[ Chapter 41: The First Wave ]
**Day 1,187.**
**Location: Low Earth Orbit (Descent Vector).**
**Current Status: A Falling Star.**
**Mood: Hunting.**
Atmospheric reentry is usually a violent affair. For a space shuttle, it involves ceramic tiles, precise angles, and a prayer to the laws of thermodynamics. For me, it was simply a matter of being denser than the air I was punching through.
I fell.
Around me, the stratosphere screamed. The friction turned the air into a sheath of superheated plasma, painting me in a tail of fire that stretched for miles. To the people on the ground, I wasn't a man anymore. I was a meteorite made of gold and vengeance, streaking down toward the North American continent.
"Zero," I subvocalized, the roar of the wind deafening even to my enhanced senses. "Impact coordinates."
**[Target locked: New York City, Central Park Safe Zone. Coordinates aligned with Ren and Damon's transponders. ETA: Twelve seconds.]**
"Adjust drag," I commanded. "If I hit the ground at terminal velocity with my current mass density, I'll crack the tectonic plate. I want to make an entrance, not an earthquake."
**[Deploying Mana-Brake.]**
I spread my arms. I didn't use wings; I used raw force. I pushed my aura out against the rushing air, creating a parachute of solid gravity. The deceleration force was enough to liquefy a normal human, but I just felt a pleasant pop in my vertebrae as my spine decompressed.
Below me, the city rushed up. The grey grid of streets, the green rectangle of the park, the shimmering blue domes of the local defensive barriers.
I crashed.
*BOOM.*
I hit the Great Lawn of Central Park. The impact blew a crater fifty feet wide into the dirt, vaporizing the grass and sending a shockwave of dust rolling over the treeline. The ground shook, rattling the windows of the skyscrapers bordering the park, but the shockwave stopped precisely at the perimeter I had designated.
Steam hissed as the heat of my body sublimated the moisture in the soil. I stood up in the center of the crater, brushing ash off my shoulder.
"Stuck the landing," I muttered.
"Show off."
I looked up. Standing at the rim of the crater, illuminated by the dying fires of my arrival, was Ren. He looked tired. His black armor was scuffed, and his daggers were dripping with a blue, viscous fluid. Beside him, Damon was leaning on his massive tower shield, **[Aegis of the Moon]**, which was planted deep in the earth.
"You took the scenic route," Damon grunted, hoisting his greatsword onto his shoulder. "We've been busy."
I climbed out of the crater, floating the last few feet. "Status?"
"The fleet retreated," Ren reported, gesturing upward at the night sky where the golden dome of my planetary shield still shimmered. "But they dropped presents before they left. Drop-pods. Thousands of them."
"Biological warfare?"
"Mechanical," Ren corrected. "Automated extermination units. We've been clearing the streets for three hours. The players represent... mixed results."
I looked past them, toward the city.
The panic had ended, replaced by the chaotic fervor of a server-wide raid. Flashes of magic lit up the avenues. I could hear the distant *thump-thump-thump* of fireballs and the screech of alien metal tearing.
"They're grinding," I realized.
"They're fighting for their lives, Shigu," Damon said soberly. "But yeah. The XP buff you gave them? It's turning fear into addiction. I saw a Level 10 Mage charge a Zorgon Walker just to get the last hit."
"Good," I said. "They need to level up. The Zorgon won't stop with just one fleet."
I closed my eyes, expanding my senses. My perception, boosted by the 20% compound growth from yesterday, swept over the city like a radar pulse. I felt the millions of heartbeats. I felt the mana signatures.
And I felt *Him*.
Or rather, I felt the absence of him. A void in the data. A slippery, glitching shadow moving somewhere in the global network.
"Guest_01," I whispered.
"Did you find him?" Ren asked, his hand tightening on his weapon.
"He's hiding deep," I said, opening my eyes. "He knows I'm here. He's masking his signature by bouncing it through the ley lines. But he left a message on the Moon. He wants to play a game."
**[ALERT.]**
**[PROXIMITY WARNING.]**
Zero's voice cut through my thoughts.
**[Architect, the Zorgon fleet has ceased its retreat. They are regrouping at the Lagrangian Point L2.]**
"Regrouping?" I frowned. "They lost their flagship. Their command structure should be shattered."
**[They have switched to a decentralized swarm protocol. And... they are launching the Second Wave.]**
I looked up. The sky, protected by my golden barrier, suddenly lit up with thousands of pinpricks of blue light.
"Plasma bombardment?" Damon asked, raising his shield.
"No," I said, squinting. "Those aren't beams."
They were ships. Smaller, sleek, aerodynamic attack craft. They weren't trying to break the shield with brute force. They were pressing against it, millions of them, like a swarm of nanobots attacking a cell wall.
They were looking for the frequency.
*ZZZT.*
A section of the golden sky above New York flickered. A hole, no bigger than a bus, opened up for a split second as the drones matched my mana frequency.
Through the gap, a dozen sleek, triangular fighters slipped through. Then the hole closed.
Then another hole opened above London. Above Tokyo. Above Rio.
"Phase-shifting," I spat. "They're harmonizing with my shield to bypass it. They're leaking through."
The Zorgon fighters shrieked as they entered the atmosphere. They didn't dive for the ground. They stayed high, circling in the upper atmosphere, raining distinct, concentrated beams of plasma down on the city defensive grids.
*BOOM. BOOM.*
Explosions blossomed across the Manhattan skyline. A skyscraper to the south took a direct hit, the top ten floors shearing off in a shower of glass and steel.
"We can't hit them!" Damon yelled over the noise. "They're at thirty thousand feet! My sword doesn't reach that high!"
I watched the fighters. They were staying out of range of the ground-based mages. They were dismantling the city defenses with impunity, acting as air support for the ground units.
"The players are sitting ducks," Ren hissed. "If we don't clear the sky, the city falls."
I looked at the players gathering near the park. Mages, archers, warriors. They were looking up, frustrated, firing spells that fizzled out long before reaching the enemy. They were earthbound.
"Evolution," I said.
Ren looked at me. "What?"
"The human race," I said, a slow smile spreading across my face. "It's time they learned to leave the nest."
I raised my hand. The air around me crackled with golden electricity.
"Zero. Prepare a Global Patch."
**[Patch ready. Contents?]**
"Unlock the Z-Axis," I commanded. "Grant the **[Aether Flight]** skill tree to all classes Level 20 and above. Subsidize the mana cost with my personal reserves."
**[That is a significant drain, Architect. You are already powering the Planetary Shield.]**
"I have infinite mana, Zero. Let's spend some of it."
I clenched my fist.
***
**System Announcement**
Across the globe, time seemed to freeze. Every human being with a System interface saw the world turn grey for a heartbeat.
Then, gold text erupted in their vision. It wasn't the blue of the standard system. It was the Gold of the Architect.
**[SYSTEM UPDATE 4.2: THE WINGS OF WAR]**
**[The enemy dominates the sky. This is unacceptable.]**
**[New Skill Unlocked: AETHER FLIGHT.]**
**[Cost: 0 MP (Architect Subsidized).]**
**[Duration: Indefinite.]**
**[Current Objective: SEIZE THE HEAVENS.]**
I watched Sarah, the Pyromancer I had observed earlier. She was standing near the treeline, shielding her eyes from the plasma rain. She read the notification. She looked confused for a second.
Then, she focused.
*FWOOSH.*
A pair of translucent, burning wings erupted from her back. They weren't made of feathers; they were made of pure fire mana, shaped like the wings of a phoenix.
Next to her, a Paladin gasped as wings of hard, white light unfolded from his armor. A Rogue sprouted wings of shadowy smoke.
One by one, the players ignited.
"Fly," I whispered.
It started with one. Sarah kicked off the ground. The air cracked as she broke the sound barrier, shooting upward like a rocket.
Then ten. Then a hundred. Then thousands.
The ground emptied. The sky filled.
It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. A reverse rain of light. A million humans, who had spent their entire evolutionary history bound to the dirt, were suddenly ascending.
"Now that," Damon grinned, hefting his shield, "is cool."
"Are we going?" Ren asked, his own wings—jagged shards of void energy—manifesting silently behind him.
"You lead the charge," I said. "Coordinate the guilds. Show them how to fight in three dimensions. I need to keep the main shield stable."
Ren nodded. He crouched, then vanished, reappearing instantly a thousand feet in the air, already decapitating a Zorgon drone.
Damon laughed. "Wait for the tank!" He launched himself upward, a meteor of steel rising to meet the alien threat.
***
**The High-Altitude War**
I stayed on the ground, acting as the anchor. I sat on the edge of the crater, legs crossed, meditating amidst the war.
Above me, the atmosphere had turned into a kaleidoscope of violence.
The Zorgon fighters, previously untouchable, were suddenly swarmed. They were designed to fight ships, not individual, man-sized targets moving at Mach speeds with magical chaotic patterns.
I watched through the eyes of the System.
A squad of five players—a tank, two mages, a healer, and a ranger—intercepted a Zorgon Heavy Cruiser that had breached the cloud layer.
The tank, flying with wings of blue force, slammed into the cruiser's hull, planting his feet and activating **[Taunt]**. The ship's turrets swiveled toward him.
"Hit it now!" the tank screamed over the comms.
The two mages, hovering above, combined their spells. A lance of lightning and a sphere of ice spiraled together, slamming into the cruiser's engine block.
The ship shuddered, exploded, and began to fall, trailing smoke.
**[Enemy Unit Destroyed.]**
**[XP Shared.]**
It was happening all over the world. Humanity wasn't just defending; they were hunting. The skies above Earth became a grinder for the Zorgon advance force.
But the Zorgon were adapting.
**[Warning,]** Zero intoned. **[Enemy adaptation detected. They are deploying Anti-Magic fields.]**
High above, the larger Zorgon ships began to emit a pulsed frequency. A grey wave rippled out.
Wherever the wave hit, the players' wings flickered. Spells dissolved. Gravity remembered its claim.
I saw thousands of players suddenly lose their flight, plummeting out of the sky. Screams filled the global chat.
"Cute," I murmured. "They think they can turn off the physics engine."
I didn't panic. I tapped into the *Compound Interest*.
Today was Day 1,187. My mana capacity was 20% higher than yesterday. Yesterday, I held a shield around the planet. Today, I could do more.
"Zero. Override the local physics in the upper atmosphere. Change the air density."
**[To what setting?]**
"To 'swimmable'."
I pulsed my aura. I didn't fight the anti-magic field directly. Instead, I altered the properties of the air around the battle zones. I made the air thick, viscous to mana but supportive to matter.
The falling players suddenly slowed. The air caught them. They didn't need wings anymore; they could effectively 'swim' through the air like it was water.
**[Global Effect: Aether Current.]**
The players stabilized. The panic turned into determination. They kicked off the 'solid' air and launched themselves back at the ships.
"You can't cheat against the Admin," I said to the sky.
But even as the battle turned back in our favor, a nagging feeling clawed at the back of my neck.
Guest_01.
Why wasn't he acting? The Zorgon were dying. His distraction was failing. If he wanted to destroy humanity, he should be striking now, while I was distracted managing the physics of the entire globe.
Unless...
"Zero," I said sharply. "Show me the global mana usage map."
A holographic globe appeared in front of me. Bright spots flared where the fighting was heaviest—New York, London, Beijing.
"Filter out combat mana," I ordered. "Show me *drain*."
The map changed. The bright spots vanished.
But one spot remained. A dark, cold sinkhole of energy.
It wasn't in a city. It wasn't in a war zone.
It was in the ocean. The Atlantic. Specifically, the Bermuda Triangle.
"Of course," I sighed. "The cliché location."
A massive amount of mana was being sucked into a single point beneath the waves. It wasn't being used for a spell. It was being *stored*. Or worse, used to open something.
"Guest_01 isn't leading the Zorgon," I realized, standing up. "He's using the war as a battery. Every spell cast, every death, every explosion... he's harvesting the entropy."
**[Analysis: The energy signature matches a Dimensional Key.]**
"He's opening a door," I said. "The Zorgon are just the knock. He's inviting someone else inside."
I looked up at the battle. The players were winning. Ren and Damon had the situation under control. The "First Wave" of the Zorgon was breaking against the rocks of humanity's newfound power.
I tapped my earpiece. "Ren."
*"A little busy here, Boss!"* Ren's voice came through, accompanied by the sound of tearing metal. *"Just hijacked a fighter. Trying to figure out which button is the gun."*
"You have the con," I said. "Hold the sky. Don't let anything touch the ground."
*"Where are you going?"*
"To pull the plug," I said.
I looked toward the East. Toward the ocean.
I didn't fly this time. Flying was too slow.
I crouched. The ground beneath me groaned, cracking under the sudden application of god-tier strength.
**[Skill: Spatial Step.]**
Usually, this skill moved you a few dozen yards.
I poured the entirety of my Day 1,187 surplus into it.
I stepped.
Space folded. The park vanished. The noise of the battle cut out instantly.
I was standing on water.
The Atlantic Ocean stretched out in every direction, dark and rolling under the moonlight. The air here was quiet, but heavy. It smelled of ozone and ancient rot.
Below me, deep under the waves, a purple light was glowing. A whirlpool was forming, not of water, but of mana.
"Found you," I said.
I didn't dive. I simply increased my density until I was heavier than the ocean.
I sank.
The water rushed over my head. The darkness took me. I fell past the fish, past the whales, down into the crushing depths where the pressure could flatten a submarine.
Down there, amidst the underwater mountains, stood a structure. It wasn't Zorgon. It wasn't human.
It was a temple. Ancient, covered in barnacles and slime, but pulsing with a fresh, corrupted violet light.
And standing at the entrance, protected by a bubble of air, was a figure.
He wore a suit. A pristine, charcoal grey business suit that looked ridiculous at the bottom of the ocean. He held a briefcase in one hand and a tablet in the other.
He looked up as I landed on the seabed, my boots kicking up a cloud of silt.
He smiled. It was the Mimic's smile, but sharper. More intelligent.
"You're late, Architect," Guest_01's voice projected into my mind, clear as a bell.
I walked toward him. The water pressure pressed against my skin, a billion tons of weight. I shrugged it off like a light blanket.
"I had to clean up your mess upstairs," I projected back.
"The Zorgon?" Guest_01 checked his watch. "They performed adequately. They generated 4.5 Petabytes of combat data and sufficient emotional resonance to charge the capacitor."
He gestured to the temple behind him. The massive stone doors were beginning to crack open. A blinding violet light spilled out.
"You treat my planet like a farm," I said, stopping ten yards away. My aura flared, pushing the ocean back, creating a massive air pocket around us on the sea floor.
"It *is* a farm," Guest_01 said dismissively. "You just don't know what you're growing yet."
He tapped his tablet.
"You think the game is about leveling up, Shigu? You think it's about numbers?"
He laughed.
"The System isn't a game engine. It's an incubation chamber. And thanks to your 'First Wave'... the egg is ready to hatch."
The temple doors groaned. A hand—massive, scaled, and dripping with void-stuff—reached out from the darkness within.
I looked at the hand. It was bigger than a Zorgon dreadnought.
"What did you wake up?" I asked, my voice cold.
Guest_01 adjusted his tie.
"The Zorgon are the police, Shigu. They enforce order."
He pointed to the thing emerging from the temple.
"This? This is the Prisoner."
**[CRITICAL ALERT.]**
**[NEW FACTION DETECTED: THE VOID LORDS.]**
**[THREAT LEVEL: UNCALCULABLE.]**
I sighed. I cracked my knuckles.
"I'm going to need a bigger sword," I muttered.
Then, for the first time since Day 1, I felt it.
A twinge of excitement.
The boredom was gone.
"Guest_01," I said, my eyes glowing with the intensity of a supernova. "You wanted to see what I'm growing?"
I took a step forward.
"I'm growing the Boss Monster that kills you."
I lunged.
**[Day 1,187 Ends.]**
**[The First Wave: Surviving.]**
**[The Second Wave: Beginning.]**
**[Shigu's Mood: Entertained.]**
[Chapter 41 Ends.]