Sebastian didn’t look back. He didn’t care about the Vanguard Syndicate, Commander Sterling, or the billions of lines of corrupted code he was leaving behind.

He stepped into the static.

"Check please," Sebastian muttered.

FWOOSH!

The portal violently snapped shut behind him, completely severing his connection to Server 112 just a microsecond before the entire Dyson sphere collapsed into a hyper-dense singularity and was permanently deleted from the Ethereal Plane.

The transition was like being shoved through a meat grinder and spat out onto a cold tile floor.

"Guh!"

Sebastian stumbled out of the jagged portal, his heavy boots hitting the polished obsidian floor of Sanctuary’s grand hall with a loud, resounding THUD.

The green and black static of the Juncture tear violently snapped shut behind him.

He stood there for a second, his chest heaving, clutching the massive, glowing azure Regional Core under his left arm. His black leather coat was scorched, torn, and completely covered in the synthetic oil and digital blood of the Vanguard Syndicate.

But he was back on Server 894. He was back on Earth!

The familiar, comforting hum of his limitless Ethereal mana pool instantly rushed back into his chest. The heavy, restrictive grey UI of the Spoofing Drive vanished, replaced by the glorious, golden interface of his Demigod status.

"Holy shit, Boss," a raspy voice echoed through the dimly lit hall.

Sebastian slowly raised his head.

The grand hall of Sanctuary was quiet. The massive titanium blast doors were sealed shut. The only light came from the soft, pulsing golden glow of the True City Core floating on its pedestal in the center of the room.

Standing a few feet away, with his twin matte-black daggers drawn, was Wraith.

The Level 25 Assassin looked completely exhausted. His dark leather armor was heavily patched, and he was favoring his right leg, but his eyes were wide beneath his half-mask.

Sitting on the floor near the war table, surrounded by piles of empty metal casings, was Galleon. The dwarf had a massive wrench in one hand and a half-empty bottle of cheap ale in the other.

"You actually did it," Galleon breathed, staring at the glowing azure crystal tucked under Sebastian’s arm. "By the First Maker’s sweaty armpits... you stole a whole damn server."

"I bought it on clearance," Sebastian deadpanned, rolling his stiff shoulders.

His joints popped loudly. "Where is she?"

Wraith’s posture stiffened. He sheathed his daggers, the metallic clink echoing loudly in the quiet room. He didn’t say a word. He just turned and gestured toward the far end of the hall, toward the newly constructed medical wing.

Sebastian didn’t run. He walked with a heavy, deliberate momentum.

The doors to the medical wing hissed open.

The air inside was completely sterile, smelling sharply of alchemical disinfectants and cold magic.

In the center of the room, resting on a massive slab of white, runic-carved marble, was Valerie.

She wasn’t moving. She was completely trapped in a translucent, rectangular block of pure, hard-light magic. It looked like she was encased in a block of glowing blue ice.

Her pristine azure silk robes were torn to shreds. Her physical avatar was a mess of deep, jagged cuts and terrifying rendering burns from where the Sky-Fortress had detonated. Her dark hair floated lazily around her pale face, frozen in time.

[Entity: Valerie (Arcane Valkyrie)]

[Status: Comatose. Awaiting Resurrection Protocol.]

[Warning: Soul Data Fragmented. System Lock Active.]

Sebastian stood next to the Resurrection Altar, his pitch-black, silver-tinged eyes staring down at the woman who had burned her own mana pool to save his fortress.

"She’s been like that since the explosion," Wraith said softly, stepping up behind him.

"The Altar caught her soul before it could dissipate into the Ethereal ether. But the Citadel is only Tier 2. It doesn’t have the raw administrative power to reconstruct an avatar that took a direct blast of absolute zero mana.

The system put a death-lock on her code to prevent total deletion."

"I know," Sebastian whispered. "That’s why I brought the battery."

He lifted the massive, pulsing Regional Core of Server 112. It was heavy with the stolen authority of an entire world.

He didn’t hesitate. He slammed the glowing azure crystal directly onto the runic interface at the head of the Resurrection Altar.

"System," Sebastian commanded, his voice vibrating with the Sovereign’s authority.

"Initiate manual override. Consume Regional Core data. Purge the death-lock on target entity: Valerie. Reconstruct avatar."

He waited for the beautiful, cascading blue windows. He waited for the blinding flash of healing light. He waited for Valerie to wake up, look at his ruined coat, and complain about the smell.

BZZZZT!

A harsh, violent red light flashed across the room. The Regional Core sparked, forcefully rejecting the Altar’s interface.

[CRITICAL ERROR: Override Denied.]

Sebastian frowned. "Excuse me? I have Admin privileges. Execute the command."

He pushed his 10,000x multiplier into the console, trying to brute-force the logic gates just like he had done a hundred times before.

[CRITICAL ERROR: Target Entity lacks sufficient Server Permissions.]

[Notice: The ’Spite Protocol’ is active on this soul. Standard Core data is insufficient.]

[God-Tier Laws required to bypass fundamental death mechanics.]

Sebastian pulled his hand back as if he had been burned.

"Spite Protocol?" Wraith asked, reading the floating red text. The Assassin’s voice was tight. "Boss, what does that mean?"

Sebastian stared at the red error window. A cold, terrifying realization washed over his highly optimized brain. He looked down at Valerie’s frozen face.

"It means the game developers are assholes," Sebastian said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, lethal whisper. "The Void knew she was important to the Anomaly.

They hard-coded a failsafe into her death. A standard Regional Core isn’t enough to fix her. It’s just hardware." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

He turned away from the Altar, pacing like a caged predator. His mind raced through the mathematical impossibilities.

"I can’t just plug and play. I can’t just throw raw mana at a hard-coded law of death,"

Sebastian muttered to himself.