The silence that followed the collapse of the Event Horizon was heavier than the gravity that had birthed it. The center of the Verdant Labyrinth was no longer a forest. Nor was it a battlefield. It was a sterile, glassed bowl of superheated obsidian. Steaming in the cool air of the simulated dimension.
Sebastian stood amidst the devastation. His boots crunching on the crystallized remains of the Apostle's army. The heat was still intense enough to strip the moisture from his lungs with every breath. But his [Void Ocean] passive circulated a cooling stream of mana through his veins. Regulating his temperature. He looked down at his hands. They were trembling. Not from fear but from the sheer, intoxicating rush of the power he had just unleashed. He was covered in a layer of grey ash. The atomized remains of five hundred Elite-tier monsters and one would-be god.
A few meters away the Apostle lay broken. His avatar, once a swirling mass of intimidating void data, was now a flickering, glitching mess. The [Void Seed] had been ripped from him. And with it his connection to the admin privileges that had made him a threat. He looked pathetic. A digital ghost gasping for air that wasn't there.
Sebastian walked over to him. He didn't run. He didn't gloat. He moved with the terrifying efficiency of a sanitation worker cleaning up a spill.
"You..." The Apostle's voice was a static-filled hiss. His audio files corrupting in real-time. "You cannot... possess... the Core... The Void... sees..."
"The Void is blind," Sebastian said. His voice raspy and devoid of empathy. "And you are deleted."
He raised the [Shadowfang]. He didn't use a skill. Didn't need to waste the mana. He simply drove the dagger down into the Apostle's neck. There was no blood. Only a burst of blue and black pixels that dissolved into the wind. The Apostle's body shattered like a dropped mirror. His existence wiped from the server instance.
[Ding! You have killed Player 'The Apostle'.]
[Elimination Confirmed.]
[Players Remaining: 2]
Sebastian turned to look at the ridge. Valerie was still there. Standing amidst the scorched rocks where she had held the line. She was staring down at him. Her [Staff of the Dead] hanging loosely in her hand. She looked terrified. Even though they were allies. Even though he had just saved her. The scale of the violence he had inflicted was something the human mind struggled to process. He hadn't just defeated the enemy. He had erased the geography they stood on.
"It's over," Sebastian's voice projected across the crater.
He turned his attention to the center of the glass bowl. Floating there, untouched by the gravitational collapse, was a pedestal of white marble. Hovering above it was the prize.
The City Core.
It was a crystalline dodecahedron. Pulsing with a rhythm that matched the heartbeat of the world. Inside the crystal a swirling galaxy of blue and gold mana rotated slowly. It was beautiful. It was the most valuable item in the game. To the guilds it was a trophy. To Sebastian it was a life support system for the coming apocalypse.
He walked up to the pedestal. Extended his hand.
[System Warning: This item is a Divine-Tier Artifact. Binding it will permanently link it to your Soul Signature. It cannot be traded. It cannot be dropped. Do you wish to proceed?]
"Bind," Sebastian commanded.
His fingers brushed the cold surface of the crystal.
ZOOM.
The world didn't just shake. It lurched. A shockwave of pure information blasted into Sebastian's mind. It wasn't pain but it was sensation overload. He felt the layout of the capital. The flow of the leylines. The weight of the mountains. The City Core wasn't just a rock. It was a command key for reality itself. The crystal dissolved into a stream of liquid light that shot up his arm. Burrowing into his skin. Fusing with his bone marrow.
[Ding! Item Acquired: City Core (Divine Tier).]
[Title Acquired: Grand Magus.]
[Tournament Winner: Zero.]
But Sebastian didn't care about the titles. He cared about the sensation in his chest. The link between his mind and the game was suddenly reinforced with steel cables. The barrier between the pilot and the avatar thinned to the width of a cell membrane.
[System Alert: Soul Density Critical.]
[Synchronization Rate Increasing...]
[10%... 15%... 20%.]
"ARGH!"
Sebastian fell to his knees. Clutching his chest. This wasn't the gentle tingling he had felt in the real world. This was agony. It felt as if his virtual skeleton was being ripped out and replaced with something denser. Something heavier. The data of his high stats—his monstrous Strength, his god-tier Agility, his infinite Mana—was forcibly imprinting onto his neural pathways.
In the real world, inside the cold warehouse, his physical body was seizing. His muscles were tearing and knitting back together in milliseconds. Fueled by the nutrient paste he had consumed and the ambient mana bleeding into Earth. His bones were hardening. The calcium structure rearranging into a lattice capable of supporting superhuman force.
[Synchronization: 20%.]
[Physical Limits Removed.]
Sebastian gasped. Vomiting a mouthful of black digital bile onto the glass floor. He wiped his mouth. He stood up. He felt... heavy. But it was a good heavy. It was the weight of a mountain that had decided to walk.
He looked at his hand. The skin was pale but veins of faint blue light pulsed rhythmically beneath the surface. He clenched his fist. And the air audibly cracked. A sonic boom generated by the sheer speed of his grip.
"20 percent," Sebastian whispered. His voice sounding like gravel grinding together. "It's enough."
He looked up at Valerie. Who had descended into the crater and was running toward him. She stopped ten feet away. Sensing the change in the air pressure around him.
"Zero?" she asked. Her voice trembling. "Are you... are you okay? Your eyes... they're glowing."
Sebastian blinked. The golden light of the [Eye of the Void God] faded. Replaced by his dark irises. Though a ring of gold remained.
"I'm fine," he said. "The tournament is done. We have the Core."
"What now?" Valerie asked. Looking at the dissolving world around them. The server was beginning to reset the instance. The sky was cracking like a broken ceiling.
"Now," Sebastian said. "We go home. And we prepare for war."
He didn't wait for the system to kick them out. He accessed his menu. The hunger in his real-world stomach was back. Sharper and more violent than before. The transformation had burned every calorie he had.
"Logout."
The world of glass and fire shattered into a million points of light.