A low, whispering sound permeated the environment, a constant, insidious murmur that seemed to come from everywhere at once. It caused some kind of psychic pressure that made their avatars to flicker and their vision to glitch at the edges.

"My scanning programs are getting scrambled," Kitsune said, her sleek fox avatar shaking its head as if to clear it. "The background noise is… chaotic. It's structured, like a language I can't decipher."

"I feel it too," Glitch whispered, her white rabbit avatar trembling, its ears flat against its head. "It's… it's watching us."

They moved forward cautiously, a tight, disciplined formation. Goro, the hulking frog, took the lead, his pinstripe suit a bizarre splash of order in the surrounding chaos. They rounded a corner and stopped dead. The path ahead was bisected by a roaring river, not of water, but of pure, corrupted data. A torrent of raw, glitching information flowed past, and where it touched the walls, the code sizzled and dissolved.

"A Data Stream River," Goro rumbled. "Touch that, and it'll strip your avatar to its core code in seconds."

Kitsune ran a quick scan. "There's no way around it. The walls are regenerating too fast to breach."

"Then we go through it," Goro said. He stepped forward and slammed his hands together. A bridge of crude code erupted from the ground, spanning the river of data. "It won't hold for long. Move!"

They sprinted across the unstable bridge. Just as the last of them, Kodiak, made it to the other side, the bridge shattered, consumed by the torrent.

Glitch's avatar glitched violently. "Ambush!" she shrieked. "All around us!"

They erupted from the walls themselves, pouring out of the writhing code like hounds from hell. They were quadrupedal beasts made of pure, glitching static, their forms constantly shifting, their claws sharp, data-rending extensions of their corrupted code. A dozen of those monstrous hounds swarmed them.

From a nearby alley, a new entity emerged—a tall, totem-like construct of black, pulsating code. But it didn't attack. It just stood there, and then the air around them grew thick, heavy and slowed their movements.The disorienting whispers became amplified until they were a deafening roar in their minds, slowing their connection.

"Take out the totem!" Kodiak commanded, his voice a grounding anchor in the chaos. "Goro, now!"

The massive frog avatar charged forward, ignoring the hounds that clawed at his legs. He manifested a massive, brutalist sledgehammer made of raw, destructive code—and brought it down on the totem with a deafening boom. The idol shattered, and the oppressive, slowing field around them vanished.

The hounds descended into a frenzy. Ursa Major, roaring, charged in with his own summoned blade, a wild, undisciplined whirlwind of fluff and fury. He managed to slice one hound in half, but another lunged, its claws tearing a deep gash in his avatar's arm. The teddy bear cried out, a mixture of pain and rage, as that part of his avatar dissolved into a shower of corrupted pixels.

Ray moved through the chaos with an unnatural calm. His avatar was a blur of motion, leaving behind trails of glitching colors, his own katana program, the one he had taken from Ursa Major, a precise, deadly arc of light. He dispatched one hound, then another. One of the hounds lunged at him, its claws aimed at his chest. Ray sidestepped, his hand shooting out, grabbing the creature by its glitching, static-filled throat.

And then, he felt it. A new hunger.

He consumed the code of the static hound.

He felt a jolt of chaotic energy, a taste of the daemon's own corrupted essence—predatory, hungry, and utterly inhuman. His own avatar flickered violently, a wave of black and red static washing over his simple form before settling.

He looked down at his hand.

It was tipped with sharp, data-rending claws, identical to those of the hound he had just destroyed.

The remaining hounds were dispatched by the rest of the squad.

The digital alley fell silent, the oppressive whispers finally gone. The Zoo Squad regrouped, their avatars showing the strain of the fight.

"Everyone okay?" Kodiak asked, his gaze sweeping over his team.

"My arm's gone!" Ursa Major wailed, looking at the stump where his fluffy limb used to be. "And look at my fur! It's all… glitchy!"

Then, they all turned to look at Ray. At his hand. At the sharp, monstrous claws that had not been there moments before.

A beat of stunned silence.

"Whoa! Do you guys see this?!" Ursa Major shouted, his fear momentarily forgotten, replaced by a manic, almost giddy excitement. "He ate it! He freaking ATE IT! What the hell, man?! How did you do that? Can you do it again? Can you eat my other arm? No, wait, don't do that."

Glitch whimpered, her white rabbit avatar glitching violently as she scrambled to hide behind Goro's bulky frame. Her fear of the unknown, of unpredictable threats, was sending her into a spiral. "What… what is he?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "That's not a normal program. That's not a normal anything."

Goro didn't move, but his hulking frog avatar seemed to swell, his posture becoming more defensive, more protective of the smaller rabbit hiding behind him. His gaze was fixed on Ray's claws, not with fear, but with a cold, pragmatic assessment of a new threat.

Kitsune, however, was not afraid. She was fascinated. Her vulpine eyes were narrowed, analytical and deeply suspicious, her nine tails swishing slowly as she processed the impossible data before her. "His digital signature just... changed," she said, her voice low and sharp. "The hound's core code… it's integrated with his own."

Ray stood motionless, the squad's varied reactions washing over him. He looked down at his own hand, at the monstrous claws. He had made a mistake. Consuming things here, in the digital space, was different. In the physical world, the process was deliberate, requiring conscious thought and physical contact. Here, in the Net, where everything was just data, his nanites were more… trigger-happy. The hunger to absorb and to integrate, was a baseline instinct he hadn't even realized was active.

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He needed to calm them down. He needed a plausible, technical lie.

"It's a mimicry subroutine," Ray said, his voice flat and even. He flexed his clawed hand, then held it up for them to see. "It analyzes the core code of a defeated program and creates a temporary projection based on its primary function. It's just a copy that degrades after a few minutes."

He focused his will, and with a soft shimmer of static, the data-rending claws dissolved, his hand returning to the simple glitchy design.

The effect was immediate. Ursa Major's jaw dropped. "Whoa! You can just… make them appear? That's so cool!"

Glitch peeked out from behind Goro's leg, her trembling easing slightly. Goro himself relaxed his defensive posture, a low grunt of understanding rumbling from his chest. It was a display of power, yes, but controlled power.

Only Kitsune remained unconvinced. As the claws dissolved, she stepped forward, her fox-like eyes narrowed. "Extracting and manifesting attack code isn't a simple 'trick,' Glitchy," she challenged, her voice sharp with suspicion. "What's the data footprint of a program like that? What's the energy cost for your avatar?"

Ray met her probing gaze without flinching. "The footprint is minimal. The programs I use are very efficient, making the cost negligible."

His answer was vague, a deflection wrapped in technical jargon, but it was enough to make her pause, even if her suspicion still lingered in her sharp eyes.

Kodiak stepped forward, his calm presence de-escalating the remaining tension. "A useful trick," he rumbled, his voice a steady anchor. "And one that might just give us the edge we need." He looked at Ray, his expression unreadable, but his tone was one of acceptance. The harmony of his group had been threatened, and Ray, whether through a lie or not, had just restored it. That was enough for him.

"Let's keep moving," Kodiak commanded. "The daemon knows we're here now. The real fight is still ahead."

The whispers intensified, no longer a simple, disorienting murmur, but a targeted psychic assault.

A man's voice, inebriated and filled with contempt, suddenly echoed through the corrupted corridor, laughing mockingly. "Look at you, Leo. Still playing with toys. You'll never amount to anything more than a disappointment."

Ursa Major flinched, his fluffy avatar stumbling as if struck. "Dad...?" he whispered.

Ray glanced around, his sensors picking up no source for the voice. It was being broadcast directly into their minds.

"You missed it, didn't you, Reina?" a new, sharp female voice hissed, this one directed at Kitsune, a perfect imitation of her old academy proctor. "The one variable you didn't account for. And now they're all going to die because you weren't smart enough."

Kitsune's fox avatar froze, its tails bristling with agitation. "That's... not possible. I checked the data twice."

"You can't protect them, Kenji," a different voice rumbled, targeting Goro's protective nature. "You're strong, but you're too slow. You'll just watch them get torn apart, helpless."

Goro let out a low growl.

"It's the daemon," Kodiak commanded, his own voice acting like a firewall against the psychic noise. "It's using our own data that it had consumed against us. Don't listen to it."

But the attack was the worst for Anya. A cold, insidious whisper slithered into her mind, a voice that sounded chillingly like her own. They left you, it hissed. You're all alone again. They never really cared. Her small rabbit avatar began to glitch violently, her paws coming up to cover her ears as if to block out the sound.

"Glitch, stay focused!" Kodiak commanded, moving his massive bear avatar to shield her. "Find the source. We're blind without you."

Anya nodded, her form trembling, as she forced herself to concentrate so that she could find the path to the origin of all this corruption.

They entered a vast, open chamber. The ceiling was so high it was lost in shadow, and the floor was a pulsating membrane of organic-looking code. In the center of the room, a massive, beating "heart" of raw data pulsed with a sickly crimson light. Surrounding it were a dozen, tall, totem-like constructs that hummed with a malevolent energy, amplifying the hallucinations.

And clinging to the ceiling were programs that looked like monstrous bats made of jagged, red code. As the team entered, they unleashed a volley of piercing data-shards.

"Cover!" Goro roared, manifesting a wall of data that absorbed the initial attack. But the wall couldn't reach the ceiling. Bats simply flew higher, their attacks raining down from above. Kitsune tried to launch a counter-program, but the totems' interference scrambled her code before it could even deploy. The team was pinned down and completely outmaneuvered.

"I can't get a lock on the totems' core code," Glitch whimpered, the psychic assault now a deafening roar in her mind. "There's too much interference!"

Ray watched the chaos, his own mind a sea of calm in the storm. The whispers didn't affect him; his nanite-consciousness had already adapted. He saw the tactical problem with perfect clarity. They couldn't advance until the bats were dealt with.

He activated his glitch-dash, an ability obtained from the static hound. His avatar dissolved into a blur of static, reappearing silently on a high ledge near the ceiling, just below one of the bats. The creature, alerted, turned to fire, but Ray was already there. He leaped, his hand closing around the creature's jagged, coded body.

He consumed it.

The influx of data was different this time. It was a stark difference compared to the predatory hunger of the hound. This was cold, structured, and malicious.

From his perch on the ledge, he raised his hand. It shifted and contorted. A shard of pure, black-and-red data formed in his palm. He launched it. It flew across the chamber with silent, deadly precision, striking one of the totems dead center. The totem shattered into a million pieces of corrupted code.

The psychic pressure lessened immediately.

"Did you see that?!" Ursa Major shouted.

Ray didn't answer. He fired again. Another totem shattered. And another.

From her cover below, Kitsune watched, her vulpine eyes narrowed. The energy signature, the data footprint—it was identical to the daemon's own minions.

Copying them my ass. He is becoming them.

Her suspicion hardened into a cold, chilling certainty.

With the totems destroyed, the team made short work of the remaining minions. The path forward was clear—a massive, ornate gate at the far end of the chamber, pulsing with the same malevolent red light as the heart.

As they regrouped in the now-silent chamber, the cost of the battle was clear. Ursa Major's avatar was still missing an arm, and the rest of the squad's forms flickered with data loss.

"This is as far as you go," Ray said, his voice flat, his glitchy avatar turning to face them.

Kodiak took a step forward, his massive bear form radiating protective authority. "What are you talking about? This is our fight for our home."

"And you're bleeding out all over it," Ray countered, his gaze flicking to Ursa Major's damaged avatar, then to Glitch, who was still trembling. "It's only going to get worse from here. The whispers, the traps… they're designed to break minds, but my defense…can handle it. I think it's better if I go on my own."

"He's right," Kitsune said, her voice laced with a reluctant logic. "The psychic assault is getting stronger. And his… resilience… makes him the only one who can push through to the core without suffering catastrophic data corruption."

"I'm not leaving you to fight this alone," Kodiak growled.

"You won't have a choice," Ray said, his tone leaving no room for argument. "You'll be a liability. I can move faster alone. You'll just slow me down and get yourselves killed." He looked at Leo's damaged form. "And you're no good to anyone if your brain gets fried."

The truth of his words hung in the air, cold and sharp.

Glitch stepped forward, her rabbit avatar still trembling, but noticeably less.

"He's right, Kodiak." She looked at Ray. "I've mapped out what I can of the daemon's core structure. The path is unstable, but it should lead you to the heart of the corruption." She sent him a data packet. It was a complex, shifting map of the labyrinth ahead. "Be careful, Glitchy. There are things in there… things my scans can't even identify."

Kodiak looked at each member of his battered family, then back at Ray. He finally gave a slow, reluctant nod. "Find the heart of this thing," he commanded. "And cut it out."

Ray nodded once. "I will."

Without another word, the Zoo Squad turned and began their retreat, their avatars dissolving into pixels as they logged off, leaving Ray alone in the silent, pulsating heart of the daemon's territory. The whispers returned, louder now, more insistent, but for Ray, they were just background noise. The hunt continued.

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