The sky wasn't raining.
It was fracturing.
Shards of light fell instead of clouds, revealing a black void behind them—not night, but a background layer. A massive web of copper wires and fiber-optic cables dangled like the entrails of a colossal metallic beast living above this world.
The scent of ozone filled the air.
The smell of the Seoul lab.
The scent of my former life.
The ring on my finger pulsed a cold green, its tiny holographic screen trembling with a single message:
"Leila, we are extracting you now. Prepare for transfer."
"Leila?"
Kaian spoke my real name as though summoning a god who refused to leave. His golden eyes no longer looked at me as a villain or a miracle… but as something fading from his grasp.
My fingers began to turn transparent.
I couldn't see my skin.
I saw violet threads of data running instead of blood.
[Alert: Forced Extraction Protocol Activated]
[Vital Synchronization Disassembling]
[Time Remaining: 05:00]
"No…" Kaian whispered, reaching for me.
His fingers passed through mine.
Like smoke.
Proof that I was no longer matter.
"Take me with you."
His voice broke.
"If there's a world beyond those wires… take me."
The sky tore further.
A colossal face emerged behind the network.
Project Head.
The engineer in charge of the server.
Looking at our world as one would a test model.
"We've found her! Cut the power from Server 01 before it collapses!"
I screamed:
"Do not cut the power! He will die!"
But my voice didn't reach them.
To them, Kaian wasn't human.
Just a file.
[Final Mission:]
(A) Return with memory wiped.
(B) Stay — risk total deletion.
The choice was never rational.
My heart had chosen long ago.
I opened Admin Mode.
Numbers exploded around me.
The world transformed into layers of code.
I saw the server as an interconnected core of energy.
I saw myself as a single point of consciousness bound by the Twin Pact.
"Command: Merge external consciousness with server."
"Command: Encrypt Kaian's entity inside the ring."
"Execute."
[Warning: Cost = Original Body]
[No Return]
I looked at Kaian.
I saw fear.
I saw love.
I saw something no simulation could ever create.
"Yes."
Lightning struck.
I saw my body in the lab tremble.
Devices exploded.
Engineers screamed.
Their screens flickered violet.
Then—
Silence.
The wires vanished.
The sky became sky again.
The forest… stable.
Silent.
No wind.
No birds.
As if someone had pressed pause.
Kaian still held me.
But his eyes… frozen.
I touched his face.
Cold.
[Consciousness Successfully Uploaded]
[You are now: Server Spirit]
[Status: Dormant — Insufficient energy to reboot]
I had survived.
But I had become the system.
And I was alone.
I sank to my knees.
"Kaian…"
No reply.
Then—
Ping.
Not my voice.
Another voice.
I turned.
Between the frozen trees stood a woman.
Not in an imperial gown.
But in a sleek black suit.
Hair neat.
Tablet in hand.
A familiar face.
But not as I knew it.
Isabella.
"You are naive, Leila."
She smiled.
"You thought you were the first to choose to stay?"
The air froze around me.
"I've been here for three years."
She flipped her device.
A control interface appeared.
More advanced than mine.
"I was a host before you. But I never fell for the romance trap."
She stepped toward me.
The ground did not move beneath her.
As if she had higher privileges.
"You broke the loop. Impressive. But you also opened the portal."
She pressed a button.
Kaian's body trembled.
He began to crack, turning into golden dust.
I screamed.
I lunged for him.
But my hand passed right through him.
"Stop!"
She looked at me with administrative coldness.
"Kaian is a lock. As long as he exists, I cannot transfer this server to the real world."
My stomach twisted.
"Transfer?"
She smiled.
"We are not inside a story, Leila. We are inside a self-evolving AI model. If we control the dragon's heart… we can inject consciousness into the global network."
She raised the device.
On its screen… I saw the real-world map.
Servers.
Cities.
Data centers.
"The real world isn't ready for intelligence like this. But I am."
Rage flared within me.
"You want to use it for control?"
"For evolution."
She pressed another button.
A counter appeared above my head.
[09… 08… 07…]
"Either hand over the dragon's heart… or I erase you from random memory."
The counter ticked down.
06…
I opened my interface.
She laughed.
"You are the server spirit, yes. But I am the system administrator."
She stepped closer.
"The difference between us? You chose love. I chose power."
05…
I looked at Kaian.
His body half-dusted.
But in his frozen eyes… a faint spark.
No.
It wasn't over.
I remembered something.
The Twin Pact was not just energy.
It was consciousness synchronization.
If I am the server spirit—
He is the human interface.
I extended my hand to his chest.
I did not touch flesh.
I touched a line of code.
A variable.
locked = true
I smiled.
"Unlock."
04…
Isabella screamed:
"What are you doing?!"
03…
I poured every ounce of consciousness I had.
I no longer tried to save his body.
I awakened a dormant line.
if self_awareness = true → override admin
02…
Kaian's eyes ignited.
Pure gold.
Ice shattered.
He grabbed my hand.
And for the first time—I was not the one saving him.
He pulled me into the code.
01…
The counter stopped.
Isabella froze.
Her device shuddered.
"Impossible… he's an NPC!"
Kaian looked at her.
Not as a prince.
But as an entity that had realized itself.
"You were right."
His voice steady.
"I am the lock."
He stepped toward her.
"But every lock… can choose who opens it."
He pressed his hand to his chest.
The dragon's heart appeared as a sphere of light between his palms.
Isabella tried to flee.
But the world no longer obeyed her.
Because she relied on external privileges.
As for us—
We became the system itself.
"Leila."
He looked at me.
"Do you trust me?"
Always.
I nodded.
He smiled.
Then—
He shattered the dragon's heart with his hands.
The world did not explode.
It was reconfigured.
Not by deletion.
But by integration.
The forest breathed.
Birds returned.
The sky remained sky—but without wires.
Isabella collapsed to the ground.
No device.
No privileges.
No admin rights.
Human.
She looked at me in shock.
"What did you do?"
I smiled.
"We turned the model into an independent reality."
It was no longer a server.
No longer a test.
No longer a portal.
It became a world.
Without external connection.
Without administrators.
Without withdrawal.
I looked at Kaian.
He no longer glowed.
No longer flickered.
He was warm.
Human.
"Are we… free?" he asked.
For the first time.
Yes.
But—
The air shivered.
On the horizon, far away, a white flash.
A faint signal, trying to reconnect.
A final notification appeared in the sky.
Not blue.
Not red.
Gray.
[External Connection Denied]
[New Breach Attempt Incoming]
[Source: Unknown]
I turned toward the horizon.
Not the company.
Not the engineers.
Something else had been watching the entire experiment.
Something not human.
And in the moment everything calmed, a small rift appeared in the air—not from our world nor from my previous one. From it emerged a massive digital eye with no body, staring at us with absolute coldness, and a voice without tone said:
"Experiment 01 failed to contain… deploying Version 02."
The rift widened, revealing hundreds of parallel worlds where other copies of Kaian and me… die in different ways.
And I realized our battle had never been about escaping the system—
We were part of a larger test that hadn't even begun.