Chapter 58: Chapter 58 : Decoding the Owl
The arena stretched wide before them, a broken wasteland of floating rock platforms and shimmering debris. Spectator avatars flickered along the edges, translucent figures watching eagerly.
Comment bubbles popped up in live stream.
"He’s only got two beasts? He’s toast."
"Wait, that’s Professor Olivia! She’s my favorite teacher!" a young boy’s avatar shouted.
His father nodded. "Mine too, though not as a professor."
His wife punched him. Hard.
The man yelped. "Ow! I meant her research papers!"
Jax smirked faintly, ignoring the chatter. He glanced at his two beasts.
The Verity Fox sat beside him, tail swishing, eyes gleaming with mischief.
The Hydroglider Bear stood tall, water droplets still clinging to its dark fur.
Across from him, Professor Olivia raised her hand.
Three beasts materialized beside her.
A Rune Owl floated overhead, wings spread wide, eyes glowing with geometric patterns.
An Iron Hydra coiled low, its three mechanical heads hissing with electrical sparks.
And hovering above them all was a Celestial Kraken, tentacles rippling through the air, gravity bending around it like a distortion field.
Jax opened his interface quickly.
[Rune Owl - B-Rank / Psychic]
[Ability: Latency Scan - Records opponent command delays and predicts future actions.]
[Iron Hydra - A-Rank / Biomech]
[Ability: Elemental Heads - Lightning, Fire, and Acid attacks.]
[Celestial Kraken - A-Rank / Ethereal-Gravity]
[Ability: Gravitational Dominance - Manipulates terrain and restricts movement.]
Jax’s throat tightened. ’Three A and B-Rank beasts. All built for battlefield control. She’s not playing around.’
Olivia’s voice was calm, almost kind. "You’re clever, Jax. But cleverness won’t save you here. Prediction beats reaction. Always."
Jax tilted his head. "We’ll see about that."
Olivia moved first.
The Rune Owl screeched, eyes flashing. Geometric runes appeared in midair, trailing behind it like glowing circuits. It circled above, scanning everything.
The Iron Hydra lunged forward, two of its heads spitting lightning and flame simultaneously. The blasts tore through the air, converging on Jax’s position.
The Celestial Kraken floated higher, tentacles spreading. The arena fragments around them began drifting apart faster, gravity warping unnaturally.
Jax snapped his fingers. "Fox! Illusions! and Bear! Wall!"
The Verity Fox darted forward, leaving afterimages in its wake. Four identical copies scattered across the battlefield.
The Hydroglider Bear slammed its paws into the ground. Water surged upward, condensing into a thick, curved wall that blocked the Hydra’s beam.
The wall boiled on impact, steam hissing violently. Cracks spider-webbed across its surface.
But it held.
Barely.
Olivia smiled. "Impressive defense. But you’re already behind."
The Rune Owl’s eyes flashed. Two of the Fox’s illusions vanished instantly, dispelled by its scan.
Jax cursed under his breath. ’That Owl is reading everything. Every move. Every delay.’
The Iron Hydra shifted, its third head spitting acid. The stream splashed across the water wall, dissolving it in seconds.
Jax’s beasts scattered.
The Kraken’s tentacles lashed out, gravity shifting sideways. The Verity Fox tumbled through the air, slamming into floating rubble.
Jax’s HP dropped.
[HP: 82%]
He gritted his teeth. ’She’s not outplaying me. She’s out-timing me.’
The Rune Owl circled again, eyes glowing brighter. Every move Jax made, every command he issued, it tracked. Analyzed. Predicted.
’It’s recording my reaction time,’ Jax realized. ’How fast I respond to threats. Then it feeds that data to her other beasts.’
Olivia raised her hand. "Hydra, intercept. Kraken, pressure."
The Hydra lunged before Jax even finished his next command.
The Bear tried to form another water barrier, but the Hydra was already there, tearing through it with lightning.
The Kraken shifted gravity again, yanking the Fox into open space, exposing it.
Jax’s HP dipped further.
[HP: 64%]
’Damn it. She’s predicting me before I even move.’
He started issuing strange commands. Tapping his fingers. Brushing the air. Pausing mid-gesture.
The Rune Owl logged every twitch.
Olivia’s smile widened. "You’re panicking. I can see it."
Jax said nothing. His face stayed calm.
But inside, he was grinning. ’Keep watching, Olivia.’
The Fox lunged again, trying to flank the Hydra.
But the Kraken yanked gravity sideways. The Fox crashed into rubble, yelping.
The Hydroglider Bear braced itself, but the Hydra’s acid head fired. Scalding steam filled the air as the liquid ate through the Bear’s water armor.
Jax’s health dropped again.
[HP: 48%]
Olivia raised her hand. "This ends now."
The Rune Owl screeched. The Iron Hydra coiled, all three heads charging. The Celestial Kraken’s tentacles glowed white.
A three-way kill shot.
Jax’s HUD flashed red.
[Warning: Team Integrity 23%]
He exhaled slowly, calmly.
"You’ve got beautiful numbers, Olivia. But tell me do your beasts know which version of me they’re fighting?"
Olivia frowned. "What?"
The truth was simple.
The Rune Owl didn’t just record movements. It recorded command intent micro-gestures, eye flicks, and neural pulses sent from Jax’s interface.It used that data to learn how his brain signaled his beasts.
Jax knew that the moment it locked onto him.
So instead of fighting it... he trained it wrong.
Every unnecessary twitch, every delayed command, every odd pause they weren’t random.They were teaching signals, planted intentionally to create false neural weights inside the Owl’s prediction model.
He’d been gaslighting the AI since the first scan.
Now, when the Rune Owl looked at him, it didn’t see Jax.It saw the fake version he’d built — a decoy made of his own bad data.
"Execute," he whispered.
The Rune Owl’s eyes widened, runes shifting erratically.It predicted a dodge left.
The Hydroglider Bear went right, The hydra blocked was feeded the wrong information it blocked the empty air the wrong side, Bear slammed into the Iron Hydra’s flank.The Hydra screeched, sparks flying from its metal joints.
The Owl shrieked again, trying to recalibratebut every time it adjusted, it corrected itself in the wrong direction.Its feedback loop had been poisoned.
The Kraken released a gravity pulse preemptively, aiming for where the Fox should’ve been.But the Fox wasn’t there.It appeared behind the Owl, claws raking through its wing.Light feathers scattered through the air like falling snow.
Olivia’s interface flashed a dozen warnings.
[Feedback Desync Detected. Prediction Error x9][Neural Corruption Detected in Target Model]
Her eyes widened. "You corrupted my Owl?!"
Jax smiled faintly. "Didn’t have to. I just let it learn from me."
The Iron Hydra staggered, its heads snapping wildly, targeting shadows.The Celestial Kraken’s gravity pulses misfired, dragging its own tentacles downward.
The Hydroglider Bear slammed its paws, spreading a mist of water across the field.The Verity Fox’s illusions multiplied in the reflection,and the Kraken’s warped sensors locked onto every single one.
The overload came fast too fast for Olivia’s link to stabilize.
The Bear roared, launching upward with a body slam that shattered the Hydra’s chest.The Verity Fox blurred and struck the Kraken’s eye in a burst of psychic energy.
Both of Olivia’s beasts disintegrated into data ash.Her HP plummeted.
[HP: 10%]
She stared at him, disbelief written across her face. "You used the AI. The algorithm. The coding behind it. You studied the pattern. The binary coding at the backend for actions."
Jax chuckled. "Haha. Looks like Jenny needs to work on that Owl."
Olivia blinked. "Huh?"
Jax’s beasts attacked.
The Fox lunged. The Bear slammed down.
Olivia’s avatar flickered.
Then vanished.
[Player Olivia - Eliminated]
Jax exhaled, rolling his shoulders. His HP was low, but he was alive.
’The Hp will rise again same goes for my beasts and talking about beasts. I need one more to bond.’
He climbed a small cliff, just high enough to scan the surrounding area.
In the distance, he spotted movement.
Kiera. And what looked like Zinnia. Both moving in the same direction.
’Eternal Rivals huh!’
He turned his gaze to the other side.
And froze.
Lyra.
The old woman stood over another player, a tall woman in combat gear. Queen Calista’s right-hand commander.
A massive humanoid beast held the commander’s arms locked behind her back. Two more beasts stood beside Lyra, hulking juggernauts.
Lyra moved like a young woman trapped in an old body. Her steps were light, almost excited.
She walked up to the commander slowly.
Then she punched the woman’s helmet.
The recording device shattered instantly.
’What the hell.’
Lyra’s hands gripped the commander’s uniform. She tore the fabric apart, ripping the clothes clean off.
Jax’s jaw dropped. "What the FUCK."