Soulless Soul

Chapter 42: Thinking Back

The countdown to midnight was always the worst part of the day. It was the hour when the illusion of safety completely dissolved, leaving only the grim reality of what their lives had become. In the physical world, seventeen-year-old Sky didn’t live in his cozy, cramped apartment anymore. He hadn’t seen the familiar peeling wallpaper of his bedroom in months. Instead, he lived in Sector 4 of the Central Sleep Cage—a colossal, sterile concrete dome built on the heavily guarded outskirts of the city. Thousands of narrow metal cots lined the vast, unheated floor in endless, neat rows, each holding an unconscious person hooked up to a whirring, clicking life-support monitor.

Sky sat upright on his cot, his knees pulled slightly to his chest as he stared up at the buzzing fluorescent lights that hummed continuously above him. A thick, transparent glass partition separated his high-density section from the clinical visitor’s lounge. On the other side of the glass stood a senior military doctor clad in a spotless white coat, meticulously taking notes on a glowing digital tablet while evaluating the biometric data streaming from the rows of occupied beds.

To the military, they weren’t children or citizens anymore; they were assets, tools to be deployed into an artificial frontline.

"One minute to transmission," a synthetic, unfeeling female voice echoed clearly through the overhead PA system, its metallic tone bouncing off the cold concrete walls. "All active Awakened, prepare for immediate synchronization."

Sky looked down at his physical hands resting on the thin white sheet. They were pale, thin, and completely lacked the heavy, rough calluses he had recently developed from wielding the heavy Blood Blade in the depths of the Dungeon World. That was the absolute cruelest part of the phenomenon known as the Sinking: no matter how incredibly strong or agile your soul became inside the system’s dream realm, your physical body continued to slowly waste away in a hospital bed, succumbing to muscle atrophy while fed through plastic tubes.

A few rows down from his position, positioned under a harsher set of lights, he could clearly see the physical body of Vesper.

Without her silver hair flowing majestically around her face or her piercing gray eyes wide with that terrifying, unyielding conviction, she looked remarkably fragile. Stripped of her digital armor, she was just another teenager trapped in the cage. Her skin was deathly pale, almost translucent under the clinical glare, and her chest rose and fell in a slow, medically induced rhythm dictated by the machines flanking her bed. It was incredibly hard to believe that this was the exact same woman who had ruthlessly cleaved a massive Goblin Chieftain in half and withstood a kinetic shockwave just twenty-four hours ago. In here, she looked like she could break from a strong breeze.

"Ten seconds," the PA system droned, starting its final, immutable countdown sequence.

Sky lay back down on his thin, unyielding pillow, forcing his posture to relax to prevent muscle tearing during the initial surge. He closed his eyes, tuning out the ambient noise of the facility and listening instead to the synchronized, rhythmic beep... beep... beep... of thousands of heart monitors echoing in unison through the massive, sterile hall. It was a terrifying symphony of lives suspended in purgatory.

Then, the familiar, violent cold hook pulled sharply at the center of his chest. It felt like an invisible hand reaching through his ribcage to tear his essence away. On the physical dashboard above his cot, his heart rate instantly flatlined on the hospital monitor, the machine emitting a solid, continuous tone as his consciousness plummeted vertically into the lightless, weightless void of the transition sequence.

[WELCOME BACK TO THE DUNGEON REALM, SKIES.]

Sky opened his eyes to the warm, amber glow of the Living Room, his senses reeling as the digital world instantly reconstructed his avatar profile. He blinked rapidly, his mind momentarily disoriented by the sudden shift in reality. Why do I keep dreaming about that time I first came here? Sky thought, his hand instinctively reaching up to touch his chest, verifying that his digital heart was beating with a steady, simulated rhythm.

The comforting smell of burning firewood and old paper instantly replaced the harsh, sterile scent of industrial bleach and rubbing alcohol that had been burning his nose seconds prior. He looked down, taking comfort in the heavy weight of his leather tunic and the familiar, reassuring texture of his crimson scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. His hands were whole again, covered in the tough calluses of a warrior, his interface cleanly displaying his current status metrics in the corner of his peripheral vision.

But today, the lobby wasn’t peaceful.

The usual low murmur of resting Awakened was entirely absent, replaced by a tense, heavy silence that felt like a physical weight in the air. The crackling fireplace did little to warm the room, as a deep, ominous vibration ran through the polished hardwood floors, causing the glasses on the tavern tables to rattle continuously. Over by the large, multi-paned windows that looked out into the starry void, several veteran warriors had gathered, their weapons drawn and their expressions grim as they stared out into the dark.

The starry void outside was no longer calm; it was churning violently, long streaks of corrupted red data tearing through the celestial landscape like open wounds. The perimeter of the Living Room was under immense structural pressure, the system code actively warping just beyond the glass.

"Skies, you’re finally awake," Chloe’s voice cut through his disorientation, though she wasn’t speaking over the communication link this time.

She was standing right in front of him, her digital visor flashing with an erratic sequence of crimson warning blocks. Her hands, usually steady when working on complex forge blueprints, were trembling slightly as she held a heavy diagnostic tablet. Behind her, Vesper was already standing near the exit portal, her Holy Scepter Blade fully assembled and radiating a sharp, aggressive white light that cut through the amber atmosphere of the room like a beacon.

"The core desync from Floor 1-4 didn’t just affect your sector," Chloe explained rapidly, her voice dropping into a panicked whisper as she pulled Sky away from the center of the floor. "The Crystal Crab’s destruction caused a massive feedback loop that bled straight back into the hub’s main directory. The system is forcing an emergency update to the entire floor array. The Gatekeeper we just defeated? It was just a trigger. The real Royal Rumble structure is bleeding into the lower sectors ahead of schedule."

Sky tightened his grip on his belt, his [Danger Sense] beginning to prickle violently at the back of his neck, a sharp, burning alarm that grew stronger with every passing second. He looked toward the massive blue portal in the center of the room. It was no longer humming with a stable, passive frequency; the light had turned into a jagged, swirling violet vortex that seemed to actively violently pull at the air inside the lodge.

"We don’t have the three days I promised you to farm for that health potion," Chloe said, her visor locking onto his eyes. "The system just locked down the exit protocols for Sector 4. If you and Vesper don’t clear Floor 1-5 within the next two hours, the collapsing code will overwrite the Living Room’s data repository entirely. You’ll be wiped from the server before you can even cross the threshold of the main event."

Vesper turned her cool, unreadable gray gaze toward him from across the room, her white cloak billowing slightly against the vacuum pressure leaking from the unstable portal. She didn’t say a word, but she lifted her silver broadsword, pointing the gleaming tip directly into the heart of the violet vortex. The silent gesture was clear: the meat grinder was waiting, and the clock was ticking down to zero.

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