The alert from Jax came without warning, a burst of encrypted data that sliced through the quiet ambiance of their guild headquarters. It flashed across the main console in the data-vault, a frantic, pulsing red icon that screamed of imminent danger. Zane was in the middle of analyzing market data, a routine task that felt like a distant memory the moment he saw the message.

  [JAX_GLITCH]: ZANE. URGENT. BIG PROBLEM. [JAX_GLITCH]: Grand Inquisitor Seraphina Valerius. She’s here. Not just in the region, she’s at the Sunken Temple. My deep-scan sensors picked up a massive holy energy sweep. [JAX_GLITCH]: She found it. The entrance to the second level. The energy signature residue from your [Logic Overwrite]... she’s locked onto it. She’s on your trail. Repeat: THE INQUISITOR IS ON YOUR TRAIL.

  Zane’s hands stilled over the console. The air in the room grew heavy, the silence broken only by the hum of the servers. Liam, who had been meticulously polishing his new shield in the corner, stopped, the rhythmic sound of cloth on steel ceasing abruptly. Evie materialized from the shadows near the vault’s entrance, her hand resting on the hilt of a [Phase Dagger], her eyes fixed on Zane’s back.

  “Trouble?” Liam’s voice was a low rumble.

  Zane didn’t turn around. His eyes remained locked on the screen, but his mind was racing, processing the new variable with the speed of a supercomputer. Seraphina Valerius. Here. Now. In his first life, he hadn’t even heard her name until year four. She was a late-game antagonist, a brilliant, unyielding force of nature who had personally overseen the purge of three minor guilds for suspected heresy. Her power level was astronomical, her authority absolute. A direct confrontation was not just suicide; it was an absurdity.

  “The worst kind,” Zane said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. He closed the alert window. “The Sanctum has sent its finest hunter.”

  He finally turned to face them. His expression was a mask of cold calm, but his mind was a whirlwind of calculations. She isn’t hunting a person. She’s hunting a signature, a ghost in the data. My use of [Logic Overwrite] at the temple left a stain on the System’s code, a trace of power that doesn’t conform to her divine rules. She’s following a breadcrumb trail, and it leads directly to me.

  “What do we do?” Evie asked, her voice a quiet whisper that cut through the tension. “Do we run?”

  “No,” Zane said instantly. “Running is what she expects. It confirms our guilt and turns this into a simple chase. We can’t outrun the Sanctum’s reach.”

  He paced the length of the vault, his steps measured and precise. The gears of his mind were meshing, discarding a dozen impossible plans and searching for the one, perfect exploit. She’s intelligent. Pious, but logical. She will follow the evidence. Her only mistake is that she believes the evidence is real. So, I need to give her new evidence. A new trail to follow. A louder, more obvious, and completely wrong one.

  A plan began to crystallize, sharp and clear. It was a gamble, a piece of high-stakes theater, but it was the only move he had.

  “We are going to play a game of cat and mouse,” Zane announced, stopping in the center of the room. “Except we’re not the mouse. We’re the ones setting the trap.”

  He turned back to the console, his fingers flying across the holographic keyboard. He brought up the guild’s financial ledger—a staggering sum of gold acquired from their dungeon runs and liquidated assets. It was a fortune that could buy a small army. Zane intended to use it to buy something far more valuable: a lie.

  “Jax,” he dictated into the comms unit, his voice crisp and commanding. “I need you to do three things. First, scan the public player registries for newly formed parties of four or five. Filter for arrogance. I want teams with boastful names, players with high-flair, low-substance gear. The kind of fools who think a glowing sword makes them a hero.”

  He didn’t wait for a reply. “Second, I need to purchase a few specific items on the open market, anonymously. I’m sending you the list now. They’re all common or uncommon gear, but each one has a minor, harmless data glitch. A boot that occasionally fails its gravity check, a bracer that emits harmless sparks, a dagger that hums off-key. They’re vendor trash to most, but to a high-level scan, they’ll radiate corrupted data—a faint echo of the same ‘heretical’ energy Seraphina is tracking.”

  Liam and Evie exchanged a confused glance, but they remained silent, trusting him completely.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “Third,” Zane continued, his eyes narrowing, “I need you to package it all. The items, a generous upfront payment, and a quest contract. A high-profile quest, something that will take them through the open plains just east of the city. Make it loud. Make it flashy. And make sure their route intersects with Seraphina’s projected path of investigation within the next three hours.”

  The plan was audacious. He wasn’t just creating a decoy; he was crafting a caricature. He was building a group of incompetent, lucky fools who would look exactly like the kind of amateur heretics a Grand Inquisitor would expect to find. A group that stumbled upon some forbidden power they couldn’t possibly understand or control.

  Within an hour, it was done. Jax, a master of the digital underworld, had found the perfect candidates: a newly formed party calling themselves “The Azure Blades,” whose leader had spent a ridiculous sum on a purely cosmetic flaming helmet. The glitched items were purchased through a dozen shell accounts, and the quest—a simple monster-culling contract with an absurdly high reward—was posted on the public bounty board. The Azure Blades took the bait in less than five minutes.

  From a secure observation point on a high-rise balcony overlooking the city’s eastern gate, Zane, Liam, and Evie watched the performance begin. They were cloaked, their own energy signatures masked by a low-level stealth device Jax had provided.

  Below, the Azure Blades were a spectacle of incompetence. They charged into a pack of low-level Dust-Hopper goblins with more bravado than skill, their glowing gear clashing, their shouts echoing across the plains. They were clumsy, inefficient, and utterly convinced of their own brilliance. They were perfect.

  Zane focused his attention on the horizon. It didn’t take long. A small contingent of riders appeared, moving with disciplined speed. They were clad in the immaculate white and gold of the Sanctum’s templars. At their head rode a figure whose presence could be felt even from this distance—a palpable aura of conviction and power. Seraphina Valerius.

  She and her templars reined in their mounts a hundred yards from the chaotic brawl. Zane watched, his heart a steady, cold drum in his chest, as Seraphina dismounted. She didn’t draw her weapon. She simply stood there, her piercing blue eyes scanning the Azure Blades. Zane could almost feel the pulse of holy energy as she activated a powerful analysis skill.

  He saw the faintest flicker of her head, a minute gesture of… confirmation. She was sensing it. The faint, chaotic static of the glitched items. The boot that hovered, the bracer that sparked. It was a similar flavor of corruption to the one she’d found at the temple, but cruder, sloppier. Less like a master surgeon’s incision and more like a butcher’s clumsy hack job.

  Her posture relaxed slightly. The conclusion was obvious, written on her face for anyone who knew how to read it. These weren’t master heretics. They were fools. A minor infection, easily cleansed.

  She gave a crisp, dismissive hand signal. The templars moved in, their movements a blur of white and gold. The fight, if it could be called that, was over in seconds. The Azure Blades were disarmed and bound, their protests of confusion and indignation ignored.

  Zane watched as Seraphina’s templars escorted the bewildered decoy group back towards the city. The Grand Inquisitor had found her culprits. The trail she was following had led to a satisfying, logical, and completely erroneous conclusion. The hunt was over. For now.

  Zane turned away from the balcony’s edge, the cloak melting back into the shadows of the rooftop. The immediate danger had been averted. He had successfully thrown the dog a false bone to chew on. As the relief washed over him, a soft chime, one he had never heard before, echoed not in his ears, but directly in his consciousness. A series of notifications, rendered in cool, silver text, materialized in his vision.

  [You have completed a Hidden Feat: Grand Misdirection] [Description: You have successfully deceived a world-level authority by fabricating a false data trail, manipulating social systems, and exploiting logical fallacies. The Oracle System recognizes this as a masterful application of subterfuge and data manipulation.] [Your actions have been deemed a pinnacle expression of the Data-sorcerer class philosophy.] [+5,000 EXP] [Your skill [Logic Overwrite] has gained proficiency!] [A new sub-skill has been unlocked: [Data Forgery].]

  Zane froze. He hadn't killed a single creature. He hadn't completed a quest. Yet, the progress bar on his character panel had just jumped by a significant margin. The System rewards more than just combat, he realized with a jolt. It rewards the perfect execution of a class's core concept. My class isn't about fighting; it's about control.

  He quickly opened the description for his new ability.

  [Data Forgery (Passive/Active) - Lvl 1]: (Passive): Your [Logic Overwrite] skills now leave behind 75% fewer data traces, making them harder to detect by conventional means. (Active): You can now craft a ‘Data Packet’ containing false information (e.g., a fake energy signature, a false player ID, a ghost item marker) and attach it to a target player, object, or location. The packet will degrade over time. Cost and duration are dependent on complexity.

  A slow, cold smile spread across Zane’s face. This was more valuable than any piece of gear. It was a weaponized lie. He had just played a shell game with an Inquisitor and the System itself had rewarded him for it.

  He looked at his friends, their faces illuminated by the fading light of the setting sun. The time for clever tricks and hiding in the shadows was coming to an end. But now, armed with a new tool of deception and a tangible boost in power, his next declaration carried a new, chilling weight.

  “It’s time,” he said, his voice a low, cold whisper that held the weight of a coming storm. “Time to hunt a god.”