Chapter 47: [47] : The First Synchronization Leap, Real World Glitch

Declan held the Apostle’s Core in his right hand. The green shifting code illuminated his face in the dim cathedral.

[Item: Apostle’s Core]

↳ Tier: Sovereign (Entity Class)

↳ Description: The condensed conceptual power of a Grid Apostle. Consuming this core will force a massive data overwrite on the user’s physical vessel, drastically increasing Real World Synchronization.

↳ Warning: Consumption causes extreme neural trauma. Do not ingest without medical supervision.

Declan stared at the beating heart of code. A massive predatory grin spread across his face.

This was it. This was the exact item Thatcher the NPC had told him about back in the Iron Bastion. This was the key to dragging his overpowered game stats fully into the real world.

"Declan!" Kendra jogged over, carefully stepping around the cracked stone and the small pools of lava left over from his earlier Starfall attack. "What did it drop? Is it a new weapon? A class token?"

Declan stood up, holding the glowing green core out so they could see it.

"No," Declan said softly. "It’s a hardware upgrade."

Sloane walked up beside Kendra. She squinted at the pulsing green heart, her nose wrinkling in disgust.

"That looks absolutely vile," Sloane said. "It looks like a radioactive organ. Are you going to sell it? We could probably get a million Origin Points for that on the auction house. The big guilds would kill for an Entity drop."

"I’m not selling it," Declan replied casually. "I’m going to eat it."

Sloane’s jaw dropped. "Are you insane? The warning label literally says it causes extreme neural trauma! You don’t even know what Real World Synchronization actually means!"

"I know exactly what it means," Declan said. He looked up at the shattered red glass ceiling of the Spire. "It means when the monsters inevitably break through the servers and start walking down the streets of Sector 7, I won’t have to hide in a bunker like a rat."

Before either of the girls could yell at him or tell him how incredibly stupid that sounded, Declan raised the glowing core to his mouth and took a massive bite.

It didn’t taste like meat. It didn’t taste like digital code either.

The moment Declan’s teeth broke the surface of the Apostle’s Core, the entire item instantly turned into liquid energy. It rushed down his throat like a torrent of freezing cold battery acid mixed with shattered glass.

"Declan?!" Sloane yelled, taking a panicked step forward and frantically reaching for her healing staff.

Declan couldn’t answer her. His throat completely locked up.

He dropped heavily to his knees, his Spiked Striders skidding against the stone floor. The plus 10 Predator’s Coat pooled around him in the dust. He gripped his chest with both hands, his fingers digging into the dark leather.

His digital vision violently glitched.

The entire cathedral tore apart into jagged lines of gray static before snapping back into focus. A massive blaring red warning box completely overtook his sight, drowning out the room and the panicked voices of his party members.

[CRITICAL ALERT: Massive Data Injection Detected.]

[Forcing Physical Vessel Overwrite.]

[Synchronization Rate Jumped to 30%.]

"ARGH!" Declan screamed through clenched teeth.

This wasn’t simulated game damage. This wasn’t the dull calculated pain of losing health points from a monster’s claw. This was pure unadulterated physical agony transmitting directly down his neural link and straight into his real body.

He felt his avatar’s muscles tearing and reforming in real time. But more than that, he felt the physical meat and bone sitting inside the dive pod back in Sector 7 literally expanding and cracking under the pressure of the new data.

His veins felt like they were filled with boiling lead. The sheer amount of Origin energy being forced into his real world DNA was fundamentally altering his biological structure.

[Emergency Protocol Initiated.]

[Host physical vessel is undergoing catastrophic stress.]

[Initiating Forced Disconnect to preserve host sanity.]

The glowing red glass ceiling of the Spire shattered entirely in his vision. Sloane’s panicked shouting face faded into a wall of white noise.

The world went violently dark.

The transition back to reality was not smooth at all. It felt like being ripped backward through a tight keyhole.

Declan’s eyes snapped open.

He was greeted by the heavy coffin like lid of the stolen corporate dive pod. It hissed loudly, the internal pneumatics struggling to vent the heat. Thick plumes of white steam billowed out of the side ventilation grates.

The machine was actively overheating. The internal cooling fans were screaming, whining at a high pitch as they desperately tried to handle the massive power surge pulling from the warehouse’s industrial main line.

BANG!

The pod didn’t just open normally. The internal pressure literally blew the heavy steel lid clean off its reinforced hinges!

The massive slab of metal flew through the air and crashed into a concrete pillar ten feet away, leaving a massive dent in the stone before clattering to the floor.

Declan sat up slowly.

He didn’t gasp for air. He didn’t choke or cough like a normal player waking up from a forced disconnect. He just reached behind his neck and gripped the sensory halo attached to his spine.

He ripped it off his head, snapping the thick connecting cables like they were made of cheap wet twine.

He climbed out of the smoking pod. His bare feet hit the cold dusty concrete floor of the warehouse. He was wearing a loose orange prison jumpsuit he had stolen from the debtor’s facility hours ago. It was soaked in the clear conductive gel from the pod’s interior.

The warehouse was dark, lit only by the pale sickly moonlight filtering through the shattered skylights above. The air smelled of rusted iron, stale rain, and the burning plastic of the overheated circuitry.

Declan stood perfectly still. He looked down at his hands.

"Thirty percent," Declan whispered.

His real voice sounded different. It was slightly deeper, rumbling with a heavy dangerous resonance in his chest that hadn’t been there yesterday.

At fifteen percent synchronization, he had easily ripped a steel door flap off a prison cell and snapped a corporate guard’s arm without even trying.

At thirty percent? He didn’t even feel human anymore.

His muscles weren’t just dense, they looked carved out of solid marble. Dark thick veins pulsed visibly under his pale skin. But the blood running through them didn’t look entirely red anymore. In the dim moonlight, the veins flashed with a faint corrupted purple energy. The exact same visual effect that fueled his Eclipse Sovereign class in the game.

He clenched his right fist.

The sound was horrifying. It sounded like thick steel cables pulling tight under the weight of a massive suspension bridge.