The NEONIX server still echoed with the aftermath of battle. Shards of neon data rained down like glass.
Yuto'o lay broken, his glitch-body torn with deep fractures, breath ragged. Before him stood the woman of neon—her limbs glowing violet-pink, standing calm as six Hunter AI blades froze in the air, bowed as if to her will.
Orbis was paralyzed.
"That's… impossible…" he whispered, eyes wide.
"Yuuki…?"
The name rippled through the server, making Yuto'o lift his head in confusion.
"Yuuki? Who… is she?"
Orbis swallowed hard, his voice trembling.
"You don't understand, Yuji. Yuuki is… a legend. Her name's been whispered since the earliest VR-verse. She… shouldn't exist anymore."
Orbis shivered, as if retelling a ghost story.
"Once, there was a player… her real name was Iruka Kanabe. In VR, she was Yuuki—the Phantom Diver. She could penetrate any server, appear anywhere, vanish without a trace."
His eyes gleamed with fear and awe.
"They said she tried to enter the Reboot Server. Everyone thought she died there, erased without a trace. Some claimed she became a corporate weapon. Others believed she was only a myth."
Orbis shook his head slowly.
"But now… she's here. Alive. And that means only one thing…"
Yuto'o stared at the woman who stood unshaken, her crimson eyes cold as they pinned the Hunter AI in place.
"What thing?"
Orbis answered in a hushed tone, like speaking a forbidden oath.
"It means the Reboot Server is real. And before us stands the only one… who's ever gone in and returned."
The Generation 2 Hunter AI's voice distorted, broken by Yuuki's override.
SUBJECT PRIORITY SHIFT: YUUKI IDENTIFIED
TERMINATION DELAY – RESTRICTION CODE BLOCKED
The woman—Yuuki—barely glanced at it. With a wave of her hand, the six holographic blades collapsed into glitch fragments.
She turned her gaze toward Yuto'o, lips curling into a faint, cutting smile.
"A new Circuit Ghost, huh? Hm. Still far too green to die."
Yuto'o froze, heart pounding.
Yuuki extended her glitching hand toward him—as if offering something more terrifying than the Hunter AI itself.
"Stand. If you still want to live, follow me."
The server corridor still trembled after the six Hunter AI blades collapsed into glitch.
Yuto'o stared at the woman—prosthetic neon limbs blazing, crimson eyes cold as steel.
Yuuki.
The living legend.
She turned with little emotion.
"Come. If you keep lying here, you'll be erased any moment."
Yuto'o, still half-collapsed, struggled to rise. His hands shook, but he grasped Yuuki's offered neon hand. The touch was cold, like raw code itself.
Orbis followed, still in shock. "This… this is insane. I can't believe I'm seeing her with my own eyes."
Yuuki chuckled softly. "Myths are sometimes more stubborn than truth."
She opened a glitching portal unlike any other. It rippled like violet-pink liquid, flowing downward.
"Circuit Dive."
With a single step, they vanished.
They emerged into a place unlike any server Yuto'o had known.
Not the cramped alleys of the Dark Server.
Not the sterile halls of a corporate system.
This was Yuuki's sanctuary.
A half-collapsed holographic tower floated in a vast void of black, surrounded by thousands of drifting neon codes like stars.
On the tower walls: the old cores of the VR-verse, fragments of purged servers long forgotten.
The floor was lined with hollow avatars—remnants of those who had died here. Arranged carefully, almost like a memorial.
At the center lay a pool of molten neon, reflecting the face of anyone who gazed upon it.
There, Yuuki sat—her phantom-limb weapons glowing faintly.
"Welcome to my hideout. They call it The Phantom Nest."
Yuto'o froze. "This… isn't a normal server."
Yuuki nodded. "It's a broken one. Removed from the official VR-verse map. I found it, patched it with my own code. Now it's where I breathe."
Orbis swallowed hard. "You… lived here for decades?"
Yuuki shrugged. "Sometimes here, sometimes in the real world. Sometimes elsewhere. I can move freely. That's the gift of Reboot."
Yuto'o clenched his glitch blade, eyes burning. "So… it's true. You went into the Reboot Server?"
Yuuki held his gaze. "Yes. And I came back. But don't mistake it for paradise. You'll understand when you see it yourself."
Before Yuto'o could ask more, the space echoed with a system chime.
GLOBAL ANNOUNCEMENT
CORPORATE BOUNTY UPDATE
TARGET: CIRCUIT GHOST – 20 MILLION DATA CREDITS
Silence fell.
Yuto'o froze. Orbis gasped.
The bounty had doubled.
Yuuki laughed quietly. "Good. The corporations fear you, boy. That means you're doing something right."
"Right? Everyone wants me dead now!" Yuto'o snarled, hands trembling. "How the hell am I supposed to survive—"
Yuuki stepped closer, cutting him off. Her crimson eyes pierced into his.
"Listen carefully. You live as a Ghost now. The world will hunt you until the end. Bounty hunters, underground gangs, corporate AIs—every last one."
She leaned in, her smile sharp as a blade.
"But if you want to live again… if you want to enter the Reboot Server like I did…"
Her voice turned to steel.
"…then you must learn how to fight the entire world. Or fade like the others."
Outside The Phantom Nest, thousands of avatars received the bounty alert.
In the alleys of the Dark Server, in the black markets, in the underground arenas—everywhere, the same word echoed like thunder:
THE HUNT.
And for the Circuit Ghost, the hunt had only just begun.
The legend has returned, and the ghost must choose between fear and survival.
The legend offers her hand—the bounty doubled—and the world sharpens its knives.