**Chapter 24: The Moon Base**
**Day 1,156.**
**Location: Sub-Atacama Facility.**
**Current Status: Eviction Notice.**
There is a specific sound that tungsten makes when it begins to fail at a molecular level. It isn't a crack or a snap. It is a high-pitched, mournful scream, like a violin string being tightened by a giant until it reaches a frequency that makes your teeth ache.
I sat in the center of the War Room, perfectly still.
I wasn't moving. I wasn't breathing. I was barely thinking. I was focusing every ounce of my willpower on *not existing*.
And yet, the floor was screaming.
"Zero," I projected, bypassing my vocal cords because speaking would likely generate a shockwave that would liquefy the server racks. "Report."
**[Structural integrity at 12%,]** Zero's voice echoed in my mind, calm and terrifyingly precise. **[The Sarcophagus gravity seals have failed. The dampening field is overwhelmed. Architect, your mass is currently displacing the local spacetime metric. You are effectively a black hole wearing a t-shirt.]**
I looked at my hand. The skin was glowing with a blinding, white-hot luminescence. It wasn't heat; it was pure, concentrated Prana. The "Belief" stat—the hidden variable introduced by the millions of players worshipping the Architect—had accelerated my growth curve from a linear jog to a vertical sprint.
Yesterday, I was strong enough to crack the moon. Today, after the 15% compound growth hit at midnight, I was heavy enough to sink through the Earth's crust like a ball bearing through whipped cream.
"I can't stay here," I realized. The thought itself felt heavy.
**[Correct,]** Zero affirmed. **[Calculations indicate that if you remain stationary for another hour, your gravitational footprint will trigger a tectonic cascade. You will accidentally trigger a volcanic event that will erase South America.]**
I closed my eyes. I loved this hole in the ground. It was quiet. It was mine. It had a coffee machine that (mostly) worked.
But a god cannot live in a basement. It was a lesson I had tried to ignore for three years, clinging to the last scraps of my humanity. I wanted to be close to them. I wanted to watch Ren, and Elena, and Damon. I wanted to pretend I was just a reclusive admin.
But I wasn't an admin. I was the server. And the server was overheating.
"Evacuation protocol," I signaled.
**[Where will you go? The ocean floor is insufficient. High orbit is unstable.]**
I cast my mind upward. I looked through the miles of rock, through the atmosphere, past the debris of the battle I had just orchestrated.
I looked at the pale, grey face of the Moon.
Specifically, the side that never looked back. The Dark Side.
It was dead. It was silent. It was bathed in the eternal cold of the void.
"The backyard," I said. "I'm moving to the backyard."
I stood up.
The tungsten floor didn't just scream; it surrendered. The plates vaporized under my feet. I hovered, suspended by my own will.
"Zero, initiate the *Avatar Project* research remotely. Keep the servers running. Manage the Guilds. Give Ren the patch notes."
**[And you?]**
"I'm going to build a house that doesn't break when I sit down."
I looked around the facility one last time. My prison. My sanctuary.
"Goodbye, Earth," I whispered.
Then, I jumped.
***
**The Ascent**
I didn't use the elevator shaft. I didn't use a door.
I simply applied force.
I crouched in mid-air and kicked downward against the fabric of reality itself.
*BOOM.*
The facility ceased to exist. The three miles of rock above me didn't just break; they liquefied. I ascended through the crust of the Andes like a bullet moving through water.
I broke the surface of the Atacama Desert in a fraction of a second. The sand turned to glass in my wake. The shockwave flattened dunes for fifty miles.
I hit the atmosphere.
The air turned into plasma against my skin. I was moving at a significant percentage of the speed of light. The blue sky flashed white, then black.
I felt the drag of the Earth trying to hold me—gravity, my old enemy, reaching up with invisible fingers to pull me back down. But I was too strong. I stripped the gravity away like a cobweb.
I punched a hole through the exosphere.
And then, silence.
Vacuum.
I drifted, momentum carrying me away from the blue marble. I stopped kicking. I spread my arms and let the inertia carry me.
It was beautiful. The Earth receded, a swirling jewel of clouds and oceans. I could see the storms over the Pacific. I could see the lights of the cities on the night side—Tokyo, New York, London.
Down there, millions of people were celebrating the victory over the Myriad Scout. They were looting the corpse. They were leveling up.
Up here, I was alone.
"Status," I checked my internal HUD.
**[Environment: Vacuum.]**
**[External Pressure: Zero.]**
**[Bio-Field: Expanding.]**
Without the crushing weight of the Earth's atmosphere and gravity pressing on me, my energy bloomed. The white glow around my body expanded, forming a corona of light visible for thousands of miles. To anyone looking up with a telescope, I would look like a new, tiny star leaving the planet.
I turned my gaze to the destination.
The Moon.
It loomed ahead, grey and scarred. I aimed for the far side, away from the *Sea of Tranquility* where the players were currently gathered. I needed isolation.
I adjusted my trajectory with a flick of my finger, using the recoil of the motion to steer in the vacuum.
"Coming in hot," I muttered.
***
**Impact: The Aitken Basin**
I didn't land softly. I didn't have the patience for deceleration burns.
I slammed into the center of the *South Pole-Aitken Basin*, one of the largest impact craters in the solar system.
*CRASH.*
There was no sound, but the ground shuddered. Regolith exploded upward in a ballistic curtain, reaching miles into space. The impact fused the dust into a sheet of obsidian glass beneath my feet.
I stood up from the crater I had just made within the crater.
Dust settled slowly in the low gravity, raining down like grey snow.
I took a deep breath—not of air, for there was none, but of the emptiness. I expanded my lungs, and the vacuum rushed into them, feeding the internal furnace of my biology.
"Quiet," I said. My voice vibrated through the soles of my boots and into the moon, a seismic whisper. "Finally."
I looked around. It was a desolate wasteland of grey and black. Shadows stretched long and sharp. The Earth was hidden below the horizon. The sun was a blinding spotlight in a sea of ink.
It was perfect.
"System," I commanded. "Scan local materials."
**[Scan Complete.]**
**[Composition: Oxygen, Silicon, Iron, Calcium, Aluminum, Magnesium.]**
**[Volume: Sufficient.]**
"Time to renovate."
I couldn't live in a hole anymore. If I was going to be the God of this new world, the Architect of the Order of Truth, I needed a seat of power. Not for vanity—though I admitted, the aesthetic appeal was strong—but for function. I needed a focusing lens.
I needed a Throne.
I raised both hands.
**[Skill: Matter Manipulation (Grandmaster).]**
I didn't touch the ground. I pulled on it.
I visualized the iron and titanium buried deep within the lunar crust. I visualized the silicon in the dust.
*Rise.*
The ground began to boil.
Columns of raw material erupted from the surface. They weren't jagged rocks; under the pressure of my will, they liquefied and reformed.
I stripped the impurities. I compressed the carbon. I fused the silica.
I built the walls first. Massive, towering slabs of black obsidian, reinforced with a lattice of titanium. They rose a thousand feet into the vacuum, creating a fortress that merged with the rim of the crater.
I didn't build doors. I didn't build windows. I didn't need them.
I built a spire.
It spiraled upward, twisting like a drill bit aimed at the heart of the universe. At the peak of the spire, I flattened the stone into a vast, circular platform.
Then, I built the chair.
It wasn't gold. Gold is soft. Gold is for mortal kings who want to look rich.
I pulled a vein of Tungsten and Iridium from the moon's mantle. I forged it cold, pressing the atoms together until the metal turned a deep, matte grey that absorbed light.
I shaped it simply. A high back. Wide armrests. No cushions.
I lowered the massive chair onto the platform. It fused with the floor with a heavy, silent thud.
I sat down.
The metal was cold—near absolute zero. To me, it felt refreshing.
I rested my arms on the heavy metal. I looked out into the void.
I was sitting on the roof of the world, hidden in the dark.
"Zero," I called out mentally. "Link the facility mainframe to the Throne."
**[Connection establishing...]**
**[Routing through lunar relay...]**
**[Link stable. The Moon Base is online.]**
A holographic interface appeared before me, projected not by a machine, but by the latent mana I had infused into the obsidian floor.
It showed the Earth. It showed the players. It showed the approach of the Myriad.
"Home sweet home," I murmured.
***
**The Sea of Tranquility (Player Zone)**
Five thousand miles away, on the light side of the moon, the celebration was winding down.
The corpse of the Myriad Scout was being dismantled. The *Crimson Blades* were harvesting the carapace plating. *Sanctuary* healers were resurrecting the last of the fallen.
Ren stood on the edge of the Safe Zone, looking away from the Earth. He was looking across the lunar landscape, toward the dark horizon.
"Ren?" Elena walked up to him, her robes stained with digital soot. "We're queuing for the portal back. Are you coming?"
Ren didn't answer immediately. He tapped the Black Box fused to his chest.
"Did you feel that?" Ren asked.
"Feel what? The aftershocks?"
"No," Ren shook his head. "The weight. It moved."
He pointed toward the darkness.
"When we fought the Scout... I felt a presence watching us. It was heavy. Like the sky was pressing down. But now..."
He traced the line of the horizon.
"It moved over there. To the dark side."
Elena frowned. "There's nothing over there, Ren. Just craters."
"There is now," Ren said. His *Void Walker* senses were tingling, picking up a gravitational anomaly that shouldn't exist. It felt like a star had just landed on the moon.
"The Architect," Ren whispered.
"You think he's here?" Elena asked, eyes widening. "Physically?"
Ren looked at the massive crater where the Scout had died—a victory made possible only because the ground itself had granted them infinite mana.
"I think he realized he doesn't fit on Earth anymore," Ren said.
He turned back to the portal.
"Let's go, Elena. We have to grind. If the Architect felt the need to build a fortress up here... it means he's expecting company that he doesn't want near the house."
***
**The Moon Base: The Throne Room**
I watched Ren leave through the portal.
"Smart kid," I noted. "He's getting sharper."
**[He has unlocked the 'Void Sense' passive,]** Zero explained. **[He can detect high-density mass fluctuations. To him, you are a lighthouse.]**
"Good. He needs to know where to look when the sky falls."
I swiped the screen away.
I needed to furnish the place. Not with furniture, but with defenses.
The Myriad Fleet was forty days away. The Scout had been a test. A biological probe to test the resistance of the local species.
"We failed the test," I said aloud.
**[Clarify?]**
"If I hadn't intervened," I explained, manipulating a 3D model of the battle, "the Battalion would have wiped. The Blades would have been overrun. They won because I turned on 'God Mode'. That won't work against the main fleet."
The Myriad Void-Eaters fed on mana. The infinite mana buff I gave the players? To a Void-Eater, that would look like an all-you-can-eat buffet.
"If I use that trick again, I just make the enemy stronger," I concluded.
I needed kinetic solutions. I needed big rocks.
I looked out at the crater field below my spire.
"Zero, designate this zone as the *Orbital Foundry*."
I raised my hand again.
This time, I didn't pull columns of rock. I pulled the shattered remains of the asteroids that had impacted the moon over billions of years. Iron. Nickel. Heavy metals.
I began to spin them.
I created a gravitational vortex above the spire. The rocks swirled, grinding against each other, heating up from the friction until they were molten spheres of glowing metal.
"I need automated defenses," I said. "The players are the infantry. I need to be the artillery."
I shaped the molten metal. I pulled the blueprints from the depths of my memory—sci-fi concepts, ancient siege weapons, and the logic of the System.
I forged *Cannons*.
Not chemical propellant cannons. *Railguns*. Massive, linear accelerators carved from solid lunar rock, lined with superconducting coils of my own creation.
I placed them along the rim of the Aitken Basin. Twelve of them. Each barrel was a mile long.
"Zero, fabricate the ammunition. Depleted Uranium slugs encased in Star Metal."
**[Calculating energy requirements...]**
"I am the energy requirement," I snapped. "Link them to the Throne."
I felt the connection snap into place. Twelve massive guns, capable of accelerating a ten-ton slug to a fraction of light speed, all wired directly into my nervous system.
I sat back.
"That handles the perimeter."
But I needed more. I needed a way to manage the System without being distracted by the bombardment.
"The Avatar Project," I said. "Show me the progress."
A new window popped up. It showed a tank of bio-luminescent fluid back in the ruins of the Atacama facility (which Zero had preserved in a sub-level buffer). Inside floating was... nothing. Just soup.
**[We have the genetic material from the 'Gourmet' incident,]** Zero reported. **[The Chimera cells possess high adaptability. However, they lack a stabilizing agent. If we pour your consciousness into that biological frame, it will explode.]**
"It needs a core," I mused. "Something that can handle the density of my soul."
I looked at the Black Box fused to Ren's chest in the surveillance feed.
"I need a Black Box," I realized. "But not a receiver. A container."
I looked at the armrest of my Tungsten throne.
"I need to forge a vessel."
I broke off a piece of the armrest—a chunk of super-dense Tungsten the size of a walnut. I held it in my palm.
I began to pour my intent into it.
This wasn't just crafting. This was surgery. I was slicing off a piece of my own ego, my own memory, my own personality, and compressing it into the metal.
It hurt.
It felt like a migraine that spanned dimensions. My vision blurred. The lunar landscape twisted.
*Compress. Condense. Seal.*
I poured the memories of Shigu—the human Shigu—into the metal. The man who liked coffee. The man who read manga. The man who was bored.
I left the God—the Architect, the Power Source—in the Throne.
The metal in my hand began to glow. It turned from grey to a pulsing, vibrant gold.
**[Item Created: The Divine Core.]**
**[Rank: Mythic.]**
**[Contains: Fragmented Consciousness (Shigu).]**
I gasped, slumping back in the throne. I felt... lighter. colder.
"Zero," I rasped. "Send a drone to pick this up. Deliver it to the bio-tank. Grow me a body."
**[Understood. Estimated incubation time: 30 Days.]**
"Just in time for the party," I said.
***
**The Visitor**
I sat there, recovering, watching the drone fly away with the golden core.
I was alone again. Just the vast, empty moon and the silent stars.
But then, a sensor tripped.
Not a visual sensor. A System sensor.
**[Alert: Proximity Breach.]**
**[Entity Detected on the Throne Platform.]**
I didn't move. I didn't panic. I simply turned my head.
Standing on the edge of the obsidian platform, fifty feet away, was a figure.
It wasn't a player. It wasn't a human.
It was tall, thin, and draped in robes made of shifting starlight. Its face was a mask of smooth, white bone, with three eyes arranged in a triangle.
It wasn't breathing. It had no bio-signature.
"You are loud," the figure spoke. Its voice didn't travel through the vacuum; it resonated directly in my skull.
I looked at it.
"And you are trespassing," I replied, my voice equally mental.
The figure tilted its head.
"We heard the noise," it said. "The sudden expansion of mass. The awakening of a new singularity. We thought a Star-Child had been born."
It walked closer. It moved without walking, simply gliding over the floor.
"But you are not a Star-Child," it observed, its three eyes narrowing. "You are... meat. You are biological. A mutation."
"I prefer 'Self-Made Man'," I corrected. "Who are you?"
"I am the Observer," the figure said. "I watch for the Myriad. I mark the harvest."
It pointed a long, skeletal finger at the Earth hanging in the sky.
"That world is ripe. It smells of mana. It smells of chaos."
"That world is mine," I said.
The Observer laughed. It was a sound like glass breaking in a deep well.
"Yours? You are a child playing in a sandbox. The Myriad does not negotiate with the sand."
The Observer began to fade, its body turning into mist.
"Enjoy your throne, meat-god. The Harvesters are coming. And they are very... hungry."
The figure vanished.
I sat alone on the dark side of the moon.
The encounter had lasted less than a minute. But the implication was clear.
The Myriad wasn't just a swarm of bugs. They had intelligence. They had scouts that could project themselves astrally. They knew I was here.
I looked at the railguns I had just built.
"Zero," I said, my voice devoid of the human warmth I had just extracted into the Core.
**[Yes, Architect?]**
"Triple the defenses."
I gripped the arms of the throne. The tungsten groaned.
"And start mining the core of the moon. If they want a war, I'm going to throw this entire satellite at them if I have to."
**[Day 1,156 Ends.]**
**[Daily Growth: +15%.]**
**[Location: The Moon Base.]**
**[Status: Entrenched.]**
I closed my eyes and connected to the dreams of seventy million players. I felt their fear, their hope, their determination.
"Sleep well," I whispered to the Earth. "I'll take the night shift."
**Chapter 24: The Moon Base** ends.
My power increases without limits. And now, I had the fortress to contain it.