Absolute Cheater - Chapter 555
Capítulo 555: Anomaly VIII
Asher waited.
He didn’t move on the night the window opened. He watched from a distance and confirmed the timing. Signals flowed in. Power levels shifted. The building changed how it breathed.
That was enough.
The next week, he prepared.
He rented a room with a clear line of sight to the upper relay towers. He adjusted his equipment, not for combat, but for capture. He didn’t need to hear voices. He needed proof.
When the window opened again, Asher acted.
He didn’t enter the building.
He tapped the relay.
Just enough to mirror the data stream.
Approvals.
Clearance confirmations.
Names didn’t appear directly. But identifiers did. Repeating codes. Priority chains. Who deferred to whom.
Asher recorded everything.
He stayed still until the window closed, then shut the tap cleanly. No alerts. No traces.
By morning, he had what he needed.
The committee wasn’t just approving research.
They were managing escalation.
They decided how much soul loss was “acceptable.”
They chose which regions could be used.
They approved fallback plans if a project was exposed.
“This isn’t ignorance,” Asher said. “This is intent.”
One identifier stood out.
It appeared in every vote.
Every override.
Every emergency approval.
Not the highest rank.
The quiet one.
The coordinator.
Asher traced the code through public systems. Carefully. Slowly.
It led to a single office.
No guards.
No signs.
No special status.
Just a man who had never left his desk early and had never been questioned.
Asher watched him for two days.
Routine.
Predictable.
Confident.
On the third night, Asher followed him home.
He didn’t confront him there.
He marked the place and left.
“This isn’t about exposure,” Asher said. “It’s about stopping it permanently.”
He returned to his room and sent one message through a sealed channel.
Minimal.
Untraceable.
“Coordinator identified. Monitoring complete.”
Then he waited again.
Because now, the committee thought they were still in control.
And that was exactly when mistakes happened.
Asher didn’t wait long.
The mistake came sooner than he expected.
Two days after the message was sent, the coordinator broke routine.
He left his office early.
That alone was enough to matter.
Asher noticed it immediately. No meetings scheduled. No official reason logged. Yet the man walked out with a sealed case and took a private route through the city.
“He’s reacting,” Asher said. “That means someone warned him.”
Asher followed at a distance.
The coordinator didn’t go home.
He went deeper into the inner district, into an area used only by senior administration. Not public buildings. Not research sites.
Archive facilities.
Places where records went to disappear.
Asher watched the coordinator enter a secure archive tower and present clearance. The doors sealed behind him.
Asher didn’t follow him inside.
Instead, he moved to the side of the building and accessed the external maintenance panel. Old systems. Still trusted. Still overlooked.
He opened a narrow access line and listened.
Inside, the coordinator wasn’t calm anymore.
Asher heard raised voices.
“We lost three sites,” one voice said. “And a core.”
“You said the collectors would cover it,” another replied.
“They did,” the coordinator said. “Until someone started cutting supply instead of chasing symptoms.”
Silence followed.
Then one voice spoke carefully. “Is it him?”
“Yes,” the coordinator said. “Asher.”
Another pause.
“We should remove him.”
“No,” the coordinator replied. “Not yet. If he disappears now, the Association will notice.”
“So what do we do?”
“We accelerate,” the coordinator said. “Move what we have. Begin phase transfer. No more testing.”
Asher closed the line.
“That’s enough,” he said.
They were moving early. That meant risk. That meant mistakes.
Asher pulled back and left the area before anyone noticed the access breach.
By nightfall, the city changed.
More guards.
More sealed routes.
More restricted travel notices.
They were rushing.
Asher returned to his room and prepared.
He didn’t need to stop the committee one by one.
He needed to stop the next phase.
Whatever they were trying to move, wherever they were trying to move it, it would require resources. Transport. Protection.
And speed.
Asher activated the soul network again and widened his scan.
Not for missing souls.
For mass movement.
Something large.
Something dense.
Something being pushed before it was ready.
He felt it before he saw it.
A deep pull, far to the east.
Short-lived.
Unstable.
Rushed.
Asher stood and secured his gear.
“There you are,” he said calmly.
He left the city that night, heading straight toward the signal.
This time, he wasn’t dismantling quietly.
This time, he would intercept it head-on.
Whatever they had accelerated, Asher would be there when it arrived.
Asher traveled through the night without stopping.
The signal stayed ahead of him, moving in short bursts. It wasn’t steady. That told him a lot.
“They’re forcing it to move,” he said. “It’s not stable.”
By morning, he reached the edge of a restricted zone. No towns. No farms. Just old roads and warning markers that no one paid attention to anymore.
The pull grew stronger.
Ahead, he saw it.
A convoy.
Six armored transports moving fast, guarded by Association security units. Not normal guards. Special response teams. The kind used to protect high-value assets.
Asher stayed hidden and watched.
In the center of the convoy was a sealed carrier. Larger than the others. Covered in suppression runes and layered shielding.
“That’s the core,” Asher said. “Or something close to it.”
They weren’t taking it to a lab.
They were taking it away from oversight.
Asher moved.
He didn’t attack the whole convoy.
He cut the road.
Ahead of the transports, the ground collapsed as Asher struck the support layer beneath it. Stone gave way. The lead vehicle slammed to a halt. The ones behind it crashed into each other.
Alarms sounded.
Guards deployed instantly.
Asher stepped into view.
Weapons raised toward him.
“Stand down!” one of them shouted. “This is a restricted transfer!”
Asher didn’t stop walking.
“You’re moving an unstable soul construct,” he said. “Shut it down and walk away.”
The guards hesitated.
Then someone gave the order.
They fired.
Asher moved through it. Clean. Direct. He didn’t kill unless forced to. Most went down fast, disabled and unconscious.
The convoy fell silent.