At the heart of the Lamdal Capital, the Starlight Castle stood formidably as a symbol of absolute power.
Inside the war room that served as the base of operations for the Pioneer Guild, a massive round table crafted from ebony wood was surrounded by twenty-three chairs. Seated in the most elaborately carved chair at the head of the table was the Guild Master, Alphonse.
The candlelight of the Starlight Castle caught the golden gleam of the monocle over his left eye and the intricate embroidery detailing his pitch-black robes. A white wolf pelt draped over his shoulders framed his upright posture as he tapped his knuckles twice against the ebony table.
The dark maroon interior of his robes was slightly exposed, contrasting with his jet-black hair, which was slightly messy. From behind the lens, a pair of analytical golden eyes swept over the rows of chairs that were beginning to fill up.
Hovering calmly just to his right was Stella Obscura—a black crystal containing a miniature nebula.
Seeing that all members had arrived, Alphonse glanced at the clock in the corner of his system interface. He tapped his knuckles against the ebony table twice. The taps weren't loud, but they were enough to immediately silence all chatter.
Twenty-two pairs of eyes were now fixed upon him. The atmosphere of the room shifted one hundred and eighty degrees in an instant; from a casual gathering of friends, it morphed into the command center of a warlord.
Alphonse's golden eyes flashed. He raised his left hand.
[Tier C - Holographic Display]
A massive holographic map now covered the entire table. Mountains, valleys, and rivers of an entirely unseen landmass were displayed clearly.
"The server update will arrive shortly," Alphonse announced, his heavy voice dominating the room. "Vrischil, liquidate our entire treasury. Buy out every single Mana Stone currently circulating in the market."
Across the table, Vrischil nodded slowly. The pointed ears of her Elven race twitched slightly. Her face was beautiful, yet it projected sheer strictness through a pair of sharply glaring eyes.
Her silver hair cascaded gracefully down to her waist, adorned with a small braid on one side, its tips fading into a gradient of turquoise blue. She wore an asymmetrical dark grey and black combat suit. The Fractal Ruin—a one-handed sword with a clear crystal blade—rested quietly beside her chair.
"Once the update is complete, the core vanguard will not hunt the World Boss. Secure these three narrow choke points: Obsidian Canyon, Silvery Gulf, and the Fractured Plains," Alphonse commanded, tapping three points on the map that instantly lit up red.
"Other guilds will exhaust their Mana Stones while scrambling for the main territories. When that happens, they will have to buy Mana Stones from us at extortionate prices, and pay a security toll just to pass through the routes we control."
On the other side of the table, Arcus grinned widely. He wore a sharply tailored maroon long coat. His golden-blonde hair was left slightly unkempt. One of his hands rested casually near the Sirius Piercer—a wooden bow carved with constellations resting at his side.
"Double extortion. What a beautiful scenario," Arcus chuckled.
However, Alphonse's smile did not bloom. He leaned back, interlocking his fingers in front of his face, his brow furrowed.
"Something else is bothering me," Alphonse continued, his tone dropping, immediately killing the laughter in the room. "This update feels incredibly bizarre. There are no patch notes from the developers. There are no leaks on the official forums."
He stared intensely at the holographic map. "A spatial fluctuation this massive, meant to introduce a brand new continent, was announced far too abruptly. My instincts are telling me... this isn't merely a standard territorial expansion."
An uncomfortable silence enveloped the room. Before anyone could respond to their Guild Master's premonition, the grand chime of a bell echoed from the castle's ceiling.
In every Player's field of vision, a semi-transparent red UI interface forcefully materialized.
[SERVER ANNOUNCEMENT: THE NEW ERA UPDATE WILL COMMENCE]
[TIME REMAINING: 00:03:00]
Three minutes.
Alphonse stood up from his chair, his aura turning sharp, casting aside his doubts. "Meeting adjourned! Equip all your primary gear!"
The casual atmosphere evaporated instantly. The harsh scraping of metal clattered loudly as every member of Pioneer rose in unison.
Vrischil quickly inspected the scabbard of her Fractal Ruin, while Arcus gripped his bow tightly, his mocking smile replaced by the hyper-focused glare of a predator.
"See you on the other side, Pioneer," Alphonse stated firmly.
As the string of numbers hit zero on the UI screen, a blinding flash of white light swept through the entire room.
The stone walls of the Starlight Castle, the grand pillars, and the bodies of the 23 Players faded, shattering into millions of glowing pixels that were violently pulled into the sky before the server disconnected entirely, plunging into darkness.
In an untouched corner of the universe, Planet Orion rotated on its axis. This place was not a compilation of system data or a digital simulation; rather, it was a physical world possessing raging oceans, ancient continents, and a pulsating civilization.
Suddenly, the layers of the sky across the entire globe were torn open simultaneously.
Thousands of light projectiles cleaved through the atmosphere like a rain of falling stars. Brilliant colors—blood red, sapphire blue, emerald green, to radiant silver—plummeted freely, dragging long magical tails behind them.
The streaks of light crossed the night sky over frozen mountains, sliced through storms in the open sea, and blinded the native inhabitants who stared helplessly from behind their windows.
On one side of the continent, directly beneath the blazing midday sun, a light projectile radiating a dominant golden glow dove downward.
The falling star pierced through the white clouds, shot silently, and then penetrated the dark green canopy of a dense forest far removed from human touch.
There was no fiery explosion or crater of destruction when the light touched the earth. Its glow merely dimmed slowly, evaporating gracefully along with the air's moisture, returning the forest to its former silence.
The scent of damp earth, fresh grass, and pine needles stung his olfactory senses.
Alphonse regained consciousness. His eyes opened slowly, squinting as sunlight pierced through the gaps in the dense tree canopy above him.
The chirping of birds echoed back and forth, accompanied by a cool breeze that swept across his face.
This was not his gaming pod.
He sat up, looking around with a furrowed brow. Towering trees, wild underbrush, and moss clinging to wet rocks filled his vision.
"Where is this?" he muttered softly.
Right beside his right hand, Stella Obscura hovered calmly. The miniature nebula inside the black crystal rotated slowly, emitting a familiar magical glow.
Alphonse touched the monocle on his face, then felt the wolf pelt collar. He was still wearing his game character's equipment.
Shouldn't the system have executed an automatic log out and sent my consciousness back to my physical body on Earth when the server update began? Why am I still here?
His gaze locked forward. Clean.
There was no User Interface (UI). No red HP bar, no blue Mana bar, no minimap in the corner of his eye, and no digital clock.
His vision was completely real, entirely devoid of Orion Online's augmented reality filters.
Alphonse tried swiping his hand through the air, performing the specific gesture to open the menu. "Menu."
No panel appeared.
"Log out. Status. Guild," he commanded in rapid succession.
Nothing. There was absolutely no response from the system.
Faced with this anomaly, Alphonse did not panic. His analytical and rational brain immediately processed the available variables.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The oxygen entering his lungs felt pure. He could feel the humidity on his skin and the warm sensation of the midday sun.
This realism vastly exceeded the neural simulation capabilities of even the most advanced gaming pod.
He opened his eyes again. An absurd speculation crossed his mind.
Have I been reincarnated? Into a physical world that operates on the same laws as the game? In the past, Arcus often babbled at length about fantasy novels with plots exactly like this. Alphonse had always dismissed it as cheap, fictional nonsense. Yet now, he himself was the protagonist.
Alphonse stood up. The moment his feet touched the soil, he realized something. His body felt as light as a feather.
The chronic fatigue, stiff posture, and physical frailty of his modern human body back on Earth had evaporated. In its place, he felt a current of pure energy pulsing rapidly through every vein. There was a new power living within his body—a dense, vast magical power.
Curiosity overtook him. He walked toward a giant oak tree, easily two meters in diameter.
Taking a short breath, Alphonse clenched his right fist and threw a straight punch at the tree trunk without utilizing a single power-enhancing Skill. Just pure, instinctual movement.
BAM!
The explosive sound of shattering wood echoed. His fist pierced through the bark and the dense fibers within as if the tree were made of wet paper.
The tree trunk splintered into pieces at the point of impact. The upper structure of the tree lost its balance, groaned loudly, and finally collapsed with a massive thud that shook the ground and scattered the surrounding birds.
Alphonse pulled his hand back. He stared at his knuckles. There were no scrapes, no pain whatsoever. Only wood splinters clinging to his gloves.
He fell silent for a moment, amazed by his own raw physical strength.
"Damn... am I Superman now?"
However, that momentary euphoria was instantly extinguished by his logic. Physical strength alone was not enough. He needed to know how much of his equipment had carried over to this world.
Alphonse raised his hand, attempting the downward swiping gesture typically used to summon the Inventory space.
Within Orion Online, this gesture would open a panel displaying hundreds of dimensional storage grids.
His hand merely sliced through empty air.
Alphonse's brow furrowed. He repeated the gesture faster. Once. Twice.
He focused his mind, trying to force a mental connection to the dimensional space where he stored hundreds of millions of gold coins from the guild treasury, high-tier materials, and dozens of backup weapons.
Nothing. No spatial distortion. No interface screen responded to his summons.
Alphonse's breath caught in his throat. His jaw clenched so tightly that the muscles in his temples bulged. His right hand, which had been swiping the air, now clenched into a fist so tight his knuckles turned white.
He stood completely paralyzed, his chest heaving as he suppressed a wave of cold fury that suddenly choked his airway.
An empire he had built with tactics, blood, and sweat for years... vaporized without a trace.
With slightly stiff movements, he looked down and felt the leather belt at his waist, locating a small pouch he had indeed equipped as an accessory item for quick access to emergency potions.
He opened the pouch; there were only two glass vials containing red liquid and five thumb-sized mana crystals inside.
Alphonse stared at the contents of the pouch in a suffocating silence. His golden eyes sharpened from behind his monocle lens, projecting the glare of a king whose throne had just been robbed.
A bitter reality battered his ego mercilessly. He had just transmigrated, possessing physical strength akin to a superhuman, yet he had fallen into absolute poverty.
Not just poor. He was literally at absolute zero. Completely bankrupt in the middle of an unknown world.
A harsh rustling sound from the bushes cut through his dark reverie.
Alphonse turned his head slowly, channeling his frustration toward the source of the noise. From behind the dense dark green foliage, a pair of glowing red eyes stared at him, brimming with hunger.
A wolf the size of a pony stepped out. Its fur was a dirty grey and sharp as needles, while sticky saliva dripped from its open jaws.
Merely by looking at its silhouette, Alphonse's memory instantly identified the creature. A Dire Wolf.
In Orion Online, it was merely a Level 15 monster frequently used as a training punching bag for novice Players to grind levels. The giant wolf growled low, baring fangs the size of daggers.
"Even a low-tier monster like a Dire Wolf looks quite intimidating when it becomes real," Alphonse commented in a flat tone that contrasted sharply with the threat before him.
As if provoked by its prey's calmness, the Dire Wolf howled in anger and lunged forward. Its massive body leapt through the air at high speed. Its jaws unhinged, aiming straight for the neck.
Alphonse did not dodge. He simply raised his left arm to shield his face.
The wolf's jaws clamped down with bone-crushing force right onto Alphonse's left arm. However, the razor-sharp fangs grated harshly against the fabric of his legendary-tier robes.
Instead of tearing flesh, the monster's teeth slipped, completely halted by the robe's fabric. Alphonse didn't even feel pain; he only felt a pressure equivalent to a puppy's bite.
The Dire Wolf's eyes widened in confusion. Alphonse did not waste the opportunity.
With his right hand, he grabbed the wolf by the thick scruff of its neck.
Exerting his newfound physical strength, Alphonse hoisted the hundred-kilogram monster into the air, then slammed it brutally against the hard clay beneath him.
CRACK!
The ground trembled. The sound of ribs and spine shattering echoed loudly and gruesomely.
The Dire Wolf vomited black blood, howling in despair and agony as all its internal organs were crushed by the gravitational force and the sheer power that slammed it into the earth.
Alphonse stood tall, letting the wolf convulse beneath his feet. He looked down, inspecting the left sleeve of his robe, which remained entirely intact without a single thread scratched.
However, his brow immediately furrowed in disgust upon seeing the foul-smelling saliva sticking to the luxurious silk fabric.
With a freezing expression, he raised his boot, then stomped down on the dying wolf's neck with a single, powerful stomp.
Snap.
The monster's neck bone broke. Its body went entirely limp and died instantly.
Alphonse flicked the residual filth from his hand, staring at the giant carcass with a condescending glare.
"I hope in your next life you reincarnate as a pet dog," Alphonse stated casually, "so your master can help you brush your teeth."
Awoooo!
A long howl shattered the forest's silence, followed by the sound of many heavy footsteps trampling dry branches. Alphonse turned his head toward the source of the sound.