The transition from the jagged peaks of Oita to the coast of Shingu, Kyushu, was jarring. While the mountain had been a test of height, the Ocean of Oita was a test of impossible scale. Due to a localized server magnification of 15x, the beach was a vast desert of towering sand dunes, and the waves crashing against the shore were moving mountains of turquoise water. Far offshore, the jagged silhouette of Aitoshimota Island loomed like a continent, its cliffs obscured by a heavy, misty spray.
🏖️ The Shoreline Strategy
On the edge of the oversized surf, the group prepared for a sub-aquatic excursion.
Royson stood adjusted his gear, looking every bit the high-born cleric even in his "off-duty" attire. He wore royal-blue swim trunks trimmed with gold thread and a matching compression swim shirt. A professional-grade snorkel mask sat atop his head, and he was currently checking the oxygen seals on his flippers.
"I must say," Royson remarked, his voice muffled by the rubber mouthpiece he was testing, "the buoyancy physics in this sector are remarkably dense. Without this specialized gear, the 15x pressure would be quite difficult to manage."
Susan, however, was currently standing as far from the waterline as possible, her arms crossed tightly over her normal adventuring clothes. She looked miserable, eyeing the gargantuan waves with pure suspicion.
"I'm not doing it," she declared. "I hate getting wet. I hate the way the sand gets into the leather straps of my boots, and I especially hate that the ocean here looks like it wants to swallow a skyscraper. I'll stay here and be the 'Land Support.'"
"You are an archer, Susan," Agamenticus drawled, his Green eyes scanning the horizon. He hadn't changed his attire; his dark tunic remained dry despite the salt spray. "Your 'Land Support' is useless if the fourth shard is resting in a trench three miles down. Fortunately for you, I have no intention of letting the salt ruin my disposition."
He flicked his wrist, and a shimmering, translucent film of Frost-Mana began to coat his skin, creating a pressurized air pocket that would allow him to breathe and move unencumbered by the water. Beside him, Shirani stood in his usual black gi, pressing his pointer fingers together. A golden ripple of Internal Force surrounded the monk, a silent bubble of "Stillness" that would repel the massive weight of the 15x ocean.
"The water is but another path," Shirani said with a peaceful smile. "It flows where we allow it."
🕵️ Hidden Eyes in the Brush
Unbeknownst to the trio, the beach path was not as empty as it seemed.
Tucked away in a cluster of oversized sea-oats and thick bushes, Honne crouched, his eyes fixed on Royson's royal swim trunks. His "I đź–¤ LORDS" tattoo was covered by a high-collared, damp rag, and he clutched a jagged obsidian dagger. His face was twisted with the singular, petty focus of a man who had lost everything to a "Minor Cinder" spell.
Just wait, you pretentious prince, Honne thought, his knuckles white. The moment you submerge, your mobility will drop. I'll strike from the surf.
He was so focused on his revenge that he didn't notice the shimmer of high-tech camouflage just ten feet above him in the branches of a massive, 15x pine tree. Agent Hina sat motionless, her eagle-eyed gaze locked directly onto the back of Honne's head. Following Mr. Qin's orders to spite the Honne family, she had her tactical baton ready. She wasn't there to protect the "invincible" Dragon King; she was there to ensure that Honne's interference ended in a swift, administrative deletion.
🌊 The Discovery
Agamenticus closed his eyes, his dragon ears twitching as they picked up a resonant hum vibrating through the sand beneath his boots. It wasn't the sound of the waves; it was the rhythmic, digital pulse of the fourth fragment.
"There," Agamenticus pointed toward the deep channel between the Shingu coast and Aitoshimota Island. "The fourth Defense Core Shard isn't just in the water. It's embedded in the base of the island's tectonic anchor. It's using the 15x magnification to create a gravitational well."
"Gravity well?" Royson adjusted his snorkel mask nervously. "My Lord, that implies a localized increase in physical weight. My snorkeling equipment might not be enough."
"Then stay close to the monk's 'vibes', Royson," Susan mocked from the safety of the dry sand. "I'll stay here and make sure the bushes don't try to kill you."
Agamenticus let out a sharp, draconic huff and stepped into the surf, the water parting around his frost-bubble as if in fear. "Move, brats. We have an island to sink."
The descent into the channel between Shingu and Aitoshimota Island felt less like swimming and more like sinking through liquid lead. Under the 15x magnification, the water pressure was a crushing, physical weight that threatened to compress Royson's specialized snorkeling gear into a heap of scrap.
"My… lungs…" Royson wheezed through his snorkel, his movements sluggish as if he were fighting against an invisible tide of gravity. Each kick of his flippers felt like pushing against a concrete wall.
Agamenticus moved through the depths with the cold grace of a true apex predator. His frost-mana bubble acted as a pressurized hull, the freezing aura keeping the immense weight of the ocean at bay. Beside him, Shirani walked along the seabed as if on dry land, his fingers pressed together in a mudra that generated a golden field of Internal Force, negating the gravity well's pull.
🏛️ The Sunken Echoes of Aitoshimota
As they reached the deepest point of the channel, the silt cleared to reveal a staggering sight: the Ancient Ruins of Oita. Massive, weed-choked marble pillars—magnified to the size of redwood trees—loomed in the dark. The architecture was reminiscent of a lost era of Aethelgard, a time before the system's rigid code had partitioned the world.
At the heart of the ruins stood an undersea altar, glowing with a soft, pulsating blue light. Laying atop the altar was an unconscious man in professional-grade snorkeling gear. He was clenching the fourth Defense Core Shard to his chest.
"Wait," Royson signaled, his eyes widening behind his mask. He pointed at the man's player tag: [Futaki Ai-takanaga - Master Snorkeler]. "It's him! The legendary record-holder! He was rumored to have disappeared while seeking the 'World's End' trench!"
"He didn't find the end of the world," Agamenticus noted, looking at the way the blue shard was keeping the man's oxygen bar from depleting. "He found the source of its stability. He's been acting as a biological anchor for the shard's gravity."
Together, the three of them carefully pried the man from the altar. The moment the anchor was lifted, the gravity well shifted, the pressure easing just enough for them to ascend toward the white-sand beaches of Aitoshimota Island.
🏝️ The Shoreline Purge
While the depths were silent, the beach back at Shingu had been a theater of quick, administrative violence.
The moment the trio had disappeared beneath the waves, Honne had crept out of the bushes, his obsidian dagger gleaming. He didn't care about the monk or the Dragon King; his eyes were fixed on the spot where the "Prince" had entered the water. He lunged forward, intending to wait at the shoreline and PK Royson the second he surfaced for air.
"Die, you entitled—!"
WHIRRR-THWACK.
A blur of white and silver dropped from the massive pine tree above. Agent Hina landed with perfect precision between Honne and the water. Before the disgraced noble could even register her presence, she swung her high-output tactical baton.
"[ADMINISTRATIVE ACTION: PERMANENT ACCOUNT TERMINATION]," Hina's voice was cold and robotic.
The baton struck Honne's chest. He didn't take damage; he simply began to pixelate into red error code. His eyes widened in terror as his UI dissolved into a series of flickering zeros and ones.
"No! I'm a noble! You can't—!"
With a final static pop, Honne vanished from the server entirely.
🖥️ Real-World: Nagasaki, Japan
In a cramped, dimly lit apartment in the heart of Nagasaki, a young man ripped a high-end VR headset off his face and hurled it across the room. It slammed into a wall covered in faded posters of aristocratic crests, the plastic casing cracking with a satisfying crunch.
"DAMN THEM!" he screamed into the empty room, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "The G-Force! The Dragon King! That pathetic little prince!"
He paced the room like a caged animal, his face flushed with a toxic mixture of humiliation and fury. For ten minutes, he smashed whatever was within reach—pillows, empty ramen cups, a decorative wooden sword.
Eventually, the adrenaline began to ebb, replaced by a cold, hollow obsession. He sat back down at his desk, his hands trembling as he reached for a spare, older model headset. He didn't care that his primary account was gone. He didn't care about the thousands of hours of progress he had lost.
"You think a ban can stop me?" he whispered, his eyes bloodshot and fixed on the glowing screen. "I'll make a new account. And another. And another. I'll be a level one rat if I have to, Royson. But I will find you. And I will watch your code bleed into the sand."
Back on Aitoshimota
Agamenticus, Royson, and Shirani dragged the unconscious Futaki Ai-takanaga onto the sun-drenched beach of the island. The man groaned, coughing up a small amount of seawater as his eyes flickered open.
Agamenticus stood over him, holding the fourth blue shard. His DEF stat hummed, his skin now taking on a subtle, iridescent sheen that looked like armor even in his human form.
"The fourth is secured," Agamenticus said, turning toward the interior of the island. "But I sense the fifth is not far. It's inland, where the mountains of this island meet the sky."
The sun over Aitoshimota Island beat down on the white sands as the legendary snorkeler, Futaki Ai-takanaga, gasped for air, his eyes snapping open. He grabbed Royson by the collar of his royal swim shirt, his voice a frantic whisper that bypassed the normal audio settings of the game.
🌊 The Secret of the Trench
"The World's End... it's not a pit, Prince," Futaki wheezed, his eyes darting toward the horizon. "I swam past the gravity well, into the deepest part of the trench. I didn't see a seafloor. I saw data streams... I saw a reflection of another city. An oriental city with gold-roofed pagodas and dragons in the clouds. I wasn't at the bottom of the ocean; I was looking at the bottom of the network."
Royson's snorkel mask nearly fell off. "You saw Tianin? From here? That's an inter-server breach! The architecture shouldn't be visible from the Kyushu sector!"
Agamenticus stood over them, his Green eyes shimmering. He knew exactly what Futaki had seen—the very thing Mr. Qin feared. The shards were thinning the walls between worlds.
👵 The Princess of Paris
A rustle in the oversized, 15x ferns startled the group. Royson, his nerves frayed from the underwater trek, spun around and channeled a spark of mana. "Back! Another Golem? Or Honne's lackeys?" He prepared to launch a Minor Cinder.
"S'il vous plaît! Peace, young Monsieur!"
An elderly woman stepped out from the shadows. She wore tattered silks that hinted at a long-lost elegance, her hair white as the sea foam. Despite her weathered appearance, she stood with a straight-backed regal grace that stopped Royson in his tracks.
"I am no monster," she said, her voice carrying a faint, melodic accent. "I was once the Princess Elodie of a small kingdom near the city of Paris. Decades ago, my honeymoon vessel capsized in a storm near Tsushima. I drifted to this shore while my husband and the crew were swept toward the blue horizon... toward Korea, they said, in search of 'modern civilization.' I have remained here, the last ghost of a kingdom that the system forgot."
She looked at Agamenticus, her gaze unfazed by his draconic aura. "You seek the fifth stone. The one that hums like the heart of a bird. I know where it rests, high in the Cloud-Veil Ravine of this island."
🤴 The Arrogant Decree
"Excellent," Agamenticus barked, stepping over the recovering Futaki without a second glance. "The crone has utility. We move toward this ravine immediately. I have no interest in the history of your Paris or your capsized boats. Lead the way, woman."
Royson and Susan shared a long, weary look.
"He's doing the 'Main Character' thing again," Susan sighed, wringing out her wet socks. "Doesn't ask, doesn't thank, just demands. Typical."
"It is the cross we must bear," Royson muttered, readjusting his flippers for land travel.
Shirani said nothing. He simply bowed respectfully to the old Princess and followed the Dragon King with the same placid, internal calm he had maintained since the mountain.
đź‘Ł The Shadow and the Hawk
As the party moved inland toward the dense jungles of Aitoshimota, a figure emerged from behind a palm tree near the beach. It was a Level 1 player with the unimaginative tag [Honne_Returns]. He was wearing the most basic, grey-tinted starter rags, clutching a wooden training sword.
"Run all you want, Royson," Honne hissed, his eyes bloodshot with real-world sleep deprivation. "I don't need a Noble title to find your back. I'll follow you to the ends of this island."
He began to creep forward, thinking himself a master of stealth in the 15x undergrowth. He was so consumed by his vendetta that he didn't notice a slight shimmer in the air directly above him.
Agent Hina sat perched on a giant tropical leaf, her smirking reflection visible in her tactical visor. She watched Honne stumble over a root, her finger hovering over a 'Slow-Motion' debuff trigger.
"Go ahead, little fly," she thought, her baton humming with a low, administrative frequency. "Lead me right to the next anomaly event. I'll let you think you're the hunter for just a little while longer."
Interlude: The Parisian Lottery
The sun began to set over the digital recreation of the Paris Sector, casting long, sharp shadows across the Place de l'Étoile. Even in the virtual world, the city breathed with a cold, calculated elegance that mirrored its inhabitants.
Standing near the base of the Arc de Triomphe, a man named Renford Marseille adjusted his pristine silk tie. He was a prosecutor for the prestigious Marconezi Law Firm, and even his avatar exuded the same arrogant, razor-sharp chill he was known for in the French courts. His face was a mask of professional boredom as he swiped through a translucent blue map of the district.
"Typical," Renford muttered in a crisp, Parisian accent. "Even in a simulation, the layout of the banking district is designed to inconvenience the high-volume user. I simply wish to deposit my winnings and logout."
He had just finished a high-stakes litigation quest against a rival firm's digital representatives, and his reward notification was still blinking in the corner of his eye. With a dismissive flick, he opened the "Lottery Chest" awarded for his perfect victory.
[SYSTEM ALERT: GRAND PRIZE WINNER!]
[REWARD: INTER-SERVER LUXURY TRANSFER TICKET]
[DESTINATION: SASABARU TOWN, KYUSHU SECTOR]
[COMPLIMENTARY ASSET: 1x ROUND-TRIP FLIGHT & VIP LODGING]
Renford froze, his cold eyes scanning the ticket. Inter-server travel was a privilege usually reserved for the elite or the incredibly lucky. To a man of his standing, it wasn't just a vacation; it was a trophy of his superior legal maneuvering.
"Sasabaru Town," he whispered, his lip curling into a faint, rare smirk. "A rustic, backwater Japanese town. How... quaint. It will be a fascinating change of pace from the rigid order of the Paris servers."
He reached into the air, his fingers closing around the shimmering golden ticket as it materialized. He tucked it into the inner pocket of his charcoal-grey suit jacket, patting it twice to ensure it was secure.
"I shall take this home to Claire," he decided, thinking of his wife. "A gift to celebrate my latest triumph. We shall see if this 'Kyushu' has anything that can actually challenge a Marseille."
As Renford Marseille logged out to share the news, he was entirely unaware that he was about to fly directly into a storm of glitched dragons, disgraced nobles, and the collapsing code of the World's End.
Authors Note: Hi all, Kai Hoshin here, I have decided to continue my universe on Webnovel again, though it will be at a slower pace for a while as I get caught up on my old notes. Also, feel free to check out my superhero universe including protectors like Omnihero, Igana and Prism if you are into that, you can find them on my secondaccount.