Mark surveyed the battlefield, sweat clinging to his brow. The Harbinger lay defeated, its dark aura dissipating into nothingness. Relief washed over him, tinged with a sense of unease. The creature's final, raspy words echoed in his mind: "System…malfunction…"
Elara and Kai approached, their faces etched with a mixture of exhaustion and exhilaration. "Good job, Mark," Elara said, her voice gruff but laced with respect. "Those enchanted shackles were a brilliant idea."
Mark chuckled, a little shakily. "Not entirely my doing. Seems one of the blacksmith clones had a hidden talent for magical tinkering." He glanced down at the fragment of metal clutched in his hand, pulsating with a faint blue light. It was a piece of the artifact retrieved from the Harbinger's remains.
Intrigued, Mark held it closer. An unfamiliar interface flickered to life in his vision, a series of cryptic symbols and swirling energy patterns. Curiosity gnawed at him. Buttons, or rather, glowing glyphs, adorned the surface of the fragment. He poked one tentatively.
Nothing happened. He prodded another, then another. Still nothing. Just as he was about to give up, a final glyph caught his eye, pulsing with a more intense light. Ignoring Elara and Kai's curious gazes, he pressed it.
A blinding light enveloped him, a torrent of information flooding his mind. He saw visions of a sprawling technological city bathed in an artificial glow, then a vast network of interconnected processors, and finally, lines of complex code scrolling by at breakneck speed. It was overwhelming, a glimpse into the very core of the System.
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He gasped as the visions abruptly ceased. The light faded, leaving him disoriented and weak. Clutching the fragment, he looked up to meet Elara and Kai's concerned faces.
"Mark? What happened?" Elara asked, a tremor of worry in her voice.
Mark shook his head, his voice raspy. "I… I don't know. It showed me things. About the System, how it works." He described the visions, the awe in his voice gradually giving way to unease.
"The System… it's not what it seems," he concluded, a chill creeping down his spine. "It feels more like a machine than a natural force."
He spent the next few hours explaining his newfound knowledge. Elara was skeptical, her pragmatism urging caution. Kai, however, shared Mark's growing concern.
"If what you saw holds true," Kai said, his brow furrowed, "then defeating the Harbinger might have poked a hornet's nest. The System might view your actions as a threat."
As if to confirm his fears, a tremor shook the ground. A holographic notification, emblazoned with the System's emblem, materialized before them.
"Alert: Anomaly Detected. Code: Clone Master. Initiating Protocol: Neutralization."
Mark's stomach lurched. He had stumbled upon a secret, and now the System was coming for him. Before he could react, a blinding light erupted from the notification, engulfing the area in a white-hot flash.