Volume 1 – The VR World
Chapter 4 – Steel and Sand
The warhorn echoed through Stoneharrow like a judgment.
No menu prompts. No compass blip. Just that sound—low, primal, and final. The raid was already underway by the time I arrived.
Guild sigils burned across the canyon walls, flashing red and gold in the dust-thick light. Wind howled through broken stone teeth jutting from the earth like some dead god's ribs. Above it all, the fortress stood untouched, waiting to be breached.
I stood at the edge of the outpost cliff, watching players scramble into formation across the drawbridge below. Their voices—real, panicked, raw—spilled through proximity chat in clipped, overlapping fragments
.
"Pull the casters back!"
"Healer's down, group three!"
"Who the hell aggroed the drake?!"
A shadow dropped from the high ridge to my right—no system alert, no warning. Just the crunch of impact, hard and sure.
Darius landed like a landslide.
He didn't speak. Didn't check the raid log. Just drew the iron slab from his back and started walking.
One of the players—a rogue, probably fifteen in real years—panicked and bolted.
Darius broke into a sprint.
Two steps later, he caught the kid mid-dash with a shoulder bash that sent him tumbling.
"Break formation again," he said flatly, "and I'll leave you outside the next three raids."
The rogue mumbled something, scrambled to his feet, and disappeared back into the group.
Darius turned toward the dragon gate, rolled his shoulders once, and gave a single hand signal. The guild moved like a trained body—tanks forward, supports behind, ranged weaving in counter-formation.
Discipline. Precision. No clutter. No over-designed mechanics.
This was his world.
I followed him through the inner gate.
The arena was pure sand and ruin—an open killbox framed by shattered columns and flaming brazier lines. The boss—Skarrith, Wyrm of the Shifting Deep—was already in mid-rotation, wings torn, eyes glowing with rage logic. Its AI had evolved again. The movement pattern was less scripted, more… reactive.
Darius didn't break stride. "No ultimates. Standard cooldowns. We learn it raw."
The call went out across voice channels instantly.
Someone groaned. Another laughed nervously. The challenge wasn't up for debate.
He hit first—blade crashing against scale, sending molten sparks across the pit floor. Skarrith reared, tail whipping out to sweep the front line. Darius ducked low, drove his weapon up into its ribcage, and barked a single command.
"Now."
The raid moved. Not just in-game. In rhythm. In blood and code.
I watched from the edge of the platform, half-invisible in admin mode, hands clenched tighter than I meant.
He made it feel real.
Not immersive. Real.
The kind of real that made players forget the gear stats and just survive.
Back in the war tent, after the dragon finally dropped, he stripped the gauntlets from his hands without a word and tossed them onto the table.
"Fifth evolution," he said.
"Not logged."
"Of course it's not logged."
I stayed quiet.
He poured water from the flask beside the debrief station. The ambient lighting in the tent pulsed low red, coded to sync with team heart rates. His pulse barely shifted. Even after the fight.
He drank, then looked at me.
"Something's changing."
"I know."
"It's in the AI."
"I know."
"I want in."
"You already are."
He stepped forward. Close enough that I could see the hairline scar across his eyebrow—the one from the real world. The one he never talked about.
"I mean in the real work," he said. "The dive trials. The unfinished link."
"It isn't stable."
"Neither is this." He gestured toward the fortress walls, toward the killfeed still updating in the corner of the HUD. "They're starting to win without knowing why."
"They're getting better."
"They're changing."
I didn't argue.
He turned back toward the tent's opening, paused halfway.
"When it breaks," he said, "don't wait. Call me."