Lian Wei pressed against the damp alley wall, his breath fogging in the smog-filled air. The corpse at his feet still crackled with residual lightning magic—a Stormcaller, one of the Codex's elite.
"Warning: Unauthorized class acquisition detected," chimed the System in his mind.
He ignored it, focusing on the shimmering orb above the dead mage's chest. With a swipe, he absorbed the [Stormcaller] class. His veins lit up like power lines, and thunder roiled in his palms.
"Got you, rat," growled a mechanized voice. Above him, a Codex enforcer descended—a hybrid of samurai armor and server racks, its six arms wielding glowing katana.
Lian ran. Seraphina's airship loomed ahead, its hull engraved with anti-System runes. "You're either the dumbest thief or the luckiest," she muttered, yanking him aboard.
As the ship soared into the smog, the System's alert escalated:
"Anomaly Level: Critical. Deploying Patch 9.9.9—'Apocalypse'."