Countdown: 52:37:59
The moon glowed like a cracked eye in the sky, its message burning
brighter now. But Ray barely saw it.
[Alert: Corrupted Signature Confirmed]
[Entity: Dante Rhodes | Alignment: Villain – Fallen Prodigy]
His fingers tightened around the rail of the observation deck. The
wind had shifted—colder, as if something unnatural had passed
through.
He leapt from the tower, boots flaring with a soft burst of
cursed energy as he landed silently in the courtyard below. His eyes
scanned the shadows.
There. A flicker.
He moved.
Within seconds, he
reached the outer walls of the academy. The air was heavy here,
not just with mana—but with something else. Something wrong.
A tear hovered in space—a thin, pulsating rift only visible to those
attuned to unstable code. And standing near it was a figure cloaked
in darkness, back turned.
"Dante," Ray called out.
The figure didn't move, but the rift
pulsed, expanding slightly.
Ray stepped forward cautiously. "I don't
know what kind of deal you made with the system, but this isn't
you. Whatever's inside you now… you can fight it."
A slow laugh drifted back. Twisted. Familiar.
Then Dante turned.
His eyes had changed. No longer just Sharingan. They swirled with
a tri-color spiral—red, black, and purple.
"Ray," he said softly, like
they were still just classmates talking before class. "You always did
think you were better."
"I never said that."
"You didn't have to." Dante's tone sharpened. "You got a dragon
prodogy. You kept your humanity. Me? I got broken pieces. Hand-
me-downs. Glitches."
Ray tensed.
"You chose this path."
"I was given no other." Dante's aura flared, a chaotic mix of
Uchiha fire, demon energy, and Void matter. "But I'm not here to
fight you. Not yet."
Ray's system blinked again.
[Side Quest Triggered: The First Villain – Observe or Interfere]
[Warning: Engaging Dante before the ARC begins may lead to
permanent consequences.]
"What are you doing here, then?" Ray asked warily.
Dante's eyes gleamed. "Scouting. Preparing. When the rift fully
opens... the rules change."
With a twist of his hand, he vanished
into the shadows—no hand seals, no flash. Just gone.
The rift
snapped shut behind him, leaving only silence.
The Next Morning – Nexus Academy War Room
Ray sat with Akari and Mira around a holographic map of the
continent. New anomalies were spreading across the region—
dimensional cracks, cursed zones, and "event dungeons" where
villains and monsters merged.
"Over twenty breaches in less than ten hours," Mira muttered.
"This isn't just a countdown. It's a warning system."
Akari's jaw
clenched.
"If Dante's already working against us, we can't just sit back."
Ray
didn't speak for a long time. Then he said, "We need more than
just us. If this is a war, we need allies."
Mira nodded.
"There are rumors of other students gaining strange abilities—ones
that don't align with the system's usual offerings. Maybe the
system's fighting back... in its own way."
"Or maybe," Akari said grimly, "it's giving everyone the rope to
hang themselves."
Elsewhere – Villain Assembly Point: "The Hollow Court"
Deep underground, beneath a derelict city overwritten by
corruption code, Dante stood before a gathering of corrupted
players and system-glitch entities. Half-human, half-data
abominations knelt at his feet.
Behind him, a throne of broken
command lines and bleeding code.
He raised his hand.
"The Heroes
prepare their squads. Their hopes. Their dreams.
"
He crushed a phantom memory in his palm—one of his first days
at Nexus Academy.
"But we prepare for reality."
A new system
update blinked over them all:
[Villain Path – Phase One Begins in 48:00:00]
[First Target: Nexus Academy – South Wall Breach Point]
Dante's corrupted Sharingan flared as he smiled.
Back at the Academy – Code Black Headquarters
Ray stood before a wall of floating screens. Each one displayed a
squad: some training, some failing, some rising faster than
expected. But there was one common thread.
Too many were
unprepared.
"Akari," he said, turning. "We need to accelerate."
"
You mean—"
"Yes," Ray confirmed. "It's time we activated the System Override
Challenge."
Mira's eyes widened.
"You're serious? That's suicide."
"Maybe," Ray said. "But it's the only way we'll survive the
invasion."
He opened his screen.
[Challenge Request: Override – Unlock Unique Evolution Paths]
[Warning: Failure Results in System Regression or Class Corruption]
Ray didn't hesitate.
[Override Request Sent]
The system shuddered.
Somewhere in the sky…
The moon's message
blinked.
[ARC 1: The Dimensional Invasion Begins In 47:59:59]
And somewhere beyond it, far beyond the clouds and the system's
illusion of reality—
Something laughed.