Agamenticus Rialto didn't believe in subtle entrances. To a Dragon King, a closed door wasn't a barrier; it was an insult.
"Step back, insects," Rialto commanded, his voice vibrating with a frequency that made the air shimmer.
He didn't kick the door. He simply walked toward it as a massive, spectral dragon's claw of green fire materialized around his arm. With a casual flick of his wrist, the heavy oak and marble entrance didn't just break—it disintegrated into a flurry of unformatted data particles.
🏛️ The Georgia Safe House
The trio burst into the foyer, where the "Peach Shard" sunset bled through the shattered frame. The interior was a glitchy mess of dusty chandeliers and pixelated velvet, but all eyes immediately snapped to the center of the room.
There, tied to a chair with shimmering Logic Ropes, was a small boy who looked no older than nine. He wore rugged dungeon-diving gear—oversized goggles pushed up onto a mop of messy hair and a utility belt clinking with loot. This was Michael Wakowski, the Georgea protagonist and a notorious dungeon diver from the Spulio Sector (Spalding County).
Standing over him were four of Maximilian's lackeys—Aegis Enforcers dressed in sleek, black tactical gear. But they didn't look like intimidating kidnappers. They looked exhausted. They looked like men on the verge of a mental breakdown.
"...and does Maximilian use a localized gravity field to keep his pompadour so perfect?" Michael was asking, his voice filled with an earnest, high-pitched enthusiasm that bypassed the "Fear" status effect entirely. "Because if it's just hairspray, that's a huge waste of processing power! Also, does he eat digital food or real food? If he eats real food, does he have to log the calories as data entries? Does he have a favorite color? Is it blue? Because the Aegis Tower is really blue, but maybe that's just the default theme, right?"
"Kid, shut up!" one lackey groaned, his hand trembling over his stun-baton.
"But I have so many more questions!" Michael leaned forward, the logic ropes straining. "Like, if he's the CEO of everything, does he have to go to the bathroom in every shard to make sure the plumbing code works? That's a lot of walking! Does he have a fast-travel point in his office? Can I see his office? Is it true he has a secret room full of unreleased DLC?"
🐉 Rialto's Annoyance
Teo looked at Rialto. The Dragon King was wearing an ice-cold, sharp-toothed grin.
He's enjoying this, Teo thought, feeling a rare moment of kinship with the King. He likes seeing the Aegis goons suffer.
In reality, Rialto was internally screaming. To him, Michael wasn't a charming distraction; he was a loud, unoptimized noise-variable that was currently polluting the regal silence of a safe house. The "ice-cold grin" wasn't amusement—it was the look of a man contemplating if he could incinerate the kid and the lackeys in one clean sweep without Elena finding out.
"Who are you?!" the lead lackey shouted, finally noticing the trio. "This is a restricted Aegis extraction! Interfere and your assets will be—"
"I am the Dragon King," Rialto interrupted, his voice like grinding tectonic plates. "And you are standing in my house."
🏊 Demi's Discovery
While Rialto provided the intimidation and Michael provided the interrogation, Demi was already in motion. His ADHD was in overdrive. To him, the room was a series of interesting textures and hidden "lanes." He zoomed his wheelchair around the perimeter, his eyes scanning everything at 100 frames per second.
"Wow, look at this molding!" Demi shouted, zipping past a lackey's legs. "It's like a backstroke starting block! Hey, why is this rug so thick? It's creating way too much drag! Oh, look! A shiny thing!"
Demi didn't stop. He zipped behind a desk where one of the lackeys had set down a briefcase. With a twitch of his hyper-reflexive hands, he flipped the latch.
"Whoa! A map!" Demi pulled out a glowing, holographic blueprint. It wasn't a map of the house—it was a Server Hierarchy Diagram for the Aegis Tower.
"Teo! Look!" Demi yelled, holding the glowing blue schematic over his head. "It's the plumbing! No, wait, it's the data-flow! Look at the red line! It goes straight from Maximilian's office to the 813 Core! If we interrupt the 'current' here, it's like a swimmer hitting the wall before the turn—the whole momentum dies!"
The lackeys' eyes went wide. That blueprint was a "Tier 1" classified asset.
"Drop that!" the lead lackey screamed, pointing his weapon at Demi. "That's proprietary Aegis data!"
Michael, still tied up, didn't miss a beat. "Is that a map? Can I see? Does the map show where Maximilian keeps his spare suits? Are they all the same suit? Does he have a 'Monday' suit and a 'Tuesday' suit? Why are you guys so mad? Do you need a snack? My Abuela says people get grumpy when their hunger-meter is low!"
Teo stepped forward, his fists crackling with white-hot lightning. The "Strong Acting Weak" persona was gone. He was the Conduit, and he had a King and a "Human Buoyancy Consultant" at his back.
"I think," Teo said, his eyes glowing with the power of the 813, "it's time for you guys to clock out."
Teo didn't wait for the lackeys to coordinate an attack. He reached into the floor's unoptimized code, feeling the raw, static-heavy energy of the Georgia Shard. He didn't just want them gone; he wanted them out of the sector.
"813 Protocol: Polar Discharge!"
Teo's hands surged with blinding white arcs. He slammed his palms together, creating a focused electromagnetic blast that didn't burn—it repelled. The four Aegis lackeys were scooped up by a massive, crackling hand of electricity. With a thunderous CRACK, they were launched through the hole Rialto had made in the front door, screaming as they were vaulted northward. They became four twinkling stars on the horizon, heading toward Chutanaaga—the multiverse's chaotic version of Chattanooga—miles beyond the digital horizon.
In the sudden silence that followed, a series of sharp snaps echoed through the room.
🎒 The Diver's Release
Michael Wakowski simply stood up. The shimmering Logic Ropes lay on the floor in useless, frayed strands of code. He didn't explain how he'd broken them; he just brushed some pixelated dust off his knees.
Teo's HUD pinged as he looked at the boy. [Scanning Asset...] [Name: Michael Wakowski] [Level: 110] [HP: 45,000 / 45,000] [Strength/Agility/Intellect: Average]
The kid was a tank. He was a nine-year-old with the health bar of a mid-tier raid boss, likely from surviving too many collapses in the Spulio Sector dungeons.
"Whoa!" Michael shouted, ignoring his sudden freedom and sprinting straight toward Agamenticus Rialto. He stopped less than an inch from the Dragon King's waist, looking up with wide, unblinking eyes. "Is the green fire hot? Does it smell like mint? Can you toast marshmallows with it? If you get mad, does it turn red? Why is it green anyway? Is it because you eat a lot of lime-flavored data? Does the fire have its own hitbox, or is it just a particle effect? Can I touch it? I have high HP, so it's okay if I take a little tick-damage!"
Rialto's face went from pale to a dangerous shade of violet. His hand twitched toward Michael's throat—not to choke him, but to access the boy's audio-output settings.
"I will," Rialto whispered, his voice trembling with a kingly rage, "delete your vocal files and archive your tongue in a Michigan server vault."
"Wait, wait! King! Relax!" Teo jumped between them, hands raised. "He's just a kid! He's a 'Dungeon Diver,' they're naturally inquisitive!"
"He is a corrupted audio-loop," Rialto hissed, though he lowered his hand, his green flames flickering dangerously.
🗺️ The ADHD Blueprint
While Rialto simmered and Michael tried to peer around Teo to see if Rialto's boots were also made of fire, Demi was hovering over the desk, his eyes darting across the holographic map.
"It's not just a map, Teo!" Demi called out, his fingers tracing lines in the air. "Look at the flow! This red line—it's like a specialized swim lane with a heavy counter-current. See how the data 'bubbles' here? That's turbulence! You only get that kind of drag if you're trying to move a high-density asset against the system grain. It's like someone is trying to swim upstream in a pool filled with syrup!"
Demi tapped a specific node on the diagram—a hidden sub-level labeled [Containment Sector 7: The Gilded Cage].
"If the flow is going into this point but not coming out," Demi muttered, his ADHD brain connecting the dots at light speed, "then whatever is in there is being suppressed by the tower's entire cooling system."
Rialto's irritation vanished instantly. He leaned over Demi, his red eyes scanning the node. "The Gilded Cage..." He looked around the empty, glitchy mansion. "Marienne was supposed to meet me here. She is the best infiltrator in the Kusura ranks. For her to be missing from a safe house..."
Rialto's cold grin returned, but this time it was directed at the map. "Thorne didn't just find her. He's using her. This node—this 'Cage'—is located directly beneath Maximilian's private office."
"She's the anchor," Teo realized, looking at the map. "He's using her high-level Kyushu signature to stabilize the bridge between servers."
"Then the relay continues!" Demi cheered, spinning his wheelchair. "New objective! We dive into the Gilded Cage, grab the Princess—I mean, Agent Marienne—and we do it before the 'syrup' drowns us all!"
Michael jumped up and down. "Can I come? Do they have snacks in the Gilded Cage? Is the cage actually made of gold, or is it just a high-luster shader? Can I dive first? I have the most HP!"
Rialto looked at the boy, then at Teo, then at the map. He gave a heavy, regal sigh.
"Fine," the Dragon King muttered. "But if the small one asks about the fire again, I am using him as a projectile."
"Follow me!" Michael shouted, already halfway down a staircase that appeared to be made of rusted server cabinets. "The Spulio tunnels connect to the old US mega-server backbone. It's super old—like, 'analog-age' old! Have you ever seen a physical cable? They're gross and have spiders, but the logic-flow is really stable!"
Teo, Demi, and a visibly pained Agamenticus Rialto followed the nine-year-old into the gloom.
🚇 The Under-Server Backbone
The air changed instantly. The sweet peach scent of Georgia was replaced by the smell of hot copper, ancient dust, and ozone. These were the Orlando Utilidors, a massive labyrinth of utility tunnels that sat beneath the Kingdom of Mouse. Above them, the sounds of Level 340 mobs—distorted, robotic caricatures of fairy-tale creatures—thumped against the ceiling.
"Don't mind the thumping!" Michael chirped, his headlamp scanning the dark. "Those are just the 'Cast Member' mobs. They have a really aggressive aggro-range, but they can't clip through the floor unless the server lag gets over 500ms. Is it true that Maximilian Thorne used to be a janitor here? I heard he found a master-key in a trash can! Is that how he got rich?"
"If he was a janitor," Rialto muttered, his green flames casting long, flickering shadows against the tunnel walls, "he clearly missed a few spots in his own soul."
🏰 The Kingdom of Mouse: Level 340
As they moved deeper into the tunnels, the "relics" became more apparent. They passed flickering neon signs for defunct attractions and piles of discarded "Mouse-Ear" headsets that glowed with a faint, ghostly light.
Other players began to appear in the gloom—high-level divers and transit-strays who used the tunnels to avoid the high-tax zones of the surface.
"Look! A traveler from Dinver!" Demi pointed at a man wearing a rugged, mountain-insulated exoskeleton, his HUD glowing with the Denver-Shard's mountain peak icon. The man nodded curtly, his hand on a heavy-duty ice-pick as he hurried toward the Western Junction.
Then, the tunnel widened into a junction lit by glowing magical lanterns. Standing near a map of the Tampa Tunnelswere two women who stood out like polished gems in a coal mine. They were Disney cosplayers, their outfits rendered in high-definition silk and velvet that shimmered with premium "Mouse-Gold" currency.
One was dressed as Belle, her yellow gown taking up half the hallway. The other was a stern, regal woman in the sharp, high-collared dress of Lady Tremaine.
"Wait! Stop the wheelchair!" Demi skidded to a halt, his eyes widening. He looked at the two women, then back at the map he had decoded earlier. "Teo! Look at the posture! The vertical alignment! The way they're holding their shoulders—it's a perfect hydrodynamic profile! They're built for high-speed immersion!"
Demi leaned in, whispering loudly to Teo. "I bet they're related to Marienne! Look at the 'Tremaine' lady. She has that same 'I'm-about-to-archive-your-existence' look that your Abuela has, and Belle is wearing yellow—the color of the Kusura Royal Guard's secondary crest! It's a secret relay! They're the deep-cover agents, aren't they?"
Rialto, who had been brooding in the back, let out a short, sharp snort of genuine amusement. It was the first time Teo had heard the Dragon King make a sound that wasn't a threat or a sigh of disgust.
"You think," Rialto said, looking at the cosplayers who were currently arguing over which tunnel led to the nearest 'Dole Whip' vendor, "that the Princess of the Kyushu Royal House is related to a 'Belle' and a 'Step-Mother' from an Orlando theme park sector?"
"It's the perfect cover!" Demi insisted, his ADHD brain weaving a complex tapestry of corporate espionage and fairy-tale lore. "Nobody suspects the girl with the book! It's a classic misdirection! It's like a deceptive stroke in a 200-meter medley!"
The Lady Tremaine cosplayer turned and glared at Demi. "Young man, if you are looking for the 'Gilded Cage' attraction, it was vaulted three patches ago. Now move your... whatever that neon contraption is... before I have you moderated."
Rialto's grin widened. "See? Same temperament. Perhaps the boy is onto something after all."
🌪️ The Tampa Junction
"Come on, guys! We're almost to the Tampa Tunnels!" Michael yelled from further down the hall. "The bridge to the Aegis Tower's basement is just past the Pirate's Cove sub-server! If we're lucky, the 'Ghost-Ship' lag won't trap us in a loop!"
Teo looked back at the cosplayers, then at the Dragon King, who was still wearing that unsettlingly amused expression. The team was a mess—a Conduit, a King, an ADHD swimmer, and a nine-year-old tank—but they were moving through the blind spots of the world's biggest corporation.
"Let's go," Teo said, pushing Demi's wheelchair. "If we're going to rescue Marienne from the 'Gilded Cage,' we need to get through Tampa before Maximilian realizes his lackeys never made it to Chutanaaga."
The transition from the magical, mouse-themed corridors to the Tampa Tunnels was like moving from a high-definition movie to a grainy security feed. The walls were stained with digital soot, and the hum of the city above vibrated through the cracked concrete.
🌑 The Shadow Roadblock
Just as Michael was about to lead them through the final bypass into the Aegis basement, the tunnel ahead dissolved into a swirling mass of oily, black ink.
[Warning: Area Leakage Detected]
[Entity: Strip Mall Shadow Mobs - Level 410]
The shadows didn't have forms; they looked like the distorted silhouettes of shoppers and mannequins, leaking down from the "Strip Mall" sector directly above. They stood in a dense, shivering line, blocking the path with an aura of pure apathy and consumer-greed that even Rialto found distasteful.
"Ugh, look at them," Demi whispered, his eyes darting. "They move like they're stuck in a pool with zero visibility. No form, no technique! It's all drag!"
"These are 'Leak-Thralls,'" Michael explained, his headlamp flickering. "They're too heavy to fight in this narrow space. If we trigger them, the whole tunnel will collapse. We have to go up!"
Rialto sneered, a green flame dancing on his shoulder. "Fine. I tire of the subterranean stench anyway. Take us to the surface, small one."
🌊 The Tampa Riverwalk: 300 Miles of Water
They scrambled up a rusted maintenance ladder, popping out of a manhole cover onto the Tampa Riverwalk.
The scale of the world was staggering. Since the Florika server was scaled to 15×, the Hillsborough Channel wasn't a river; it was a massive, 300-mile wide estuary that looked more like an ocean. The water was a deep, sparkling sapphire, and on the distant, hazy horizon—nearly invisible to the naked eye—the Aegis Building sat like a tiny, silver needle pricking the sky.
"Whoa..." Demi breathed, rolling his wheelchair to the very edge of the wooden boardwalk. He stared at the vast expanse of water, his ADHD brain completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of "swimming lanes." "Teo, look at that surface tension! 300 miles of open water? That's not a race; that's a pilgrimage! Do you think the salinity changes in the middle? I need a boat. I need a boat right now!"
"Actually," Michael pointed to a weathered wooden dock nearby, "we have one!"
🚢 The S.S. Mango: A Family Affair
Moored at the dock was a magnificent, albeit slightly glitchy, paddle-wheel steamboat. It was painted in vibrant shades of orange and teal, and smoke—rendered in fluffy, white pixel-clouds—puffed from its twin stacks.
Standing on the deck was a man in a crisp white captain's hat and a Hawaiian shirt. He was busy polishing a brass bell, humming a tune that Teo recognized instantly. It was the same lullaby Abuela Elena used to hum when the servers went down.
"Captain Nico!" Teo called out, waving his arms.
The man looked up, his face breaking into a wide, toothy grin. This was Nico Valdes, the nephew of Elena's sister—Teo's cousin once removed. In the complex web of the Florika NPC families, Nico was the man who controlled the waterways.
"Mateo! You little spark-plug!" Nico shouted, throwing a thick rope toward the dock. "And you brought... a King, a torpedo, and a miniature tank? Come aboard, come aboard! Your Titi (Aunt) told me you might be looking for a ride across the Big Blue."
"You're an ally?" Rialto asked, stepping onto the gangplank with suspicious grace. "An associate of the Data Architect?"
"Better than an associate, Your Sparkliness," Nico laughed, clapping Rialto on the shoulder (and narrowly avoiding being incinerated by a green flame). "I'm family. And in this server, family is the only thing the Aegis Corporation can't buy out. I heard you're heading for the Needle. It's a 300-mile trek, and the 'Aegis Patrol Sharks' are out in force today."
Michael jumped onto the deck, immediately poking at the paddle-wheel. "Does the steam come from the server's cooling exhaust? How many knots can this go? Can I steer? I have high HP if we hit an iceberg!"
"One thing at a time, little diver!" Nico turned to Teo, his expression turning serious. "The channel is dangerous right now, Mateo. Maximilian has the 'Sea-Wall' sensors dialed up to eleven. But the S.S. Mango has a secret—her engine runs on 813 frequency. If you can feed the boiler some of that lightning of yours, we can outrun anything Thorne throws at us."
Teo looked at the distant needle of the Aegis Tower. The final leg of the journey was beginning.
The S.S. Mango groaned as its massive paddle-wheel began to churn the sapphire waters of the estuary. Teo stood at the railing, watching the Tampa shoreline recede into a haze of pixelated heat. The Aegis Tower was still a mere sliver on the horizon, 300 miles of treacherous open water away.
⚓ The Sea-Wall Ambush
They hadn't even cleared the first ten miles when the water began to boil with mechanical rhythm. From behind a series of artificial coral reefs, a fleet of sleek, black Sea-Wall Patrol Boats surged forward. These weren't standard NPC vessels; they were high-speed interceptors, their hulls reinforced with Aegis-grade obsidian.
At the lead of the fleet was the A.S.S. Indignant, commanded by Commander Zackus Caribora. Zackus was a distant, annoying branch on Kian Thorne's family tree—specifically, his third aunt's cousin's son. Kian had once mentioned that Zackus was the kind of person who would "audit his own mother for a promotion."
"Surrender the vessel!" Zackus's voice boomed over a long-range megaphone. He stood on the bow, his uniform stiff and his posture overcompensated. "You are in violation of Maritime Protocol 813-B! Pull over or be archived!"
"Zackus?" Michael yelled from the railing, squinting through his goggles. "Is it true you wear a life jacket in the bathtub? Kian said you were terrified of anything deeper than a puddle!"
Zackus turned a deep shade of crimson. "Fire the dampening harpoons!"
🕌 The Appearance of Meneriq Hale
Before the patrol boats could launch their attack, the cabin door behind Captain Nico swung open. A man stepped out who seemed to belong to a different world entirely. He wore traditional Saudi Arabian dress—a flowing white thobe and a regal ghutra—that remained perfectly still despite the ocean wind.
This was Meneriq Hale, the adopted brother of Marcus Hale. While Maximilian Thorne was the ruthless usurper, Marcus was the kind, legitimate head of the Aegis Corporation, currently fighting a silent political war to keep his seat. Meneriq was his shadow and his shield.
"The waters are troubled by the small-minded," Meneriq said, his voice calm and resonant. He didn't look at the fleet; he looked at the horizon.
"Who's the new guy?" Demi asked, his ADHD focus snapping to the intricate embroidery on Meneriq's robes. "Is that a hydrodynamic weave? It looks like it would reduce surface drag by at least 20%!"
Meneriq didn't answer. He stepped to the prow of the S.S. Mango and knelt, his hands open in a gesture of prayer. He began to recite a low, melodic rhythmic chant—an ancient Arabian Prayer Tradition magic that vibrated through the very code of the water.
🌊 The Divine Sinking
As the prayer reached a crescendo, the sapphire water beneath the Sea-Wall fleet didn't rise—it collapsed. A massive, localized sinkhole opened in the estuary.
"Wait, what's happening to the buoyancy?!" Zackus screamed as the Indignant began to tip.
"The current!" Demi yelled, ecstatic. "He's creating a vertical downdraft! It's like a drain-plug being pulled in a 50-meter pool!"
Meneriq's magic surged. Golden scripts of ancient light spiraled out from his hands, wrapping around the patrol boats like invisible anchors. One by one, the sleek Aegis interceptors were dragged beneath the surface, their engines sputtering and dying as the "prayer" overwritten their operational logic.
🏝️ The Sandbar of Humiliation
The S.S. Mango sailed smoothly past the wreckage. In the center of the sinking fleet, a small, lonely sandbar poked out from the waves. Zackus Caribora had been bucked off his ship and now sat squarely in the middle of the tiny patch of sand, surrounded by 300 miles of deep water.
"Help!" Zackus shrieked, clutching his knees. "I can't swim! I never learned! The water... it's touching my boots! Someone deploy a drone! Send a helicopter!"
Agamenticus Rialto walked to the edge of the deck, looking down at the stranded commander. The Dragon King let out a short, mocking laugh—a sound like dry leaves skittering over stone.
"A 'Sea-Wall' commander who fears the sea," Rialto sneered, his red eyes glowing with cruel delight. "You are not an insect, Zackus. You are a speck of dust."
Rialto didn't even wait for a response. He turned his back on the sandbar, his expression shifting back to its default state of cold, regal boredom. He completely ignored Zackus's frantic pleas as the S.S. Mango picked up speed.
"That's cold, King," Teo muttered, though he didn't ask Nico to stop.
"It is efficient," Rialto replied.
"He really can't swim?" Demi asked, looking genuinely horrified. "That's the saddest thing I've ever heard. It's a tragedy! We should at least throw him a kickboard!"
"Keep moving, Nico," Meneriq said softly, standing up and smoothing his robes. "Maximilian will have felt that disturbance. We have 280 miles left, and the 'Needle' is waiting."