Chapter 29: [29] : Sector 7 Prison Break, Reality Sync

"Spatial Anchor." Declan commanded in his mind.

He tapped the dark silver Mythic ring on his right index finger. He targeted Sloane’s exact coordinates back in the Iron Bastion.

Declan didn’t physically carry Bram’s heavy iron workbench or the massive automated turrets. Thanks to the Ring of the Void-Hoarder, his digital inventory had expanded by five hundred slots.

He just walked around the cave, touching the heavy machinery and storing it all instantly into his interface.

Then, the void energy expanded.

A cylinder of pitch-black darkness swallowed Declan, Bram, and Kendra. The damp, foul-smelling air of the Subterranean Hollows vanished.

A split second later, the darkness spat them out onto the clean paving stones of the Iron Bastion courtyard.

Kendra instantly fell to her knees, dry-heaving.

Teleporting across the map through a conceptual black hole was still a miserable experience for their low-level avatars.

Bram, however, just stumbled a few steps. The old mechanist quickly regained his balance and looked around.

He stared at the massive black iron monolith, the glowing purple dome overhead, and the mountains of raw iron ore stacked nearby.

He flexed his new obsidian prosthetic arm. A wide, greasy grin spread across his face.

"You were not lying!" Bram laughed loudly. "This is a proper fortress. Just give me the machinery you stored, and I will get these forges running hotter than the core of the earth!"

Declan smiled and began pulling the heavy workbenches and turrets out of his inventory, dropping them into the designated crafting zone.

He watched the city interface update as Bram immediately started yelling orders at the nearby players, organizing them into a makeshift assembly line.

Things were finally falling into place. He had a safe zone, an economy, and a master NPC to build his defenses.

But suddenly, the glowing system interface in front of Declan flickered.

It wasn’t a game notification.

The blue and gold text warped into a harsh, glaring red warning box that completely covered his vision.

[CRITICAL HARDWARE WARNING]

↳ Physical Dive Pod temperature exceeding maximum safety thresholds.

↳ Host vessel is drawing anomalous power.

↳ Electrical fire imminent.

↳ Emergency neural disconnect initiated to prevent catastrophic hardware failure.

Declan frowned. "Wait, not right now..."

He didn’t even get to finish his words. The glowing purple dome of the Iron Bastion vanished.

The noise of the busy courtyard was cut off instantly.

A blinding white flash consumed his vision, followed immediately by the cold, heavy sensation of reality crashing down on his chest.

Declan gasped for air. He opened his eyes.

He was lying on his back in the cold, gel-lined padding of his dive pod.

The mechanical halo around his head clicked loudly and retracted, pulling the sensory needles out of his neck.

The air in the real world tasted like cheap chemical cleaner and stale sweat.

He was back in Sub-Level 4 of the Sector 7 Debtor’s Prison.

Declan didn’t panic. This wasn’t his first forced wake-up.

Just a few days ago, the system had booted him out because his physical body was starving.

That was the day he ripped the steel food slot off his cell door like it was wet cardboard.

That was the day Officer Briggs tried to beat him with a stun baton, and Declan casually caught the weapon and snapped the guard’s wrist in half.

He already knew his avatar’s stats were bleeding into his real-world DNA.

But right now, his body felt entirely different than it did during that first wake-up.

He had a fifteen percent synchronization rate.

In the game, he was an Ascendant-tier Eclipse Sovereign. He had consumed a World Boss core. He had equipped mutated gear.

Declan pushed his hands against the heavy steel restraints holding his chest and wrists.

He didn’t even have to strain.

The dense, mutated muscle fibers in his arms contracted.

The thick steel clamps groaned, bent, and then shattered completely, sending metal shrapnel flying across the dark room.

Declan sat up and pushed the heavy lid of the pod open.

He stepped out onto the cold concrete floor, wearing his faded orange prison jumpsuit.

He cracked his knuckles. They sounded like gunshots.

Far above him, in the administrative levels of the prison, Warden Cross was sweating through his cheap suit.

Cross sat in his smoke-filled office, staring in sheer panic at the digital power grid monitor on his desk.

The chart for Sub-Level 4 was flashing a blinding red.

Pod 404, Declan Vance’s pod, was drawing a hundred times its normal power allocation.

The megacorps charged the prison by the kilowatt. That single pod was currently burning through the facility’s entire monthly budget in minutes.

"What the hell is going on down there?!" Cross yelled into his radio. "I told you to unplug that pod ten minutes ago!"

"We’re trying, Warden!" a voice crackled back over the radio. It was Officer Briggs.

Briggs was standing outside the heavy blast doors of Sub-Level 4.

His right arm was wrapped in a thick white medical cast, secured tightly in a sling. He was sweating profusely, surrounded by a squad of six heavily armed corporate prison guards.

These weren’t the regular guys who carried standard batons. This was the riot squad.

They wore thick Kevlar body armor, riot helmets with face shields, and carried high-voltage stun rifles designed to drop angry mobs.

"The pod is locked down, sir," Briggs yelled into his shoulder mic. "The door mechanism is jammed. But we brought the breaching charges. We’re going in right now."

Briggs lowered the radio and glared at the heavy steel door.

He hadn’t forgotten what happened in that cell. He hadn’t forgotten the cold, dead look in Declan Vance’s eyes when the inmate shattered his wrist with zero effort.

Briggs didn’t know how a starving debtor got that strong, and he didn’t care. He just wanted payback.

"Blow the door!" Briggs barked at the squad. "When we get inside, I don’t care if the pod is smoking. Shoot him with the stun darts on maximum voltage. Fry his brain!"

A guard slapped a circular breaching charge onto the electronic lock of the door. They all took a step back.

"BOOM!"

The lock blew inward with a shower of sparks and smoke. The heavy steel doors hissed and slid open halfway before getting stuck on the warped metal track.

The six guards rushed into the dark pod bay, raising their stun rifles.

Blue electricity crackled aggressively at the tips of their barrels.

Briggs stayed safely in the back, holding a heavy pistol in his good hand.

"Check Pod 404! Pull the plug!"

The room was quiet. The only sound was the low, dangerous hum of the overheated dive pods.

The fluorescent lights overhead flickered, struggling to stay on due to the massive power drain.

"Sir, Pod 404 is open," the lead guard called out, his voice muffled behind his riot helmet. "The restraints are completely shattered. He’s not in the machine."

Briggs felt a cold drop of sweat slide down his neck. "What do you mean he’s not in the machine? Find him!"

"You guys are really loud," a calm voice echoed from the shadows near the ceiling.

The guards all jerked their rifles upward.

Declan was standing on top of a massive ventilation pipe, directly above the squad. He looked down at them with absolute boredom.

His orange jumpsuit was loose on his newly defined, dense frame.

Before the guards could even pull their triggers, Declan dropped.

He didn’t fall like a normal human. He dropped with the heavy, terrifying speed of a guy who had over fifty base Agility in a world where normal people had five.

He landed directly in the center of the squad.

A guard panicked and fired his stun rifle point-blank into Declan’s chest.

The high-voltage dart struck the thin fabric of the orange jumpsuit. A massive surge of blue electricity arched over Declan’s body.

It was enough juice to stop a charging rhino’s heart.

Declan didn’t even flinch.

His fifteen percent synchronization rate meant his physical density was absurd. The electricity just tickled his skin.

Declan reached out and grabbed the barrel of the stun rifle. He yanked it forward.

The guard holding it was ripped off his feet and sent flying across the room, crashing heavily into a metal pod.

"Fire! Shoot him!" Briggs screamed from the hallway.

The remaining five guards opened fire. Blue darts zipped through the air.

They started the violence, he was going to help them finish it.

Declan blurred. He moved so fast the human eye could barely track him.

He ducked under two darts, stepped inside the guard’s formation, and threw a simple, casual punch.

His fist slammed into the Kevlar chest plate of a guard. The thick armor crumpled inward instantly.

The guard’s ribs cracked loudly, and he was thrown backward with the force of a car crash, knocking over two of his squadmates like bowling pins.

Another guard swung the butt of his rifle at Declan’s head.

Declan raised his forearm and blocked it. The heavy composite plastic of the rifle stock shattered into three pieces against his bare skin.

Declan grabbed the guard by the tactical vest, lifted him entirely off the ground with one hand, and casually tossed him into the ceiling pipes.

The man hit the metal hard and dropped to the floor, completely unconscious.

In less than five seconds, the elite riot squad was reduced to a groaning, broken pile of bodies on the concrete floor.

Briggs stood in the doorway. His face was completely drained of blood.

His knees were physically shaking. The pistol in his left hand was aimed at Declan, but the barrel was wavering wildly.

Declan slowly turned his head and looked at Briggs. He saw the white cast on the guard’s right arm.

"You again," Declan said smoothly. He took a slow step forward.

"Stay back!" Briggs shrieked, his voice cracking. He pulled the trigger.

"BANG!"

The bullet sparked out of the barrel. Declan didn’t even try to dodge. He just raised his left hand in a fluid, casual motion.

The bullet hit the palm of his hand. It didn’t pierce the skin.

The lead slug flattened against Declan’s flesh like it had hit a solid wall of titanium, dropping harmlessly to the floor.

Briggs stared at the flattened bullet. His brain simply refused to process what he had just seen.

He dropped the gun, turned around, and tried to run down the hallway.

He didn’t make it two steps.

Declan closed the distance instantly. He grabbed the back of Briggs’s tactical collar and yanked him backward.

The heavy guard slammed onto the floor, sliding across the slick concrete until he hit the wall.

Declan stepped over Briggs’s shaking body and walked toward the elevator.

Three minutes later, the heavy wooden door to Warden Cross’s office was violently kicked open.

The hinges snapped, and the door bounced off the wall with a deafening crack.

Cross jumped out of his leather chair. He reached frantically for the panic button under his desk.

Declan crossed the room before Cross could even blink.

He grabbed the Warden by the collar of his expensive suit and slammed him back down into the chair.

"Where are my guards?!" Cross yelled, his eyes wide with sheer panic.

"Sleeping on the job," Declan said coldly.

He leaned over the desk, placing his hands flat on the polished wood. The sheer weight of his grip made the heavy oak desk creak in protest.

"Listen to me very carefully, Warden. I don’t have a lot of patience today."

Cross swallowed hard. He looked at the dented wood under Declan’s fingers.

"What... what do you want?"

"I want two things," Declan said. "First, turn your monitor around. Log into the central database and pull up the file for inmate Declan Vance. Delete the debt. Erase the record. I was never here."

Cross’s hands shook violently, but he didn’t argue.

He pulled his keyboard close and rapidly typed in his administrative passwords. He opened the main registry, found the file, and hit delete. He bypassed the safety prompts.

"It’s done," Cross wheezed, spinning the monitor around to show the empty query screen. "Your debt is cleared. You’re out of the system."

"Good," Declan nodded. "Second, give me your master access keycard. The one that opens the heavy blast doors on the ground floor. I don’t want to break the steel gate off its hinges. It makes too much noise."

Cross frantically patted down his pockets. He pulled out a sleek, black keycard and slid it across the desk.

"Take it," the Warden whispered, shrinking back into his chair. "Just go."

Declan picked up the card. He didn’t say another word.

He turned his back on the terrified man and walked out of the office.

He rode the elevator up to the ground floor. He swiped the black card at the massive security terminal.

The heavy steel blast doors hissed loudly and slowly pulled apart.

Declan stepped out of the prison.

The cold, toxic rain of Sector 7 immediately hit his face.

The sky was dark, blocked out by the smog and the massive towering skyscrapers of the upper city districts.

Neon signs buzzed and flickered in the distance, casting long shadows across the littered streets.

He took a deep breath. The air was awful, but it tasted like freedom.

He was finally out of this shithole.

He looked down at his hands.

The power was real. The Grid wasn’t just a virtual simulation. It was physically rewriting the rules of reality.

And he was currently holding the cheat codes.

Declan shoved his hands into the pockets of his jumpsuit and started walking down the dark alleyway.

He needed to find a secure, off-grid location. He needed to buy his own dive pod.

The corporate elites at Apex Paradigm probably thought they controlled the game.

Declan smirked as he walked into the shadows. He was going to show them exactly what happened when you let a hacker take over the server.

He was going to go back into the game.