’ll burn better."
—
Outside, Selindra had sweat streaming down her temple. Her staff was jammed into the ground, glyphs spinning above it. She was channeling all her strength into keeping the streets intact as shockwaves rippled outward from the Tyrant’s spasms.
Hunters kept glancing toward Lucen, disbelief on their faces.
One of the B-ranks whispered hoarsely, "What... what rank is he?"
Selindra didn’t answer. Her jaw was set, her eyes locked on the man clawing the abyss apart with his bare hands.
Varik just said, quiet enough only she could hear: "Higher than us."
—
[Hijack Progress: 72%]
[Stability Warning: Collapse Imminent.]
[Corruption Load: 38%.]
Lucen’s grip trembled, but his grin didn’t fade. The Tyrant flailed, voice roaring through his skull. Endless. You cannot bind endless.
Lucen leaned in, pressing his forehead against the furnace glow, whispering sharp through his teeth.
"Watch me."
[Time Shear.]
For 0.7 seconds, the entire false landscape froze. The Tyrant locked mid-lunge, the abyssal fire caught mid-flame. Lucen shoved every ounce of his mana straight into the tether threads, ripping them into his core.
[Hijack Progress: 88%]
[Warning: System Integrity Breach Detected.]
His bones felt like molten iron. His blood boiled wrong, mana cracking in places blood shouldn’t flow.
But the grin didn’t falter. "Almost mine."
The world started moving again—
And the Tyrant bit down.
Not with teeth. With everything. The maw split the sky itself, swallowing Lucen whole.
The system screamed white across his vision.
[Hijack Contest: Final Phase.]
[Resolve Required: Overwhelm or Submit.]
Lucen laughed into the dark, abyssal fire swallowing him alive.
"Guess it’s time for the main course."