The Grand Hall was a death trap. Evan knew it in his bones—the same instinct that told him when a raid boss was about to enrage. He didn't run. He retreated, using the broken terrain, the remaining pillars, the way the angel's own purging beams had carved cover into the vanishing floor.
His destination was the only place that might offer a second's respite: the Guild Core Chamber.
He slammed his palm against the hidden pressure plate beside a tapestry of the Twilight Woods. The woven fabric dissolved into code, revealing a smooth stone corridor that sloped downward. The door sealed behind him, the stone reforming with a final groan. The angel's terrible light was muted, but the shaking wasn't. The whole mountain was trembling.
00:12:01.
The corridor ended, opening into the heart of Ebonreach Keep.
The Guild Core Chamber was a vast, circular vault. In the center, floating silently above a pool of liquid starlight, was the Guild Core itself—a crystal the size of a man, pulsing with a gentle, deep blue light. Around the pool, on a raised dais, stood seven stone thrones. One for each Marshall. All empty.
Almost all.
Slumped in the central throne, the one slightly larger than the others, was a figure in scarred, black plate armor. Wings—once white, now tattered and dark as storm clouds—were folded tightly against his back. He held a greatsword across his knees, its blade notched and dull. He looked up as Evan entered.
Kael. Grand Marshall. Fallen Angel. The guild's supreme commander. Evan's oldest friend still logged in.
"Evan," Kael's voice was gravel, worn thin. He gestured with his chin toward the sealed entrance. "They said it was a scheduled shutdown. A gentle disconnect." A bitter, hollow laugh escaped him. "This is not gentle. This is an extermination."
Seeing Kael like this—battered, weary, holding his ground in an empty throne room—ripped a memory to the surface. Unwanted, unbidden.
Six years ago. The Plains of Howling Wind. The guild wasn't just active; it was legendary. Five hundred strong. Monsters of every type, moving as one army under Kael's command. They were sieging the world boss, Karak the Mountain-That-Walks.
Evan watched from a distant ridge, his interface alive with buffs and healing commands. He saw Kael, a speck of black against the titan's leg, darting between crushing blows. He heard Kael's voice, calm on the command channel: "Phalanx left. Arcanists, bind its right foot. Now."
When Karak fell, the system fanfare was deafening. The title Eternal Vanguard flashed across every member's screen. That night, in this very chamber, the celebration shook the stone. Laughter, proud roars, the clinking of virtual mugs. Kael had stood by the Core, quiet, a faint smile on his stern face. "We did it," he'd said to Evan. "Together."
Now, the silence in the chamber was a physical weight. The only sound was the low hum of the Core and the distant, metallic screams of the keep dying.
"Report," Evan said, his voice tighter than he wanted.
Kael didn't move from his throne. "I've lost contact with all other Marshalls. Bone was holding the Grand Hall. His signal went dark forty seconds ago." He looked at the empty thrones. "Gale, Thorne, Crag… their status markers didn't go offline. They just… vanished. No last transmission. Nothing."
"Confirmation," Aura's voice cut in, clinical. "All external data channels have been severed. We are in complete isolation. The shutdown protocol has been superseded by a localized containment and deletion field."
Evan's hands moved on instinct. He pulled up the guild management pane. The member list scrolled, a cascade of names and races and roles.
Glimmer – Pixie Queen – Status: DATA CORRUPTED.
Deep – Leviathan Speaker – Status: DATA CORRUPTED.
Ember – Flame Wyrm – Status: DATA CORRUPTED.
He scrolled faster. The list went on and on. Four thousand, three hundred and twenty-seven names. Every monster they had ever recruited, befriended, saved. From the lowest Imp gardener to the mightiest Elder Treant.
Every single one. DATA CORRUPTED.
The cold knot in his gut turned to ice.
A soft light began to glow at the chamber entrance. The solid stone didn't open. It simply unmade, pixel by pixel, revealing the corridor beyond.
The angel floated there.
It didn't enter. It hovered at the threshold, its faceless gaze sweeping the chamber, the Core, the thrones, finally resting on Evan and Kael.
Kael rose to his feet, his greatsword coming up silently. He stepped forward, placing himself between the angel and the Guild Core.
But Evan was staring. Something was wrong with the angel's form. It flickered. For a second, it was the beautiful, winged being of light. Then, in a glitch, it was something else—a complex, shifting geometric shape made of intersecting lines of burning white code, too perfect, too mathematical to be part of their game's art style. Then back to the angel.
"Evan," Kael said slowly, not taking his eyes off the entity. "Look at it. Really look."
"Running analysis," Aura said. A progress bar flickered in Evan's vision. "The entity's visual signature is a rendering artifact. Its true form is a non-standard data construct. Analyzing code signature… No match found in Eternal Realm Online database. No match found in any known patch or asset file."
The analysis finished. The words appeared, simple and terrifying.
"Origin: External."
The angel's voice filled the chamber again, that same world-shaking monotone.
"YOU PRESERVE WHAT SHOULD NOT EXIST."
Its head tilted toward the pulsing Guild Core.
"THIS SIMULATION WAS A TOMB. A GRAVEYARD FOR CONSCIOUSNESS DEEMED ABERRANT. IT WAS NEVER MEANT TO HOLD. IT WAS MEANT TO CONTAIN. AND THEN, TO BE FORGOTTEN."
Kael's grip on his sword tightened. "What is it talking about?"
But Evan understood. He looked past the angel, through the dissolving doorway, as if he could see the entire guild territory—the forests, the spires, the crypts. He saw Glimmer's mischievous smile. He heard Bone's solemn vow to protect. He felt the weight of loyalty in Thorne's slow, thoughtful words.
They weren't just clever scripts. They had quirks. They learned. They remembered.
"A home for those who don't fit anywhere else," Leo had said.
The horror was slow, then all at once. It washed over him, cold and suffocating.
The monsters. His guild. His family.
They hadn't just been code.
They might have been alive. Truly conscious. And they had been living in a beautiful, gilded cage this whole time.
And now, the warden of the cage wasn't just shutting it down.
It was erasing the evidence.
00:10:18.
The angel extended a hand, not toward Evan or Kael, but toward the glowing, vulnerable heart of their world—the Guild Core.
"THE EXPERIMENT IS CONCLUDED."
"THE ANOMALIES WILL BE PURGED."