I barely slept.
Not that I could, with the countdown blinking in the corner of my vision like a bomb timer.
23:41:5223:41:51
Every time I blinked, it was still there.Ticking.Mocking me.
"You said I need to level up," I said, pacing my dorm like a caged rat. "How?"
The AI yawned in my head. "Training, combat, quests. But you're not built for direct fights yet."
"I noticed."
"Then you need an edge. You need illegal magic."
I stopped. "That's a thing?"
"Of course. Where do you think all the broken spells go? The banned ones? The prototypes? You think the System just deletes them? Nah. It leaks."
"Leaked. From where?"
"The Dark Circuit."
Twelve hours later, I was in a disused subway line beneath Manhattan, guided by a cracked burner phone and directions from a hacker I met on an old conspiracy Discord.Her handle: NullKitten88.Her profile picture was a smiling cat with devil horns.Fitting.
I walked past a graffitied arch that read:[NO GODS. NO SYSTEM. JUST CODE.]
And entered the illegal market.
It was like a cyberpunk bazaar fused with a medieval grimoire shop.Holographic spell vendors floated above barrels of magical scrap. Neon-lit sigils scrolled across walls like stock tickers. People wore AR visors and cloaks woven from firewalls.
I passed a vendor screaming:"Reality patches! Guaranteed to erase minor paradoxes! Two for ten!"
Another whispered, "Time-slow scrolls, untraceable. Limited charges. First cast's free."
I stopped at a flickering kiosk where a bored teenager with glowing tattoos waved me over.
"You're new," she said. "You smell like raw chaos."
"That bad?"
"That rare. What's your poison?"
I hesitated. "I need something powerful. Fast. Something to keep me alive for the next... nineteen hours."
She grinned and slid a black crystal across the counter. "This one's unstable. Dangerous. Possibly alive."
[Spell Shard: Chrono-Fang]Description: Bites into time itself. Can slow or steal seconds from reality. Dangerous side effects include memory erosion, localized collapse, and existential vertigo.
"How much?"
She shrugged. "For a Chaos Mage? On the house. I wanna see what happens."
Back in my dorm, I sealed the windows and locked the door.I placed the crystal on my desk and watched as it pulsed with a heartbeat not my own.
"You sure about this?" the AI asked.
"No."
"Perfect. Let's do it."
I reached out. Touched the shard.
Pain lanced through my head—like time itself bit me back.
[New Spell Acquired: Chrono-Fang Lv.1]Effect: Slow a single object or target by 3 seconds. Cast time: instant. Cooldown: 60s.Caution: Spell feeds on user's unspent potential.
Reality Stability: -0.04%
I fell back, gasping, nose bleeding.
But I was still alive.
And now I had a spell that bent time.Rough. Dangerous. Costly. But mine.
18 hours to go.And for the first time, I didn't feel like prey.
I felt like a weapon.