The private transit pod shot straight down into the depths of Sector Nine, and the clinical white of the upper Omni Domain quickly disappeared.

Down here, the utopian illusion fell apart.

The air became heavy and smelled of ozone, hot copper, and the distinct, rotting stench of the Void. Large industrial pipes and sparking server banks created a dark, metallic canyon, while jagged, sickly-yellow tears in space began to bleed through the walls of reality.

Zen stood at the entrance of the maintenance sector, holding the secure weapons case Nyx had given him ten minutes ago.

"I will not lock you in a room," Nyx had told him before he left, adjusting the lapels of his coat with terrifyingly obsessive care. "But you will take these."

She had handed him the case. Inside wasn’t just a weapon.

Resting on the dark foam was a perfectly balanced, High C-Rank crystalline longsword. The edge hummed with cold, refined magi-tech energy. It was an absolute masterpiece... a deliberate and calculated insult to the chipped, rusted Black Market blade Valeria had let him buy in District 7.

But next to the sword were three sleek, silver spheres no larger than apples.

"Class-IV observer drones," Nyx had explained. "They link directly to the custom terminal I built for you. They will provide multiple dynamic camera angles for your... audience. But more importantly, they feed your biometric telemetry directly to my private network. I will let you fight, Zen. But if your core integrity drops below critical levels, I am pulling you out."

Zen set the case down on a rusted crate and opened it. He strapped the crystalline blade to his hip. It felt lighter than it looked, perfectly accommodating his High E-Rank physical limits.

He pulled the Ghost Scrapper mask from his jacket, snapping it over his face. The familiar HUD of his system flickered to life.

With a mental command, the custom mana-scrambler Nyx had built using his ancient encryption sprang into action, fully masking his Imperial resonance.

"System," Zen commanded. "Sync the observer drones to the streaming terminal. And go live."

The three silver spheres instantly floated into the air, their lenses glowing a faint blue as they spaced themselves out around him, capturing every angle.

The moment the stream feed connected to the global underground network, the viewer count skyrocketed.

[Viewers: 121]

[Viewers: 3,421]

[Viewers: 8,041]

[Viewers: 14,890]

[Viewers: 31,200]

The chat box on Zen’s retinal display immediately dissolved into a waterfall of text.

[ScrapRat99: YOOOOO HE’S ALIVE! GHOST SCRAPPER IS BACK!]

[AlleyDoc: Where the hell has he been? It’s been days!]

[EliteVanguard_7: Probably hiding in a dumpster. Wait... what is that background?]

[NeonJunkie: Bro, look at the server pillars. Look at the architecture. Is he... is he in the Omni Domain?!]

[EliteVanguard_7: LMAO nice green screen, loser. Nobody streams from Sector One. The automated defenses would vaporize an unregistered combatant in three seconds.]

Zen ignored the chat and drew his crystalline blade. The weapon’s cold hum resonated perfectly with the newly integrated fragments in his core, and he felt a fraction of his former Emperor’s strength itching to be let loose.

"Evening, chat," Zen said, his digitally altered voice shifting into a low, metallic rasp. "We’ve got a local Void fracture today. Threat level is currently unmapped. So, let’s see what we can find."

He stepped past the heavy blast doors of the quarantine perimeter. In the center of the maintenance bay hovered a jagged, sickly-yellow tear in the fabric of reality, bleeding Void energy into the air.

Without hesitating, Zen stepped straight through the spatial rift and into the Mid E-Rank Fracture Zone.

The moment his boots hit the corrupted, pocket-dimension data-grid floor, the shadows moved.

Three massive, four-legged shapes emerged from the shadows.

They were Void-corrupted hounds, but because they had spawned inside the Omni Domain, they had assimilated the local technology. Jagged metal plating was now fused into their rotting flesh, and their jaws dripped with corrosive battery acid.

[ANALYZING TARGETS...]

[TARGET: CYBER-VOID HOUNDS. THREAT LEVEL: MID E-RANK.]

[STRUCTURAL WEAKNESS: EXPOSED DATA-PORT AT THE BASE OF THE CERVICAL SPINE. SEVERING THE CONNECTION WILL BYPASS PHYSICAL ARMOR.]

The chat reacted instantly.

[VanguardDropout09 has pledged a 3,000 Mana-Credit Bounty!]

VanguardDropout09: Bet you 3k you can’t clear all three in under a minute without taking a single hit to your shield!

Zen’s eyes flicked to the bounty, and he smirked under the mask.

Accepted.

The first hound lunged, its metallic jaws snapping shut with enough force to slice through a light transport vehicle.

Zen stood his ground, stepping directly into the beast’s guard. Drawing on five centuries of combat experience and his stabilized energy pathways, he moved fluidly.

He dodged the snapping jaws by a hair’s breadth, spun on his heel, and swung the crystalline blade down in one perfect arc.

The blade struck the exact millimeter the System had highlighted on the beast’s neck.

CRACK.

The hound collapsed instantly.

Zen used the momentum to vault off a rusted server rack, launching himself into the air just as the remaining two hounds tried to flank him.

He landed behind the second hound, driving the sword straight through its spinal port, before seamlessly ripping it out and backhanding the blade across the third hound’s neck in one continuous motion.

Three bodies hit the floor. Time elapsed: fourteen seconds.

ScrapRat99: HOLY SH*T! HE DIDN’T EVEN LOOK AT THE THIRD ONE!

​[Bounty Condition Met. 3,000 Mana-Credits transferred to your account.]

Zen quickly carved out the glowing purple Heart Stones, and slipped them into a secure pouch on his belt.

"Warm-up is over," Zen murmured to the drones. "They know we’re here now."

As if on cue, the heavy steel grates above him groaned.

Six more figures dropped down from the ceiling, landing with heavy, metallic thuds. These were no ordinary hounds; they were leaner and heavily mutated. Their metal plating shifted colors, allowing them to blend seamlessly into the shadows of the dark alleyway.

[TARGET: STALKER-VARIANT VOID HOUNDS. THREAT LEVEL: HIGH E-RANK.]

[MUTATION: ACTIVE OPTICAL CAMOUFLAGE AND PRESSURIZED ACID RESERVES DETECTED.]

’Optical camouflage?’ Zen thought, narrowing his eyes behind the mask.

He was still processing this when two of the hounds completely vanished from the naked eye.

"What the fvck?" Zen muttered, his digitally altered voice broadcasting over the open mic.

ScrapRat99: BRO DID THEY JUST TURN INVISIBLE?!

EliteVanguard_7: LMAO RIP Scrapper. Can’t dodge what you can’t see.

AlleyDoc: WATCH YOUR SIX!

Zen ignored the scrolling text, his Emperor instincts instantly taking over.

If there’s one thing he knows about the Void from time past, it’s that the Void can’t naturally bend light like that. Meaning... he paused, looking around, trying to predict where the invisible hounds would appear from.

Then it hit him, and he paused.

’These bastards aren’t just appearing and surviving in Nyx’s territory... they are actively downloading her stealth algorithms.’