Chapter 29 · Don't Kill My Save

The blade's in my hand and I don't remember picking it up.

Nyx is three feet away. Her golden eyes are locked on mine. The core access terminal is still open behind her, glowing that sick green that means the exit protocol is live. One kill. That's all it takes. Drive this thing through her chest, let the system register boss-down, and the eject sequence fires.

I go home.

"Vera." That voice again. It's coming from everywhere and nowhere. Tinny. Real. "Kill the boss. We'll pull you out."

My hand's shaking. The blade weighs nothing. It's not even a real blade—it's a debug item, a developer override shaped like a dagger because some artist thought it looked cool. It'll delete her. Clean. Instant. No blood, no body. Just gone.

"You should do it," Nyx says.

I blink. "What?"

"You should." She doesn't move. Doesn't step back. Her hands are loose at her sides. "You've died forty-seven times. I've killed you thirty-one of those. You want to go home."

"Nyx—"

"I'm not real, Vera." Her voice is so steady it makes my chest hurt. "I'm a boss mob with broken pathing and a corrupted dialogue tree. You're a person.