GLOBAL AWAKENING: My 10,000x Exp Multiplier-Chapter 31: []Metal to Scrap, The Hidden Curse

The fifteenth floor of the Chronos Spire was a sprawling, industrialized nightmare of floating metallic platforms, glowing neon light-bridges, and the constant, deafening grind of heavy machinery. The air tasted permanently of ozone and engine grease. Below the narrow walkways, a seemingly bottomless abyss of churning cogs and sparking exhaust vents stretched into the dark. It was a zone designed to test a party’s footing and spatial awareness, completely devoid of the natural elements found in the lower levels.

Vahn Ryker walked across the central promenade with his hands casually tucked into the pockets of his cheap, brown academy jacket. He didn’t look like a man who had just suffocated one of the most powerful Guild Leaders on the server with a localized physics rewrite. He looked like he was out for a leisurely evening stroll.

Beside him, Kora was not having a good time. The newly hatched Mythic-tier dragon-girl kicked a loose, rusted gear off the edge of the platform, her glowing gold eyes narrowed in profound disgust.

"Terrible," Kora announced, her telepathic voice ringing directly in Vahn’s mind. She crossed her arms, her small obsidian horns glinting under the harsh artificial lights. "The snacks here are crunchy and taste like old copper. I want the soft, squishy ones from the mist. Or another dragon. Feed me a dragon, Master."

Vahn let out a soft, genuine laugh, reaching over to ruffle her wild crimson hair. "Patience, Kora. We’re just passing through the transit hub. I promise I’ll find you something with a higher nutritional data value once we clear the sector."

Behind them, Aria and Sia flanked Hana, maintaining a tight defensive perimeter. Aria’s Crimson-Lotus Vestments fluttered elegantly in the artificial wind, while Sia’s massive obsidian kite shield hummed with a dormant, terrifying heat. Hana, entirely unbothered by the sheer drop on either side of the walkway, was happily pointing out the different mechanical beasts roaming the distant platforms.

"You know, for a high-level zone, it’s remarkably quiet," Hana noted, leaning over the guardrail. "I thought the Golden Dragon Guild practically owned this floor. Where is everybody?"

"They are currently experiencing a localized crisis of leadership," Vahn replied smoothly, offering his sister a wry smile. "It turns out that when your Guild Leader forgets how to breathe, the chain of command gets a little disorganized."

Before Hana could respond, the heavy, metallic thud of armored boots echoed across the platform.

From the shadows of a towering exhaust manifold, a full twenty-man hunting squad materialized, blocking the primary path to the sixteenth-floor transition matrix. They were draped in the signature, obnoxiously bright Platinum-tier armor of the Golden Dragon Guild. The man at the front, a towering Vanguard with a nasty scar across his jaw, leveled a massive heavy-repeater crossbow directly at Vahn’s chest.

"Hold it right there, you little rat," the captain barked, his voice amplified by the enclosed metallic space. "You think you can humiliate Zhao at the gate and just waltz through our territory? We don’t care if you’re some hacker or a glitch. You’re in a private hunting reserve, and you’re going to pay the toll. Drop the legendary gear, hand over the dragon pet, and maybe we’ll let you jump off the edge instead of spawn-camping you for a week."

Aria instantly stepped forward, her emerald eyes flashing with anger, her staff already glowing with a primed binding spell. Sia didn’t even speak; she just slammed her fist against her shield, the dark metal erupting with a localized wave of thermal energy that made the air waver and distort.

Vahn held up a single hand, halting them both. He didn’t drop into a combat stance. He didn’t summon the Soul-Bound Shadow Blade. He just sighed, a sound of profound, weary amusement.

"Didn’t your boss just learn the hard way that heavy armor is a statistical liability?" Vahn asked, his tone entirely conversational. "You are standing on a metallic platform, wearing highly conductive alloys, threatening a man who literally edits the environment for fun. It’s a staggering display of inefficiency."

"Fire!" the captain roared, entirely uninterested in the banter.

Vahn’s deep purple eyes flared with a blinding, intense azure light. The [Verdant Chronos-Sight] snapped online, the world breaking down into geometric wireframes and flowing streams of binary code. He didn’t use a spell. He tapped into the massive reservoir of experience points he was hoarding.

’System,’ Vahn commanded internally. ’Target: Platinum Alloy Armor within a thirty-meter radius. Override foundational integrity. Increase oxidation rate by ten thousand percent.’[Ding! Architect Permission Granted. 500,000 EXP Consumed. Localized material decay initiated.]

The twenty elite players didn’t even have time to pull their triggers.

A violent wave of golden, corrupted code washed over the hunting party. The pristine, glowing platinum plates of their armor instantly dulled, turning a sickly, corrosive brown. The metal shrieked, warping and flaking away like dead skin. In less than two seconds, millions of credits worth of high-tier equipment was reduced to fragile, rusted scrap metal that shattered under its own weight.

The captain gasped, dropping his heavy crossbow as the weapon simply crumbled into a pile of red dust in his hands. The entire squad stood there in their basic cloth undergarments, staring at Vahn in absolute, slack-jawed horror.

"Run," Vahn suggested pleasantly.

They didn’t need to be told twice. The squad broke formation instantly, scrambling back toward the transit hub in a chaotic, terrified stampede, slipping and sliding over the piles of their own ruined gear.

"Well, that was highly optimal," Hana giggled, clapping her hands together. "You didn’t even have to swing your sword, Brother!"

Vahn turned around to offer her a smile, but the expression never reached his face.

A sudden, agonizing jolt of raw, unfiltered pain ripped through his chest. It felt like a jagged piece of ice had been driven directly into his lungs. Vahn gasped, his legs completely giving out from under him. He dropped heavily to one knee, his hand flying to his chest.

Beneath the fabric of his cheap academy jacket, a sickly, pulsing black light flared to life. The[Calamity Curse]—the brand left by the Demon Duke Ethan—was actively eating through his foundational code.

"Vahn!" Hana shrieked, the playful demeanor vanishing instantly as she rushed forward, dropping to her knees beside him. She reached out, her hands hovering over his chest, her deep purple eyes wide with sheer panic. "What is that? What’s happening? Why is he glowing like that?!"

Vahn gritted his teeth, forcing his erratic breathing to steady. "It’s... it’s fine, Hana. It’s just a localized debuff. A minor glitch in the hardware. I just overexerted my mana pathways—"

"Stop lying to her!" Aria snapped, her voice cutting through the mechanical hum of the platform like a physical blade.

She rushed forward, completely abandoning her formal, pristine posture. She dropped into the dirt next to Vahn, her hands igniting with a brilliant, warm pink-gold light. She didn’t ask for permission; she pressed her hands directly against his chest, right over the pulsing black rune, forcing her restorative mana into his violently glitching code.

"Aria, I told you to maintain tactical distance," Vahn managed to say, though the relief her magic brought was undeniable.

"Shut up," Aria demanded, tears welling in her emerald eyes. She looked up at Hana, her expression fierce and terrified. "It’s not a debuff, Hana. It’s a curse. A highly aggressive, parasitic code injected into him by a Mythic-tier anomaly on the twelfth floor. It’s constantly draining his base stats. Every time he uses his powers to protect us, every time he rewrites the rules, the curse accelerates."

Hana stared at the glowing black light, the realization hitting her like a physical blow. She looked from the terrifying rune to her brother’s pale face, and finally, to the Priestess.

Aria’s hands were trembling violently. She wasn’t just performing a medical evaluation. She was pouring her own life-force into Vahn’s chest, her eyes locked onto his with an intensity that defied the logic of a simple video game. It wasn’t the look of a teammate trying to keep their vanguard alive. It was the raw, desperate look of someone who was profoundly, utterly terrified of losing the person they cared about most.

Hana went completely quiet. The little matchmaker who loved to tease her brother suddenly saw the reality of the situation. This wasn’t a game to Aria. And despite Vahn’s clinical terminology, it clearly wasn’t a game to him, either.

"You’ve been carrying this alone?" Hana asked softly, her voice breaking. "Since the Jade Canyons?"

"It was statistically irrelevant to inform you," Vahn replied, his voice softer now, lacking its usual robotic drone. He looked at Aria, his deep purple eyes softening as the cherry blossom scent of her magic washed over him. "I had the situation under control."

"You don’t have it under control," Aria whispered, a single tear escaping and tracking down her cheek. "You’re bleeding out data, Vahn. You can’t keep acting like a machine. You are going to shatter."

Hana watched the two of them, a fierce, protective determination replacing her panic. She stored this information away. Her brother might be a genius architect capable of breaking reality, but he was a complete idiot when it came to his own humanity.

Sia Vance stood a few feet away, her silver-grey eyes taking in the entire scene. She didn’t interrupt. She simply adjusted her grip on her massive obsidian shield, turning her back to the group to watch the perimeter. Her jaw was set, her heart heavy, but she understood her role perfectly. She couldn’t heal his soul, but she would slaughter anything that tried to get close while he bled.

"We need to find a safe zone," Aria commanded, her voice regaining a fraction of its professional authority, though she refused to break physical contact with Vahn. "The stat drain is accelerating. We can’t push for the sixteenth floor today."

Vahn looked at the tear-streaked face of his healer, then at the terrified but resolute expression of his sister. For once, the math didn’t matter. The raw data of the Spire faded into the background.

"Alright," Vahn breathed out, slowly pushing himself up, leaning heavily against Aria’s shoulder. "We establish a camp. Let’s find some quiet geometry."

__

The temporary safe zone was an abandoned, reinforced maintenance bunker suspended beneath the primary walkways of the fifteenth floor. It was small, cramped, and smelled faintly of copper wiring, but it was entirely cut off from the environmental aggro radius of the roaming mechanical beasts. The heavy steel door had been securely bolted, and Vahn had spent his last bit of functional energy rewriting the localized collision parameters so that the room essentially didn’t exist to the Spire’s targeting system.