They all froze and waited in suspense.

A mechanic bot crawled out—centipede body, dozens of legs, glowing textures glitching between pink and chrome. One of its eyes flickered like a broken flashlight. Someone swore it was a dev-spawn. Someone else swore it was a mod tool gone wrong.

The devs dropped a message:

"We're aware of the visual bug affecting the maintenance unit. Please do not engage."

Everyone engaged.

The bot moved faster than anything that size should. It swung its tail like a whip, smashing players off the catwalks. A few Evil players tried to climb onto it and got electrocuted instantly. The bot fixated on Xavier after five seconds, its sensors locking onto him with a rising whine.

AstraNova vaulted onto its back and drove both daggers into its head. Sparks rained down, lighting the side tunnel in a strobe of white and pink. The bot stumbled, legs buckling, and fell backward off the walkway. The impact shook the entire station again.

They didn't stay to watch it die.

The HUD timer ticked.

[Twenty minutes left.]

And the evac point was deep in a tunnel network on the other side of the station.

The Heroic squad moved with Xavier across a thin steel bridge that hung over four rails. The bridge shook with every step, and the sound of fighting below echoed up toward them—Evil and Heroic forces colliding at full speed. Smoke rolled upward as grenades detonated. The shield wall around Xavier held firm while another wave of Evil players rushed the opposite end.

They weren't fighting smartly anymore. They were fighting loudly.

Everyone was screaming. Everyone was desperate.

A few Evil players rappelled from the ceiling pipes, swinging down with grappling hooks like deranged spiders. Heroic snipers shot two out of the air. One made it through and tried to dive toward Xavier, only for AstraNova to catch him by the throat and throw him off the bridge.

The Heroic formation finally reached the far end and barreled into the narrower tunnel system. It was darker here, the lighting strips flickering, walls scarred with scorch marks from players who'd gotten here first and died fighting. A single long corridor stretched ahead of them, the evacuation gate glowing faintly at the far end like a distant sunrise.

The tunnel curved left, giving Xavier a view of another battle raging on the lower level where Evil players had brought in heavy units—mounted turrets, shield drones, even a hacked maintenance loader they were using as a battering ram.

The Heroic team didn't have time to deal with that.

They sprinted and kept moving. Every single second mattered.

The evac gate couldn't be more than a hundred meters ahead when the station lights went dark for half a heartbeat. Everything shut off—sound, HUD, even the UI flickered into nothing.

And then the world snapped back.

A system message splashed across the sky inside the tunnel.

"Unexpected Data Injection Detected."

Another message followed:

"This is fine."

Heroic players almost broke into tears. While Evil players yelled that the devs were trolling.

Global chat exploded into chaos again.

Xavier just laughed under his breath.

But then everything hit at once.

Evil forces cut off the corridor from behind.

Heroic forces from the lower tunnels fought their way upward to reinforce.

The maintenance bot from earlier came skittering back into the station behind the Evil faction like it had respawned itself out of spite.

For a moment, it became a three-way war between thousands of players, all trying to reach the same hundred-meter stretch of corridor.

AstraNova pulled Xavier close and yelled into her mic for every Heroic squad in range to converge on the tunnel. The sound of boots filled the side passages as reinforcements crashed through broken doors and ruined stairwells.

Heroic players threw themselves between Xavier and the crossfire, taking hits meant for him. Evil players pushed forward with reckless abandon.

The bot lunged from the side and crushed a whole team in one swipe.

The evac gate pulsed brighter as the timer hit 15:00.

Xavier walked in the middle of the storm, watching both sides collide around him like the world had turned into a cyclone of bodies and lights. He didn't need to run. The entire galaxy was running for him.

The evac gate wasn't far now. The glow pulsed at the end of the tunnel like a lighthouse pulling them in, flickering through the waves of dust and smoke drifting from every corner of the collapsing metro. AstraNova dragged Xavier forward while the Heroic squads tightened around him, shields raised, bodies braced, the entire formation pushing through that narrowing corridor like they were escorting the last surviving king through a burning kingdom.

Then, just when they were close enough to feel the vibration of the gate's energy field on their skin, the world jumped.

A thin flash with a brief flicker. And a sound like metal tearing through itself.

Then the evac point detonated.

A fireball tore through the gateway, ripping the corridor apart like a vacuum bomb going off inside a coffin-sized tunnel. The blast wave punched everyone off their feet. The shockwave hit them like a hammer. The ceiling sagged, chunks of metal and concrete raining down as half the upper walkway collapsed.

Xavier hit the ground hard, sliding across broken tiles while players screamed in every direction. The tunnel filled with thick smoke until it was impossible to tell which shouts were Heroic, which were Evil, and which were just players panicking as fire rolled toward them.

The blast killed thousands in an instant.

Even the Evil faction froze as though it wasn't part of their plan.

Nobody had seen that coming.

AstraNova coughed somewhere nearby, trying to pull herself upright while debris still fell around them. "What the hell— that point was safe— who—"

Another explosion deeper in the station swallowed her voice.

Xavier checked his HUD.

The evac point was gone. As if someone deleted the code.

Everyone's HUD blinked at the same exact moment.

[MISSION UPDATED.

New Evac Point Generated.

Location: Upper Rail Network — Crimson Line Junction.]

Nobody questioned it. Nobody stopped to think.

Both factions sprinted at once, the station shaking under their boots.

This time, however, it wasn't the devs messing with them.