[The probability of survival after escaping the Council's initial retrieval team was approximately 12%.]
Kenji stumbled out of the dimensional tear onto cold stone, his legs giving out beneath him.
The void energy that had felt so natural moments ago now burned through his nervous system like liquid fire.
[Void Walk: First Use Complete]
[Status: Severe Dimensional Displacement Syndrome]
[Recommendation: Immediate Rest Required]
[Warning: Overuse of untested abilities may result in permanent damage]
Of course, it would have side effects, he thought, pressing his palms against the rough stone floor. Nothing in this world comes free.
When his vision cleared, Kenji found himself staring at something impossible.
He was in a vast underground chamber, but the architecture defied physics.
Crystalline spires twisted upward into a ceiling that seemed to stretch into infinity, while bridges of pure light connected floating platforms that drifted slowly through the air.
Gardens of luminescent plants grew in impossible spirals around pillars of what looked like solidified starlight.
This wasn't just underground architecture. This was Aethelgard's architecture, the kind that existed in both dimensions simultaneously.
[The reader should understand that what Kenji was seeing was the remnant of the original game world, a fragment of digital reality that had refused to die when the servers were shut down thirty years ago.]
"Well, well. What do we have here?"
Kenji spun toward the voice, his void energy instinctively flaring as a figure emerged from behind one of the crystal spires.
The man appeared to be in his fifties, with silver hair and eyes that held the depth of someone who had seen too much.
He wore simple clothes, but power radiated from him in waves that made the air itself seem to bend.
[Threat Assessment: Unable to Calculate]
[Warning: Target possesses abilities beyond current analysis parameters]
[Survival Probability: Unknown]
"Relax, kid," the man said, raising his hands in a peaceful gesture. "If I wanted to hurt you, you'd already be dead. Besides,"
He smiled, "It's been thirty years since I've seen someone use a dimensional breach that crude. Brings back memories."
"You're..." Kenji struggled to his feet, void energy still crackling around him defensively. "You're from the original game."
"Original game?" The man laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Son, this isn't a game. This was never a game. That was just the story they told the world."
[It was at this moment that Kenji began to understand the true scope of the deception that had shaped his entire world.]
"My name is Akira Sato," the man continued, walking closer with the easy confidence of someone who had nothing to fear.
"I was the Guild Master of Eternal Requiem, one of the top five guilds before the... incident."
[Historical Record Accessed]
[Akira Sato: S-Rank Spatial Mage]
[Guild: Eternal Requiem]
[Status: Officially Deceased - Died in the Cataclysm Event]
[Actual Status: Very Much Alive]
"The Council thinks you're dead," Kenji said, his analytical mind processing the implications.
"The Council thinks a lot of things," Akira replied. "Most of them are wrong. But you already figured that out, didn't you? Otherwise, you wouldn't have made it here."
He gestured around the impossible chamber. "Welcome to the Undergarden, kid. The last free city in either dimension."
[The reader might wonder how a city could exist in both dimensions simultaneously. The answer lay in the fundamental nature of what Aethelgard had truly been—not a game, but a bridge between realities.]
"I don't understand," Kenji said, though his void energy was already beginning to resonate with the strange architecture around him. "How is this possible? The game ended thirty years ago."
"Did it?" Akira's eyes glittered with dangerous knowledge. "Or did it just... evolve?"
Before Kenji could respond, more figures emerged from the crystal structures.
A woman with white hair whose very presence seemed to accelerate time around her.
A massive man whose skin appeared to be made of living stone. A child who couldn't be older than twelve, but whose eyes held the wisdom of centuries.
[Multiple High-Level Entities Detected]
[Warning: You are severely outmatched]
[Recommendation: Diplomatic Approach]
"These are the other survivors," Akira said, noting Kenji's tense posture. "The ones the Council couldn't kill or capture. We've been waiting for someone like you."
"Someone like me?" Kenji's grip tightened on his void energy. "What does that mean?"
The white-haired woman stepped forward, and Kenji felt time itself slow around her. "It means," she said, her voice carrying the weight of inevitability, "that you're the key to finishing what we started thirty years ago."
[The probability that Kenji would survive the next revelation was dropping rapidly.]
"Finishing what?" he demanded, but part of him already knew. The void energy whispered the truth to him in voices that came from beyond reality itself.
"The integration," Akira said simply. "The complete merger of both dimensions. What the Council prevented by force, you're going to complete by choice."
[Quest Revelation: The True Purpose]
[Objective: Complete the Dimensional Integration]
[Reward: Reshape Reality Itself]
[Failure Condition: Dimensional Collapse]
[Note: Acceptance of this quest is permanent and irreversible]
Kenji stared at the notification, his mind reeling. "You're talking about changing the fundamental nature of reality. That's... that's impossible."
"Is it?" The child stepped forward, and despite their apparent age, their voice carried authority that made Kenji's bones ache. "You've already begun the process.
Every time you use your void abilities, you're weakening the barriers between dimensions.
The Council knows this. That's why they're so desperate to stop you."
[The reader should understand that Kenji was not just a person with powers, but a living catalyst for dimensional transformation.]
"And if I refuse?" Kenji asked, though he already knew the answer.
"Then the barriers will eventually collapse anyway," the stone-skinned man rumbled, his voice like grinding mountains.
"But in a chaotic, uncontrolled way. Instead of integration, you'll get annihilation."
[System Analysis: Truth Probability 97.3%]
[Additional Note: Dimensional barriers showing signs of natural decay]
[Estimated Time Until Collapse: 6 months, 14 days]
"Six months," Kenji whispered, reading the system notification. "We have six months."
"Less than that," Akira corrected. "The Council is already taking actions that will accelerate the collapse.
They're trying to permanently seal the barriers, but they don't understand the forces they're dealing with. Their attempts will only make things worse."
The white-haired woman nodded. "Which is why we need you to access the Core."
"The Core?"
"The heart of the original system," she explained.
"It's hidden in the deepest level of the Undergarden, in a place that exists in both dimensions simultaneously. Only someone with void affinity can reach it, and only someone with unlimited growth potential can survive using it."
[Hidden Location Revealed: The Core Chamber]
[Access Requirements: Void Affinity Level 5+]
[Current Level: 3]
[Estimated Training Time: 3 weeks]
"Three weeks to reach Level 5," Kenji said, his analytical mind already working through the implications. "Can it be done?"
"Under normal circumstances? No," Akira admitted. "But these aren't normal circumstances.
The Undergarden exists in accelerated time. A day here equals a week in the outside world. We can give you the training you need."
"And after that?"
"After that," the child said with a smile that was both innocent and terrifying, "you'll have to make the choice that will determine the fate of both dimensions."
[The probability of survival was no longer the most important consideration. The fate of reality itself now hung in the balance.]
[Major Decision Point Reached]
[Option 1: Accept Training and Attempt Integration]
[Option 2: Refuse and Seek an Alternative Solution]
[Option 3: Attempt to Destroy the Core Instead]
[Note: Each option carries extreme consequences]
Kenji looked around at the impossible architecture, at the survivors who had waited thirty years for this moment, at the void energy that responded to his will like a living thing.
He thought about his family, about the world above that had rejected him, about the Council that would hunt him until the day he died.
Most of all, he thought about the notification still blinking in his vision: 6 months, 14 days.
"If I do this," he said slowly, "if I complete the integration, what happens to the world above?"
"It becomes what it was always meant to be," Akira said. "A place where power isn't hoarded by the few, where anyone can awaken, where the barriers between possible and impossible don't exist."
"Or it becomes a chaotic nightmare where reality has no meaning," the white-haired woman added with brutal honesty.
"The integration has never been attempted before. We know the theory, but not the practice."
[The reader should understand that this was not a choice between good and evil, but between controlled change and inevitable chaos.]
[System Notification: Integration Tutorial Available]
[Would you like to begin preliminary training?]
[Warning: This action cannot be undone]
Kenji closed his eyes, feeling the void energy swirl around him like a living thing.
In the distance, he could sense the Council's forces mobilizing, searching for him, preparing for war.
He could sense the dimensional barriers growing thinner by the hour, reality itself beginning to fray at the edges.
When he opened his eyes, they held the depth of the void itself.
"Show me," he said.
[Tutorial Initiated: Path of the Void Walker]
[Objective: Reach Void Affinity Level 5]
[Time Limit: 3 weeks (Undergarden Time)]
[Warning: Failure may result in dimensional collapse]
[Beginning Phase 1: Understanding the Void]
[Evolution Progress: 2.1% Complete]