"Huh, my phone!" I blurted out unknowingly.
My hand instinctively flew to my pocket.
No... It couldn’t be.
[Is it because you aren’t dead that’s why you think your phone also won’t die...]
Just shut up. Do you know that my phone was expensive? Have some respect.
It was a stupid thing to say, mourning a piece of electronics while standing in a field of rubble with broken ribs, but it felt like a last straw.
A piece of my normal, scrappy life had been shattered.
[At this point I don’t even know who you are.]
I brought out my phone hurriedly, my hope crumbling as I looked at it.
The system was right. It wasn’t just dead. It was a tragedy.
The screen was a spiderweb of cracks so dense I could barely see the black beneath.
The casing was dented and warped, and a fine trickle of glass dust fell from its seams when I moved it.
It refused to switch on. No faint glow, no vibrating plea for a charger. It was just a cold, dead weight in my hand. It was gone.
A strange, hollow feeling settled in my chest.
All my downloaded anime, all the stupid game I played when I was bored, and most importantly, Blue Ice, all of it gone.
I took a deep breath in, and out.
"Don’t worry," I whispered to the useless slab of metal and glass, which was utterly ridiculous. "I would get revenge for you."
I put the phone back in my pocket, the gesture feeling like a funeral.
I sighed.
The system had made its point with brutal efficiency.
There was no way to order for a healing potion.
I was alone, broke in every sense that mattered, and critically injured.
The core wasn’t just an option now; it was the only option on the table.
Without wasting any more time, I pushed away from the wall and walked unsteadily towards the main storage door.
Each step sent a jolt of pain up my spine, a constant reminder of the clock ticking down on my body.
I placed my hand on the cold, reinforced metal of the door. It was solid, unyielding. It looked strong, built to withstand a siege.
And most importantly, with a sinking feeling in my gut, I confirmed... it was locked.
Of course it was. I didn’t expect anything less anyways.
Why would a main storage room, with something that important not be heavily locked and protected.
I sighed again.
"It looked like I have to do it the hard way." I muttered to myself.
The hard way was the only way now.
I drew my hand back, ignoring the scream of protest from my shattered ribs, and channeled every ounce of frustration, pain, and sheer bloody-minded will into my fist.
This wasn’t about finesse or technique. This was about wanting it more than the door wanted to stay closed. I punched the door.
The moment my fist connected with it, it burst open, swinging inward on shattered hinges with a pathetic whine.
I stepped inside, looking around the room.
It wasn’t that spacious as I expected. No grand vault, no intricate security displays. It was austere, almost clinical.
The walls, floor, and ceiling were a seamless, dull grey metal, absorbing the light and sound, making the room feel like a pocket of absolute silence.
And at the center of the room, the ability core was there, floating.
It hung in the air, unsupported, rotating slowly.
I reached towards it, my steps cautious on the silent floor, studying it for a brief moment.
The ability core was a perfect round sphere, but its blackness wasn’t a color. It was an absence.
It was black in colour like a void, a depth that seemed to swallow the very light around it.
And surrounding it, like a captive storm, were dark fog-like things, shifting, tendrils that coiled and uncoiled without sound. It was terrifying and beautiful.
It was surprising to me. I have never seen an ability core in real life, only heard of it.
[Just carry it. You’ve seen it enough already.]
The system’s text was impatient, shattering the awe-filled silence in my mind.
I ignored the system for a moment longer, my fingertips inches from the swirling darkness.
Finally.
After a lot of moving up and down, planning just to enter Aegis, and suffering after entering... I found it.
My hand closed around it.
I held it in my hand and sighed. It was cold. Not the cold of ice, but the cold of deep space, a chill that seeped into my bones without any sensation of temperature.
It was heavier than it looked, its weight feeling less physical and more... significant. Like I was holding a star’s worth of potential.
[Destroy it.]
The system’s command was so absurd, so utterly insane, that I actually laughed.
System, what are you smoking? This is the most powerful object I’ve ever touched, and you want me to break it? After all this?
[I didn’t mean actually destroying it, you dumbass, I mean squish it with your hand. Crush the container.]
And? What happens then?
[And then you would have the power]
It replied, as if it were explaining something simple to a child.
[The core is just a lens, a focus. The true energy is contained within. Break the lens. And you get the ability. Simple.]
I looked at the void-black sphere in my palm, then at the empty air where the system screen appears.
I looked at it suspiciously for a moment. This felt like the ultimate trust fall.
It had gotten me this far, through a plan that had involved me being used as a living battering ram.
But in the end, I had no other choice but to obey, they wasn’t any much time left.
I clenched my fist. And crushed it with my hand.
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