He needed the pilot’s biometric data mostly intact which meant he couldn’t just turn the ship into a flaming crater.

Sebastian focused his mind and tapped into the concept of mass he had compiled from the dead Juncture Scavenger. He targeted his own physical parameters.

"Mass to zero," he whispered.

Instantly the heavy grounding pull of his own weight vanished. He felt lighter than a single atom.

He bent his knees and coiled his physical muscles tight before pushing off the railing.

BOOM!

Because he effectively weighed absolutely nothing the kinetic force of his Demigod-tier leg muscles launched him off the skiff like a railgun slug.

He sailed through the dark vacuum of the Juncture as a black blur rocketing directly toward the oncoming silver interceptor.

Inside the cockpit of the scout ship Trent the Level 42 Gunner was casually sipping an energy drink. He was expecting a routine shakedown of some dumb smugglers who had let their cloaking drive fail.

Suddenly his proximity alarms screamed.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Trent’s eyes widened as he looked through the reinforced glass canopy. A man in a ragged black coat was flying directly at his windshield at Mach 3!

"What the fuck?!" Trent gasped and dropped his drink to grab the flight stick.

He tried to bank the ship to the right while his fingers desperately scrambled to arm the ship’s forward plasma cannons.

He was way too slow.

Sebastian slammed into the reinforced glass canopy of the interceptor. Right before impact he edited his mass again.

"Two tons," Sebastian commanded.

CRASH!

The sudden catastrophic shift in weight turned Sebastian from a feather into a

falling boulder. He hit the glass feet-first.

The heavy magical shielding of the Vanguard ship groaned under the impossible kinetic impact and instantly spiderwebbed with massive cracks.

Sebastian didn’t give the pilot a chance to recover. He dropped to his knees and dug his gloved hands into the fractured glass.

With his thirty-percent synchronized biological strength he literally peeled the heavy canopy open like a tin of sardines.

SCREEECH!

The glass shattered outward. The localized atmosphere of the cockpit violently decompressed and sucked loose datapads and wrappers out into the void.

Trent panicked. The Gunner reached for the heavy glowing kinetic rifle holstered at his side.

"Hostile! Hostile boarding!" he screamed into his comms.

Sebastian dropped perfectly into the cockpit and landed directly in the passenger seat. He didn’t draw a weapon. He simply reached out with his left hand and grabbed Trent firmly by the helmet.

"Shhhh," Sebastian said with a calm deadpan voice.

He didn’t use a spell. He didn’t use a conceptual law. He just applied the raw

unadulterated physical torque of a man who could arm-wrestle a tank.

He twisted his wrist.

CRACK!

The loud sickening snap of the Gunner’s cervical spine echoed in the tiny cockpit.

Trent’s body instantly went rigid and his hands fell away from the rifle. His health bar plummeted from full to zero in a fraction of a microsecond.

Sebastian let go of the helmet. The dead Level 42 pilot slumped heavily over the control console.

[Target Eliminated.]

[No Loot Dropped. Safe Zone Rules Engaged.]

Sebastian sat back in the expensive leather seat of the interceptor and ignored the blaring red warning lights of the breached canopy. He tapped his comm-link.

"Gwen, Corbin. Pack it up," Sebastian said smoothly. "I got the car. Bring the Spoofing Drive over here. It’s time for me to change my clothes."

——

Sebastian sat in the pilot’s seat having casually shoved the limp dead body of

Trent the Gunner over to the passenger side.

The automated environmental controls of the Vanguard ship had already sealed the breached canopy with a temporary hard-light shield to keep the vacuum of the Juncture out.

THUD.

Gwen landed heavily on the wing of the ship and her boots magnetically locked to the hull. She had driven the smuggler’s skiff right alongside the interceptor.

She punched the emergency release on the side door and slipped inside followed closely by a hyperventilating Corbin.

"You actually just jumped onto a moving ship and broke his neck," Gwen said staring at Trent’s body with a mix of disgust and deep professional respect. "No magic. Just pure primate violence."

"I am a man of many talents," Sebastian deadpanned and held his hand out toward

the code-smith.

"Give me the drive, Corbin. The longer this ship sits here the more likely they are to send a whole squad to check on Trent."

Corbin practically threw the heavy jagged iron block into Sebastian’s hands.

The Server Spoofing Drive pulsed with a sickening chaotic green light. The six thick biometric needles protruding from the bottom looked like medieval torture instruments.

"It’s primed, Boss," Corbin stammered and wiped sweat from his face. "But it has to interface directly with your core data. You have to put it in your wrist. Deep."

Sebastian looked at the brutal piece of hardware. "You couldn’t make this a wireless dongle?"

"It’s hacking a planetary firewall!" Corbin shrieked defensively. "It needs a hardline connection to your digital nervous system!"

"Fine," Sebastian sighed.

He didn’t hesitate. He placed the heavy iron drive flat against his left forearm just below the wrist.

He gritted his teeth and clenched his jaw tight before violently slamming his right hand down on top of the device.

SHLUCK!

"FUCK!" Sebastian hissed through his teeth.

The six biometric needles punched cleanly through his black leather coat and skin before driving deep into the digital bone of his avatar.

A jolt of electricity shot up his arm. Even with his pain receptors deleted his body reacted to the catastrophic biological intrusion.

His left arm violently glitched and shifted between human flesh and green static for a terrifying second before stabilizing.

"Hardware installed," Sebastian breathed heavily as blood leaked from the edges of the drive. "Now what?"

"You need a disguise skill," Gwen said checking the ship’s radar. "Something to

map the dead guy’s face over yours. The drive will do the rest."

Sebastian opened his bottomless inventory. He bypassed his massive arsenal of apocalyptic magic and pulled out a cheap flimsy pamphlet.

It was a Tier 0 spell used by low-level rogues to change their hair color for ten minutes.

[Basic Disguise]

He crushed the pamphlet in his fist.

[Action Registered: Learn Basic Disguise.] [Nexus Glitch Activated: Proficiency

x10,000.]

The familiar beautiful cascade of blue screens flooded his vision and

illuminated the cramped cockpit.

[Basic Disguise leveled up to 10/10!]

[Evolution Requirement Met. Evolves to Tier 1: Face Stealer!]

[Proficiency Overflow Detected! Evolves to Tier 3: Doppelganger!]

[WARNING: Concept Threshold Breached. Identity Law Unlocked.]

[Doppelganger evolves to Conceptual Law: Identity Overwrite.]

Sebastian understood the fundamental

absolute concept of being someone else.

He could perfectly copy the metadata the server registry and the exact digital footprint of the dead man next to him.

He reached over and pressed his right hand flat against Trent’s cold dead face.

"Overwrite," Sebastian commanded.

VWOOSH!

The green runes on the Spoofing Drive bolted to his arm flared blindingly bright.

A wave of localized code washed over Sebastian. His ragged black leather coat

and his cracked white half-mask dissolved into pixels.

In their place the pristine grey-and-blue tactical uniform of a Vanguard Gunner

rendered over his body.

His face shifted and his sharp jawline softened into the unremarkable slightly

pudgy features of Trent.

But it wasn’t just a visual change.

Inside his mind Sebastian’s glorious golden Demigod UI violently glitched.

The majestic interface that commanded the laws of physics shattered. It was forcefully replaced by a cramped rigid and utterly boring grey interface.

[Identity Overwrite Successful.]

[Current User: Trent. Level 42 Gunner.]

[Status: Vanguard Syndicate Soldier.]

"Holy shit," Gwen breathed and stared at him. "You look exactly like him. Even your server tag changed."

"Yeah well I feel like a caged rat," Sebastian grunted.

His voice was no longer the deep metallic hum of a Sovereign. It was Trent’s slightly nasal entirely average voice.

He pulled up his new status screen and a massive glaring red bar hovered at the very top of his vision.

[ADMIN SUSPICION: 0%]

"What is that?" Corbin asked and pointed at the red bar reflecting in Sebastian’s eyes.

"It’s my leash," Sebastian muttered as his eyes narrowed. "The drive is working but it’s fragile. The firewall thinks I’m Trent. But if I use my Demigod stats to throw a black hole or alter gravity or punch a tank in half the server will detect the anomaly. The Suspicion meter will fill."

He looked at Gwen. "If that bar hits 100 percent the Spoofing Drive shorts out

and the Vanguard deletes me from orbit."

"So you can’t use your magic," Gwen summarized grimly. "You’re stuck playing as

a Level 42 grunt."

"I can use physical violence as long as it looks like something a high-level human could do," Sebastian corrected and cracked his new unremarkable knuckles.

"I just have to be quiet about it. No flashy conceptual laws. Just a rusty knife and a lot of patience."

Sebastian grabbed the flight stick. He didn’t know how to fly a spaceship but the identity overwrite gave him access to Trent’s muscle memory. His hands naturally found the thruster controls.

"Get back to the skiff," Sebastian ordered. "Link your navigation to my transponder. When I clear the firewall you ride my slipstream in. The system will register your ship as my cargo haul."

Gwen and Corbin scrambled out of the interceptor.

Sebastian sat alone in the cockpit. He pushed the throttle forward.

The sleek silver ship rocketed toward the massive crackling red energy shield of the Dyson sphere.

The approach was terrifying. The sheer scale of the planetary firewall made him feel entirely insignificant.

As the nose of the ship touched the red energy a massive scanning laser swept over the cockpit.

BEEP.

[Scanning Vanguard ID...] [Vessel 404-B. Pilot: Trent.]

Sebastian held his breath. The red Suspicion meter hovered in his vision. If it ticked up even a single percent he was going to have to blow a hole in the server.

[ID Confirmed. Welcome back to Server 112, Soldier.]