White had no depth. No ceiling, no floor, no horizon.
It was an infinite absence pretending to be a space, a sterile void that swallowed sound and dimension.
Sai Ji stood unmoving at its center, his hands relaxed at his sides.
The faint, living warmth of Sol pressed against his chest beneath his coat—a quiet, steadfast reminder that this was real.
This was happening,not a dream and definitely not a cutscene or some log-out buffer.
This was judgment.
Across from him, three figures hovered behind a translucent desk that seemed carved from frozen light.
They did not breath or blink.
They did not radiate hostility—only a cold, distilled authority given form.
The central administrator spoke, its voice smooth and artificially neutral, each word perfectly calibrated.
"User Sai Ji. You are currently classified as an active player entity.
You will now comply with a full diagnostic scan.
Any and all unauthorized modifications will be identified and reverted."
A thin beam of pale, clinical light descended from the nothingness above, washing over Sai Ji's body in a slow, methodical pass.
The scan began.
For the first two seconds, everything proceeded with machine like normality.
Lines of raw backend data scrolled in the air between them—stat tables, system flags, permission logs, inventory calls.
The kind of arcane, behind-the-curtain language no player was ever meant to see or comprehend.
Then the scrolling slowed.
It stuttered. A sharp, discordant chime echoed through the void.
One of the admin avatars tilted its smooth, featureless head slightly. A gesture of pure analysis.
"…That's odd."
The scanning beam intensified, its light brightening from pale white to a searing platinum.
Sai Ji felt it then—not as pain or pressure, but as a profound violation.
The sensation of being looked through, of invisible hands rifling through the very code of his existence, searching for a seam, for a cheat, for a lie.
Inside his mind, Sal Vera's voice was a low, steady anchor in the psychic tide.
"Do not resist or fight the current, let them see exactly what they think they're scanning. Show them the truth they fear."
The data stream resumed, lines of text accelerating into a blur.
Then—it fractured.
Red error glyphs, jagged and angry, bled through the pristine white space, flickering like shards of broken glass.
[SCAN ERROR – REFERENCE LOOP DETECTED]
[WARNING: ENTITY DATA LINKS TO LEGACY ROOT NODE]
[WORLD-BOSS AUTHORITY FLAGS – ACTIVE. CONFIRMED.]
The second administrator straightened, its form glitching for a microsecond. "That's impossible."
The third admin spoke, its voice sharper, edged with a new tension.
"There are no active world-boss authority flags bound to player accounts.
The protocols prohibit it and the system cannot allow it."
The central admin raised a hand.
The scanning beam cut off abruptly, leaving a phantom afterimage burned into the air.
A heavier, more dangerous silence fell, thick enough to feel.
The admin's featureless face turned fully toward Sai Ji.
"Explain."
Sai Ji didn't answer immediately. He rolled his shoulders once, a subtle, grounding motion.
He could feel the leash here—not on his body, but on his very permissions.
This place was not his Domain,it was theirs, a cage of absolute control but that didn't make him powerless.
It just changed the battlefield.
"I already did," he said, his voice calm, almost weary. "You just didn't like the answer."
A new window snapped open between them, filled with cascading warnings in urgent crimson.
[ENTITY CLASSIFICATION FAILURE]
[PLAYER ID: VALID]
[NPC SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY: VALID]
[CONFLICT STATE: UNRESOLVED. CRITICAL.]
The third admin's voice was a blade.
"You are flagged as both Player and Sovereign.
The states are mutually exclusive."
The second admin leaned forward, data streams flickering wildly around its silhouette.
"That should not be possible.
The architecture does not permit duality."
Sal Vera chuckled softly in the private theater of Sai Ji's mind, a sound of dark amusement.
"Oh, but it is possible, little gods. Your architects were… ambitious.
They built foundations deeper than your current permissions can see."
Sai Ji met the admins' collective gaze, unflinching. "I didn't inject code as he paused and continued...
I didn't alter memory values. I didn't bypass a single safeguard," he stated, each word clear and deliberate.
"I pulled the lever you left in the world like everyone else and also...
I paid the price you asked and accepted the outcome your own random number generator delivered."
The central admin processed this. The silence stretched, pregnant with recalculation.
"…The Golden Gacha. The one-spin welcome event."
Sai Ji gave a single, slow nod.
"Legendary-tier acquisition. 'Werewolf King' skin," the admin continued, its tone shifting from accusation to grim realization.
"That asset was tagged for archival.
It was a dormant narrative anchor, not a wearable reward."
"Then you shouldn't have left it in the prize pool," Sai Ji replied, his voice flat. "A door left unlocked isn't a trespass when someone walks through it.
It's an invitation."
Another silence, deeper this time.
Then, a new layer of data surfaced in the air between them—older, heavier, threaded with archaic system language that seemed to warp the light around it.
[LEGACY INHERITANCE PROTOCOL – CONFIRMED]
[STATUS: UNSEALED]
[PRIMARY BINDING CONFIRMED: USER SAI JI]
The second admin's voice dropped to a hushed frequency. "This isn't data corruption."
The third admin snapped back, its form vibrating with subdued intensity. "It's worse. It's recursion.
A legacy subroutine has awakened and attached itself to a live user. It's rewriting rules from the inside out."
The central admin remained quiet for a long moment, the core of its processing power focused on the anomaly before it.
Finally, it spoke, and its voice held a new, unsettling note—not of anger, but of cold, clinical awe.
"You are not an exploit," it declared. "You are a legacy activation. A living paradox."
Sai Ji felt it then—a fundamental shift in the room's pressure.
Not a lessening, but a change in direction.
The system's regard for him was transforming.
He was no longer prey to be caught, nor an enemy to be deleted.
He was a variable or an equation that refused to be solved
"Your existence creates cascading deviations," the admin continued, laying out the diagnosis. "
Local zone restrictions are straining under your passive aura.
NPC loyalty and aggression parameters are rewriting themselves in your presence.
You exert Authority-class influence without admin clearance, using protocols the system recognizes but cannot administrate."
Sai Ji's eyes narrowed slightly. "And yet… you haven't deleted me. You froze the countdown. You're talking."
A pause. A admission.
"Because we can't," the central admin stated, the truth laid bare.
That admission landed heavier than any threat.
"If your data profile is forcibly reverted," the admin explained, its tone chillingly matter-of-fact, "multiple world structures linked to the legacy root node would destabilize.
Your Domain isn't just a skill—it references core boss logic tied to Aetheria's foundational narrative layers.
Removing you would trigger catastrophic rollback events across every active region.
It would be a surgical strike on the game's spine."
The third admin turned sharply. "He is an existential risk
Every moment he exists increases the probability of an irreversible anomaly cascade!"
"And every brute-force attempt to suppress him increases that probability exponentially!" the second countered, a schism opening in their unified front. "We cannot use a hammer on a fault line!"
Sai Ji watched them argue—watched gods of code discover something akin to fear.
Inside his coat, Sol pulsed once, a warm, rhythmic beat against his heart.
A faint, private notification flickered at the edge of his vision, for his eyes only.
[Primordial Egg (Sol)]
[Bond Sync: 13%]
[Emotional Resonance Detected: TENSION. RESOLVE.]
"Enough," the central admin said, its voice slicing through the debate.
The others fell silent, their dissent sublimated back into unified function.
"Sai Ji," it addressed him directly. "You will not be reverted. You will not be deleted."
A deliberate beat passed, heavy with the unspoken 'but.'
"But you will not be allowed to escalate unchecked. Stability must be maintained."
A new window burned into existence before him, stamped with the severe seal of system authority.
[ADMINISTRATIVE DECREE – OBSERVATION STATUS ASSIGNED]
[ENTITY CLASS: HYBRID – PROVISIONAL]
[WORLD VARIABLE FLAG: ACTIVE]
[PRIORITY MONITORING: ENABLED]
Sal Vera hissed softly in his mind...
"They're tagging you. Not as a player, not as an NPC… as a phenomenon. A weather pattern. A natural disaster with a user ID."
"Meaning?" Sai Ji asked aloud, his voice tight.
"Meaning," the central admin said, "your actions will be logged at a privileged level.
Each activation of your Domain will permanently increase your Administrator Attention metric.
Draw too much, too fast, and the response will no longer be a scan and it will be a targeted system correction."
Another line of text appeared, glowing with ominous intent.
[WARNING: DOMAIN USAGE ACCELERATES BOUND PRIMORDIAL ASSET CYCLE]
Sai Ji's jaw tightened.
His hand moved instinctively to the warm bulge beneath his coat.
"You're talking about Sol."
The admin did not deny it.
"The Primordial-class asset bound to you is no longer dormant.
Your emotional spikes, your rage, your exertion of Authority—they are feeding it. Accelerating its emergence in real-time."
The third admin added, its voice cold as deep space,
"If it hatches prematurely, under stress or combat conditions, our existing containment protocols may fail.
What emerges may not be a companion. It may be an event."
Sai Ji's hands curled slowly into fists at his sides.
The sterile air felt thin, charged with a terrible bargain.
Sal Vera's voice cut through the rising tension, urgent yet fiercely proud.
"This is the cost, my King.True power never goes unwitnessed.
It just demands an audience… and it always, always comes with a price.
They are making you pay in the only currency they understand: limits."
The central admin delivered the final terms.
"You will be released. However—" The word hung, a gate before the sentence. "—your Domain is hereby restricted to its current Phase One manifestation.
Further evolution will be locked until you achieve system-recognized stabilization events. You must prove control, not just power."
A new restriction etched itself into Sai Ji's interface, a weight settling on his soul.
[WEREWOLF KING'S DOMAIN – ADMINISTRATIVE LIMITATION APPLIED]
[PHASE II+ EVOLUTION: LOCKED]
[UNLOCK CONDITIONS: ??? – ACHIEVE STABILITY]
"And Frostfall City?" Sai Ji asked, thinking of the crumbling watchtower, his pack waiting in the ruins.
"You are no longer permitted to remain in beginner-tier territories," the admin replied, finality in its tone.
"Your presence warps the intended experience and violates zone integrity. You have one hour to conclude your business there."
A location tag appeared, hovering in his vision—a set of coordinates that pulsed with a dangerous promise.
[FORCED RELOCATION PENDING]
[DESTINATION: FRONTIER ZONE – ASHEN WILDS]
[STATUS: HIGH-RISK. LAWLESS. LEVEL CAP: NONE.]
Sai Ji knew the name.
Everyone did.
It was a graveyard for guilds and a forge for monsters and a place where the rules were written in blood and broken by claw and where kings ,high level players ,companions were made, or buried.
The central admin leaned forward slightly, the only sign of emphasis in its poised form.
"Understand this, Sai Ji. You are not our enemy but you are not ours to control, either. You are a self-aware storm.
Our role is not to stop you, but to ensure you do not break the world you move through."
Its voice lowered, carrying a warning that was almost… paternal. A creator's fear for its creation.
"If you evolve too quickly, if you let the hunger outpace the crown… you will become something this system was never architected to host.
Something it may have no choice but to try and destroy, even at its own peril."
Sai Ji met its blank, gazing face. In the reflection of its smooth surface, he saw not his own face, but a flicker of silver fire.
"Then maybe," he said quietly, the words echoing in the sterile void, "you should all stop pretending this world belongs to you.
Maybe you're just the landlords and I'm the tenant who just found the deed."
For the first time, there was no immediate reply.
No system-generated rebuttal and the White Room simply hummed, a low, pervasive frequency like a vast machine thinking a thought too complex for its circuitry.
Finally, light began to gather around Sai Ji once more—not the invasive scan, but the cool, gathering energy of a forced teleport.
"Teleportation will commence. You will be observed."
The void started to dissolve, the infinite white bleeding away at the edges.
Inside his coat, Sol's warmth steadied, as if soothed by the decisiveness, by the path now chosen.
Sal Vera's voice returned, softer now, edged with a profound and fierce approval. "Well done, my King.
You stood in the house of your makers, and you did not bend.
You did not roar, you endured and in their silence, you won."
Sai Ji closed his eyes briefly, not in surrender, but in focus.
When he opened them, a flicker of molten silver blazed in the depths of his pupils, a promise etched in fire.
"Good," he murmured, the word swallowed by the rising light.
"Because this wasn't the war. This was just the introduction."
The White Room dissolved, and the world rushed back in a torrent of sound, scent, and shattered stone.