The Crater Nexus was the kind of place game devs inserted and then forgot.
A dead zone. A memory leak in the codebase. Officially unranked, unofficially cursed.
Ethan entered it on foot, moving across the shattered landscape without a mount. Cratered earth, distorted gravity wells, broken geometry that flickered when you looked too long at it. Jagged cliffs wrapped around the zone like a cracked bowl. Ash clouds drifted in slow, deliberate spirals. Nothing spawned naturally here.
Except corpses.
And players who didn't log out in time.
He stepped over the remains of one now. A red-tagged PvP corpse, scavenged clean. Probably someone who thought they were clever. The Nexus didn't reward clever. It rewarded precision.
He brought up the Ashcore network overlay and synced the zone manually.
[Connecting to Environmental Matrix... Success]
[Initiating Partial Overlay — Ashen Sync: Local Only]
[Trap Integrity in Crater Nexus: 61%]
[Warning: Terrain Instability Detected. Node Anchors Required.]
He reached into his pack and removed three spike anchors—heavy, rune-inscribed iron stakes forged from Vault-Delta alloy. Each one carried a localized stabilizer ward, designed to keep the geometry from phasing out when energy flux spiked. He slammed the first into the ground.
The terrain pulsed. Stabilized slightly.
Progress.
Ethan moved deeper, weaving between shattered buildings and inactive conduit towers. He found an old arena platform half-sunk into the ground. Good elevation, natural sightlines, strong fallback angles. He began setting traps.
Pressure plates. Shock nets. Remote-trigger concussives. Repeating bolt-spike launchers mounted under rubble. The kind of death loop that could stop a raid party cold if they moved without discipline.
When the rig's final capacitor locked into place, he checked the trigger tree.
[Crater Node Alpha: Online]
Kill Field Radius: 45m
Adaptive AI Response: Engaged
Visibility Rating: -78%
Linked To Network: Standalone (Buffering)
Something pinged behind him.
[WARNING: Unregistered player presence detected]
[Status: Solo | No Guild Affiliation | Loadout Masked | Tracking Enabled]
Ethan stepped into cover instantly, eyes scanning. He activated the lens overlay. One heat signature, moving slow. Not probing. Not scouting.
Stalking.
He narrowed the scan field.
The player's tag resolved after a brief delay.
[PLAYER ID: KERIX]
[LEVEL: 17]
[Class: Unknown Hybrid | Specialization: Unregistered]
[Reputation: Hidden]
[Streaming Tag: OFFLINE]
Not a random.
Ethan pulled a static mine from his belt, armed it, then threw it underhand into a blind corridor. A flash of motion. A figure dashed back, barely clipped by the edge of the blast.
Fast.
The first shot from the stranger came without sound—a throwing blade, zero windup. It missed Ethan by an inch, cutting through the air like a whisper.
He countered with a chain-blade sweep. The figure vanished again.
[ASHCORE ALERT: Kinetic Trap Triggered]
A flash behind him. Ethan pivoted, ducked, kicked off the stone, and flipped over a broken pipe. A blast of air struck where his spine had been. Something grazed his boot mid-arc.
Landing clean, he deployed the spike net trap and slammed the trigger.
[Trap Activation: Direct Hit — Immobilize Successful]
The figure snarled.
A woman. Voice low, ragged.
Ethan approached, blade drawn.
"Didn't think anyone would come to the Nexus," she hissed.
"They don't. Not more than once."
He stabbed downward. Fast. Clean.
[PLAYER KILL CONFIRMED: KERIX]
[Level Gap Bonus Applied]
[Loot Acquired: Null-Class Dagger Core, Hidden Protocol Fragment]
[LEVEL UP: Ethan Ryker — Lvl 13 → Lvl 14]
+2 Dexterity
+3 Reflex
New Passive: Deathloop Efficiency — When killing from stealth, cooldowns on all traps reduced by 10%
[Reputation +6]
[Crater Nexus Kill Count: 1]
[Zone Instability Increasing...]
He turned back toward the anchor field.
No more hesitation.
He still had two more nodes to build before this place earned its name.