THE SIEGE OF NEOTROY

Aklion’s consciousness flickered like a dying flame, barely hanging on. The overdose had ripped through him, his veins burning with INPAXX overdose, leaving him paralyzed, caught in an endless loop of hallucinations. He felt like he was drowning, not in water, but something thicker. He recognized the smell of death, always so present wherever he decided to go. Iron and Shit, with capital S as all that crap was someone’s innards. He was choking with madness, the effects of the drug magnified tenfold. His HUD flickered, stats plummeting, and the damage reports cluttered his vision.

Stats Update:

•HP: 27%

•Stamina: 15%

•Cognition Stability: 5%

•Glitch Instability: 97%

•Status: Critical – Overdose Imminent

•Adrenaline Surge: Deactivated

•Combat Readiness: Offline

System Notification: Severe O…$#¨$#? (&¨%cted

“Take immediate action to stabilize…”

¨&%&¨$#^

And then, the world twisted.

Aklion’s PB&J of a brain was thrust into an ancient battlefield—a bloodied expanse beneath a sky thick with smoke. His feet found purchase in the dirt of a forgotten time, and his vision cleared to reveal warriors clashing. Bronze shields slammed together, spears pierced flesh, and screams tore through the chaos. But the worst of it? The gods laughed.

He wasn’t just watching. He was there, one of them.

He was no longer in NEOTROY; he was fighting on the battlefields of ancient Greece. The armor weighed heavy on his shoulders, an oppressive burden of bronze that clanged with each movement. His vision swam, distorted by the excessive levels of INPAXX running through his veins. His sword clashed with another, the clang ringing in his skull, louder than it had any right to be.

A distant sound—like a thousand thundering drums—rolled across the battlefield. Zeus, Level 99, towered over the chaos from the sky, watching with cold, indifferent eyes. Each of his stats maxed out at godlike levels that Aklion couldn’t hope to fathom.

Stats Update:

•Enemy: Zeus

•HP: Unknown (Over 100,000)

•Strength: Maxed

•Divine Manipulation: Maxed

•Resistance: Maxed

Aklion felt a tremor run through the ground beneath his feet. “What the fuck is this?” he muttered, swinging his blade down in a vicious arc, cutting through a nameless soldier.

System Notification: XP Gained: +10 XP

“Congratulations, asshole, you killed another peasant. Level up in sight? Ha, not even close.”

As if mocking him, a soldier, no different from the others, lunged at him. Aklion spun around, decapitating him with one smooth strike. “+10 XP.” It wasn’t enough. It was never enough.

Aklion’s vision shifted upward. Towering figures looked down upon the battlefield—gods, watching from Olympus. Athena, Level 96, with her sharp eyes, Ares, the blood-soaked warlord, standing above them all, reveling in the carnage below. And Zeus…of course, fucking Zeus.

Gods laugh, Men die.

Aklion’s body moved on its own, or maybe it was the glitch, urging him into combat. It didn’t matter; this was all one big sick game to the gods above. Every human below was nothing but entertainment to them. A clash of steel, cries of pain, and blood smeared across the dirt, it all meant nothing.

He felt the familiar surge of combat adrenaline—no, not real, just another glitch. His HUD blinked red.

Combat Surge: Activated

“Like it’s gonna help…”

Hallucination: Complete Breakdown

Suddenly, Aklion’s sword clashed with a figure he hadn’t seen approach. His opponent, a warrior clad in bronze, stats pitiful in comparison to his own.

Enemy: Human Soldier

•HP: 45

•Strength: 12

•Agility: 9

He cut through the warrior like butter, the poor bastard dropping to the ground, lifeless. The XP barely registered, but Aklion had no time to care. His mind was caught between reality and hallucination, and both were blending.

Blood. Everywhere. The battlefield was soaked in it, like rivers running red beneath his boots. Aklion stumbled forward, hearing the roaring laughter of Ares echo in his mind.

System Notification: Incoming AI Communication – SYNTHIA Override

But no coherent message came through. Just static and flashes of glitching warnings. His mind twisted, and once again, he was pulled deeper into the hallucination. Suddenly he had wings. And many arms and legs. Was he a fly? A cockroach? Who cares, he thought, he had to fight. A bug can still fight.

A tiny, insignificant insect, buzzing from the battlefield to Olympus. He could feel the power emanating from the gods, their uncaring eyes watching the slaughter below. Eyes, that’s was it, he thought. So he aimed straight into a soldier’s helmet opening. Bullseye! The soldier was distracted for a second, just enough for someone to cut though his flesh. He fell. The bug won.

Just as he was buzzing (pun intended, he thought) with his victory, someone stepped right in the dead soldier’s face, missing by a millimeter the lethal bug. So he left, not before tasting a bit of the blood and shit that was pouring out of his victim. What a delicious war treat. But this was no time for spoils. He opened his wings and flew again hovering over the battlefield. Manslaughter and “gods-laughter”, two very different things.

His vision zoomed in on Zeus, who sat on his throne, eating golden apples with casual disinterest. He plucked one from a bowl, took a bite, and spit out the core, which fell like a meteor onto the battlefield, crushing dozens of warriors under its weight. Their screams filled the air, but Zeus didn’t care. None of them did.

Aklion, as the murderous bug, buzzed from god to god, feeling the heat of their power like the sun’s rays magnified a hundred times over. Athena, dressed in shimmering armor, watched the mortals with an expressionless gaze, her cold eyes tracking every movement with surgical precision. Her Wisdom stat was absurd, maxed out at levels Aklion couldn’t comprehend. So much for endless intelligence.

Athena

•Wisdom: Maxed

•Strategy: Maxed

•Divine Manipulation: Godlike

In contrast, Ares, the god of war, stood reveling in the bloodshed, swinging his sword casually, as though the lives of the mortals below were merely playthings to him. His stats were all geared toward violence—overkill, like everything else about him. Somehow, though, he seemed weaker than Athena. Go figure, this was a hallucination anyway, doesn’t have to make sense. Does it? Anyway, he had a pawn in his left hand. A fucking pawn.

Ares

•HP: Infinite

•Strength: 1500

•Bloodlust: 2000

“Fuck this,” Aklion thought, even as the fly. But the gods didn’t notice him, didn’t care about him.

Then, in one fluid motion, Zeus raised his hand, and before Aklion could react, it descended—swatting the creepy crawler, his consciousness, into oblivion.

System Shutdown:

•XP Gained: Irrelevant.

•Health: Non-existent.

•INPAXX Concentration: Overload—Neural Collapse.

The void swallowed him whole, and Aklion faded into the infinite blackness.

And then, blessed silence.