The silence was heavier than the system's voice ever was. Standing on the frozen peak of the Himalayas, Aiden felt the wind cutting through his skin—real, raw, and cold. For the first time, there were no floating screens, no rewards, and no safety nets.
"So this is what freedom feels like," he muttered.
He looked down at his hands. They weren't glowing with mana anymore, but they were steady. As he began his descent, he saw a world in chaos. People were staring at their empty palms, begging for a quest that would never come. They were lost without a master to tell them what to do.
Aiden walked through the crowd like a ghost. His presence was enough to make the desperate step aside. He didn't need a Level 999 tag to command respect; his eyes held the weight of a man who had conquered both gods and himself.
A young survivor blocked his path, tears in his eyes. "Aiden... the system is gone. We are weak. How can you walk like you still own the world?"
Aiden stopped. He didn't look back. "The system didn't make me a King. My will did. If you want to survive, stop looking at the sky and start looking at your own shadow. The era of rewards is dead. The era of the Sovereign has begun."
He left them in the cold, walking toward a horizon that was no longer programmed. He was finally the architect of his own fate.
[TO BE CONTINUED...]