Kai didn’t plan on waiting that long.
He stood at the helm of a hijacked transit cruiser, one hand on the glitch-forged throttle, the other rewriting the vessel’s navigation AI in real time. Rynera sat behind him, watching silently as code flickered across his retinas.
[Destination Override: Set – Aurinox Summit Zone] [ETA: 3 Days. No Clearance. No Entry Code. No Mercy.]
“Stealth isn’t your thing, is it?” Rynera asked, smirking.
“Stealth is for people who haven’t declared war,” Kai replied.
Inside the High Citadel…
The summit preparations were reaching peak intensity. Floating convoys brought in delegates from every remaining kingdom—cloaked emperors, data-priests, mech-knights, and rogue AI diplomats. The war council chamber looked less like a negotiation table and more like a chessboard designed by a paranoid god.
King Noctavius was already there, cloaked in sanctioned silence, watching the arrival feeds.
“He’s coming early,” said a silver-skinned envoy from the Core Bastion.
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“He’s not supposed to be able to,” growled another—one of the Techno-Barons of Gravis IX.
Noctavius merely tapped his gauntlet.
[Protocol APEX: Pre-Engagement Activated. Target: Kai / Glitchwalker]
“If the system must hold,” he said, “then the Glitch must be purged.”
Aboard Kai’s ship…
[Alert: Three aerial response units inbound. Distance: 2100 meters. Speed: Supersonic.]
“Time for a warm-up,” Kai muttered. He opened a side bay door.
Rynera stared at him. “You’re going out there?”
“I fly faster than they think.”
He leapt into open sky.
[Skill Activated: Glitch Wing – Constructs temporary aerial mobility matrix. Duration: 88 seconds]
Kai spiraled through the clouds, slicing through the air like a falling myth. The first unit fired plasma bursts.
He phased.
[Subroutine: Blink Flicker – Short-range invincibility frames engaged. Cooldown: 12 seconds]
He landed on the lead aircraft, punched through its command hull, and hijacked the pilot feed.
[Hijack Complete. Unit 1 now under Glitchwalker control.]
He turned it against the others.
Within thirty seconds, the sky was clear.
Rynera watched it unfold from the ship, half in awe, half in disbelief. “You really don’t do subtle.”
Kai returned, barely winded.
“I do results.”
Elsewhere…
In a hidden archive buried beneath the sands of Nareth, a rogue historian watched the live feeds from stolen satellites.
“He’s doing it,” she whispered. “The first true variable in centuries.”
She reached for a terminal.
[Message Draft: To the Guildless – Rise. Your icon approaches.]
The war had already begun.
But it wasn’t a war of swords.
It was a war of syntax. Of systems. Of beliefs.
And Kai?
Kai was the patch the world never saw coming.
End of Chapter 23