Hacking the Surface(3)
On the massive fifty-foot digital Jumbotron, Kaelen Cross stared down at the thousands of frozen elites.
He didn't look angry.
Anger was a human emotion, a fleeting chemical reaction for the weak.
He looked completely, utterly predatory.
He was an apex monster sizing up a pen full of fat, pampered, domesticated livestock.
Slowly, deliberately, he leaned closer to the terminal camera down in the dark depths.
His massive, scarred face filled the entire fifty-foot screen.
Every jagged line on his skin, every speck of dried abysm filth, was broadcasted in horrific high-definition.
Right next to his face, the cosmic streaming chat box was scrolling at a demonic, dizzying speed.
It was completely visible to the horrified gala attendees on the surface.
Hundreds of thousands of alien entities, cosmic voyeurs, and literal gods were spamming laughing emojis and hyper-active reactions.
[User Zark: LOOK AT HIS FACE! THE BLONDE PALADIN IS SHITTING HIMSELF LIVE ON THE NET!]
[User DragonBoredom: Tear down the false king, Kaelen. Burn his fake kingdom to absolute ash!]
[User Blood-Fiend_99: WOOOO! FACE SLAP! THE REVENGE ARC IS PEAK STREAMING!]
[User JustEating: Oh damn, the betrayal backstory is absolutely delicious! Let him cook!]
[User Galaxy_Brain: Look at the mortals trembling in their little silk suits. Peak entertainment!]
[User Star_Dust_69: Smash them! Kill the blonde fraud! Here come the donations!]
The ultra-wealthy elites in the grand hall couldn't comprehend the glowing, celestial alien script.
But they didn't need to read the words.
They could feel the suffocating, dense weight of pure hatred radiating from the man on the monitor.
The air in the room grew heavy, dropping the ambient temperature by several degrees.
Kaelen's cracked lips twitched upward into a slow, dark, utterly horrific smile.
"Hello, Marcus," Kaelen's raspy, grinding voice boomed through the luxury audio processors.
The sound waves vibrated the air, shaking the very steel and glass foundations of the Aegis Spire.
Marcus Thorne couldn't breathe.
His lungs completely refused to expand, paralyzed by an old, forgotten terror.
Ten years ago, he had personally shattered Kaelen's mana core with his own bare hands.
He had watched him fall, bleeding out and completely broken, into the depths of the hopeless Abyssal Rift.
Nobody survived ten years in the Rift without a functioning mana core.
It was biologically, scientifically, and magically impossible.
Without mana, a human body was supposed to be ripped apart by the atmospheric pressure of the deep zones.
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Yet, there he was, towering over Marcus's own throne room.
"I heard your little speech just now," Kaelen mocked, his voice dripping with an agonizingly slow venom.
"It was beautiful, Marcus. Really brought a tear to my miserable eye."
The crowd of elites began to break, a wild fire of confusion and absolute terror rippling through the grand hall.
"Is it really him?" an A-Rank hunter muttered, his hands shaking.
"The Phantom Vanguard... the dead man returned?"
"Why does he look like a demon from the outer planes?"
"What happened down there?"
"I just wanted to call in and personally thank you for the lovely memorial service," Kaelen continued.
He casually wiped a fresh smear of dark, acidic monster blood off his scarred left cheek.
The casual, nonchalant way he handled the toxic blood made the hardened hunters in the audience shudder.
Then, Kaelen reached over.
His heavy, calloused hand gripped the steel crank of his massive, eighty-pound heavy crossbow.
Click-clack.
The heavy, mechanical sound of the weapon loading echoed through the dead silent gala hall like a death knell.
It was the unmistakable sound of an executioner preparing the guillotine.
Kaelen looked directly into the camera lens, his silver eyes locking onto Marcus Thorne's terrified soul.
"I hope you enjoyed my ten-year absence, Marcus."
Kaelen's mocking smile instantly vanished from his face.
It was replaced by an expression of pure, unadulterated, bone-chilling murder.
"Keep my seat warm. I'm coming to take it back."
The live video feed violently cut to pitch-black.
For three agonizing seconds, the Grand Hall was completely, perfectly silent.
The silence was deafening, the calm before an absolute cataclysm.
And then, absolute, unfiltered chaos erupted.
Women in multi-million credit dresses screamed at the top of their lungs, dropping their expensive crystal flutes.
Men in tailored spider-silk suits scrambled over the gourmet buffet tables, ruining the rare delicacies.
They shoved, bit, and trampled each other in a desperate, pathetic bid to reach the reinforced emergency exits.
"Form a defensive perimeter around the Guildmaster!" a high-ranking guard captain shouted, his voice cracking.
Vanguard security guards drew their glowing, enchanted weapons, aiming wildly at the dark corners of the ceiling.
They were terrified of the shadows, terrified that the monster would materialize from the darkness at any second.
Meanwhile, Marcus Thorne fell heavily to his knees on the white marble stage.
The great S-Rank Paladin, the savior of Neo-Edo, looked completely hollowed out.
He completely ignored the screaming crowd of his loyal corporate sponsors.
He ignored the shattered crystal glass raining down around his expensive white suit.
He just stared blankly at the dark, empty Jumbotron, his entire body trembling with an uncontrolled violence.
The Phantom Vanguard was alive.
The ghost had crawled out of the mouth of hell, and he was coming for his head.
◇ ◇ ◇
Down in the deepest, forgotten trench of the Abyss, Kaelen stepped away from the glowing terminal.
The heavy titanium blast gates in front of him were now fully open, hissing loudly as they retracted into the solid bedrock.
The path ahead revealed a massive, ascending tunnel that led directly up to the monster-infested ruins of Sector 3.
[System: Viral milestone has been successfully reached!]
[System: Current Live Viewers: 120,540]
[System: Your stream has officially reached the Supernova Tier!]
[System: The Constellation The One Who Watches from the Abyss is howling with manic laughter!]
[System: User DragonBoredom has sponsored 100,000 Cosmic Credits to the Broadcaster!]
[User DragonBoredom: That was the most entertaining piece of psychological warfare I have ever witnessed in this entire galaxy! My champion. My glorious, ruthless champion. Take the money and hunt them down!]
[User Void_Walker: The S-Rank fraud didn't even know what hit him. Look at the data spike! Peak entertainment.]
[User Star_Dust_69: More blood! More face slapping! Go, Kaelen!]
Kaelen didn't even bother to look at the massive influx of cosmic credits or the floating gold chat logs.
To him, the gods and aliens were just a tool to get the resources he needed to survive.
Suddenly, he felt a cold, leathery, yet strangely soft wing drape casually over his broad shoulder.
Vespera materialized slowly from the deep, swallowing shadow cast by his heavy frame.
Her supple, dark-skinned demonic body pressed firmly against his back, her chin resting lightly on his shoulder blade.
She smelled of sulfur, ozone, and old blood.
She looked at the open titanium gate, her glowing pink tail twitching with absolute, murderous excitement.
"That was incredibly dramatic, my little vanguard," Vespera whispered, her breath freezing cold against his ear.
Her sharp, black-clawed fingers gently traced the edge of his jawline.
"Now... are we finally going to go up there and kill them all?"
Kaelen casually adjusted the heavy leather strap of his weapon, Vengeance, on his shoulder.
The cold metal of the crossbow pressed against his back, a familiar, grounding weight.
He looked up into the dark, winding tunnel leading all the way back to the surface world.
Ten years of starvation, ten years of fighting demons, ten years of absolute agony.
It all came down to this climb.
"Every last fucking one of them," Kaelen said, his eyes flashing a brilliant, deadly silver.
He stepped through the gates, plunging directly into the dark.