[LOCATION: THE BRONX - THE BLACK CUBE (ROOT DIRECTORY)] [TIME: 04:00 AM (Day 1 of the Server Wars)]
The celebration in the server room lasted exactly forty-five seconds.
That was how long it took for Dave to wander over to the main console, look over my shoulder, and read the giant, flashing red letters on the global map.
"A billion gold?" Dave squeaked, his voice cracking so hard it sounded like a dog toy. "Admin Prime put a One Billion Gold bounty on our heads?!"
The rest of the team stopped cheering. Miller lowered his shield. Sarah stopped floating. Vane froze mid-dagger flip.
"A billion," Abhinav Bhardwaj repeated, walking slowly toward the console. The Spellblade's usually stoic face was pale. "In the old economy, a hundred thousand gold could buy a Guild. A billion... a billion buys an empire."
"It buys the world," I corrected, staring at the map.
The screen showed the globe. New York (Sector 7) was glowing gold. But radiating outward, spanning across the Atlantic and the Pacific, thick red lines were rapidly drawing themselves toward our city.
[SYSTEM ALERT: CROSS-SERVER FAST TRAVEL GATES UNLOCKED.] [INCOMING CONNECTIONS DETECTED.]
"Fast Travel Gates," Vane muttered. "There's a massive Hub at Grand Central Station. The Iron Vanguard used to guard it before you kicked them out, Jax. If the gates are open..."
"Then the rest of the world is about to walk right into our living room," Miller finished, hoisting his hardware-encrypted shield. "We need to get there. Now."
"I can't lock the gates from here," I said, typing furiously on the Black Cube's terminal. > [DISABLE: FAST_TRAVEL_NODE] resulted in an [ACCESS DENIED: ROOT OVERRIDE] error. "Admin Prime hardcoded the gates to stay open. The only way to stop them is to physically hold the chokepoint."
I pulled the [Master Key] from the console.
"Everybody grab onto me," I ordered, opening my Dev Box.
We didn't have the Error 404 Express anymore, but we didn't need it. The Bronx was fully anchored now. The Null-Magic zone was gone, which meant I had full administrative fast-travel privileges within my own city.
> [ADMIN_COMMAND: FORCE_TELEPORT_PARTY] > [DESTINATION: GRAND_CENTRAL_TERMINAL]
The world dissolved into a flurry of golden pixels.
[LOCATION: GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL - MAIN CONCOURSE] [TIME: 04:05 AM]
We materialized on the balcony overlooking the main concourse of Grand Central.
Usually, the terminal was quiet, guarded by a few of our newly recruited Error 404 Guild members. But right now, it was chaos.
The massive, starry ceiling of the terminal was glowing with blinding magical energy. The old ticket booths had sunk into the floor, replaced by six towering, circular portals made of swirling cosmic light.
[GATE 1: SECTOR 1 (LONDON) - SYNCHRONIZING...] [GATE 2: SECTOR 3 (TOKYO) - SYNCHRONIZING...] [GATE 3: SECTOR 4 (MOSCOW) - SYNCHRONIZING...]
Our guild members—about fifty low-level fighters we had left behind to guard the city—were backing away, their weapons trembling.
"Hold the line!" I shouted, leaping over the balcony railing. Because I had the Master Key, my stats negated the fall damage. I landed heavily on the marble floor, the rest of the team dropping in right behind me.
"Jax!" One of the guild recruits, a Level 12 Archer, ran up to me. "The portals just turned on! What's coming through?"
"The apocalypse with a profit motive," I said, adjusting my glasses. "Fall back to the exits. Form a perimeter. Let the heavy hitters take the front."
Miller stepped up to the center of the concourse, planting his boots. Abhinav took his right flank, his sword igniting with closed-loop sapphire fire. Vane melted into the shadows near the information booth. Sarah prepped her USB drive. Dave hid behind a trash can, pointing his heavy pneumatic nail gun over the rim.
"Which gate opens first?" Abhinav asked, his eyes locked on the swirling portals.
[GATE 1: SECTOR 1 (LONDON) - CONNECTION ESTABLISHED.]
The portal on the far left turned from swirling cosmic light to a deep, royal crimson.
A heavy, rhythmic thud echoed from inside the portal. Boots. Marching in perfect, terrifying unison.
"Brace," Miller growled.
The first figures stepped through the portal.
They weren't a disorganized mob of greedy players. They were an army.
They wore immaculate, high-fantasy plate armor polished to a mirror shine, adorned with crimson capes and golden lion crests. They marched in a perfect phalanx, holding towering tower shields and long, crackling halberds.
There were fifty of them. And then fifty more.
I scanned them with my [Debugger's Specs].
[GUILD: THE CROWN SYNDICATE (SECTOR 1)] [ENTITY: SYNDICATE VANGUARD] [LEVEL: 35]
"Level 35," I swallowed hard. The average level of our entire city was 15. My elite team was mid-20s. We were out-leveled and overwhelmingly outnumbered.
The phalanx parted. A single figure walked through the ranks.
He was tall, wearing a tailored crimson coat over lightweight mythril mesh. He held a slender rapier that hummed with a vicious, cutting wind. A monocle rested over his right eye, glowing with a steady yellow System light.
[ENTITY: LORD ARTHUR] [CLASS: DUELIST COMMANDER] [LEVEL: 42]
"Level 42," Abhinav whispered, his grip tightening on his sword. "That's a tier-four class evolution."
Lord Arthur stepped to the front of his army. He looked around the grand architecture of the terminal, completely ignoring us at first.
"A bit rustic," Arthur spoke, his voice carrying a crisp, aristocratic British accent amplified by a system spell. "But structurally sound. It will make a decent forward operating base once we clear out the vermin."
He finally turned his glowing monocle toward us. He sneered.
"You must be the 'Glitch King' I read about in the patch notes," Arthur said, pointing his rapier at me. "I expected a towering hacker, not a boy in a dirty hoodie. Hand over the Master Key, relinquish the Sector, and I might let you keep your levels before I evict you."
"Sorry, Artie," I called back, my heart hammering against my ribs. "We don't do evictions in New York. We do rent control."
Arthur sighed, adjusting his monocle.
"Pity. Syndicate Vanguard," he raised his rapier. "Format them. Leave the Admin alive for the bounty."
The phalanx lowered their halberds. The tips sparked with chain lightning.
"They have high-tier magic," Sarah warned. "If they cast that lightning in here, it'll arc to everyone!"
"They won't cast it," I said, my fingers flying over my Dev Box.
I couldn't close the portals. But this was my train station. I had administrative rights over the building's architecture.
"Miller, Abhinav! Keep them in the center of the room!" I yelled.
> [SELECT: GRAND_CENTRAL_FLOOR_TILES_C1_TO_C50] > [ACTION: REMOVE_COLLISION_MESH]
The Syndicate Vanguard charged, their boots thundering across the marble.
Arthur watched with a smug smile.
"Execute," I whispered, hitting the enter key.
The fifty heavily armored soldiers in the front row took a step forward.
But their boots didn't hit marble.
Because I had just turned off the floor's solidity.
To the naked eye, the floor looked perfectly normal. But to the game's physics engine, the center of Grand Central Station had just become empty air.
"What in the—" the front row of soldiers shrieked as they instantly plummeted through the floor.
It wasn't a pit. They just clipped straight through the marble, falling into the subway tunnels thirty feet below with a chorus of crashing plate armor and confused screaming.
CRASH. BANG. CLATTER.
The second row tried to stop, but the momentum of their charge pushed them forward. They fell through the floor too.
In three seconds, half of Lord Arthur's elite Vanguard had vanished into the basement.
"Bloody hell!" Arthur yelled, his smugness evaporating. He leaped backward, his high agility saving him from falling into the invisible pit. "What kind of spell is that?!"
"It's not a spell," I yelled, stepping forward to the edge of the invisible hole. I pulled out my Dev Box and aimed Dave's pneumatic nail gun over the gap. "It's a feature. Welcome to Sector 7. Mind the gap."
I restored the collision mesh. The floor became solid again, trapping the fallen soldiers in the dark tunnels below.
Arthur glared at me, his rapier trembling with fury. The remaining soldiers hesitated, terrified of the floor.
"You fight like a coward," Arthur spat.
"I fight like a guy defending his home," I said. "Now, are you going back through that portal, or do I need to delete the ceiling next?"
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