The Primordial Serpent of the Void let out a roar that didn't just shake the mountain; it shook the concept of "Tuesday." Beside me, Bai Ling leaped into the air, her frozen mist forming a crystalline dragon that locked jaws with the Serpent's starlight neck.
"Ren! Stop staring at the sky and do something 'vibrational'!" she commanded, her face flushed with the strain of holding back a literal god.
Lin Yue, not to be outdone, slammed her gravity-glove into a control console. "I'm busy rerouting the facility's self-destruct sequence into the Serpent's left nostril! Give me a second!"
I ignored them both. My eyes were fixed on the fading silhouette of Archivist Kael as he vanished through the portal. That gait... that specific way he held his left shoulder higher than his right...
System, run a historical match on Kael's skeletal structure, I thought. Compare with the 'God of Bitter Ends' from the Third Eon.
[DAO MESSAGE: ANALYSIS COMPLETE. OVERLAP: 98.4%. Kael is likely a reincarnation or a 'Residual Echo' of the Deity of Ruin. He was the one who refused to sign the original Anchoring Treaty because he 'didn't like the font'. He's back for his revenge, or at least a better contract.]
"Director Zhou!" I screamed, amplifying my voice to resonate directly with his inner ear. "Stop punching the Serpent! It's a waste of billable hours!"
Zhou Min, currently mid-air and aiming a glowing haymaker at the Serpent's snout, froze. He drifted back down to the ledge, his white eyes flickering. "Billable... hours?"
"Look at yourself, Zhou!" I said, stepping forward with the confidence of a middle-manager who had just finished a weekend seminar on leadership. "You're over-performing! You're putting in overtime for a company—the Restorationists—that hasn't even paid your severance! You're a Senior Director now! Act like it!"
Zhou looked at his glowing fists. "Senior... Director?"
"Yes! And as your superior, I am promoting you to Chief Security Officer of Dao-Dash," I lied through my teeth. "Your first task: ignore the Serpent. It's an independent contractor. If you touch it, we have to file a three-volume liability report. Do you want to do paperwork, Zhou? Do you?"
Zhou Min shuddered. The white light in his eyes faded to a dull, manageable gold. "No... no paperwork. Please. I'll be good."
With Zhou pacified, I turned my attention to the Serpent. Bai Ling was currently being swatted out of the sky like a bluebottle fly, and Lin Yue's "Gravity-Nostril" plan was only making the beast sneeze localized black holes.
"O Great Serpent!" I projected, my voice shifting into the ancient, resonant tone of the Sovereign. "You have been asleep for ten thousand years! Do you really want to wake up to this? Look at this world! It's full of taxes, internet trolls, and synthetic coffee! It's loud, it's cramped, and the air quality is terrible!"
The Serpent paused, its sun-like eyes narrowing.
"Go back to the Void," I suggested. "I will personally craft a 'Stasis-Subscription' for you. I will anchor this mountain so firmly that your slumber will be undisturbed by the coming eons of human stupidity. It's a retirement plan! No gods, no masters, just infinite nap-time."
The Serpent looked at the messy, chaotic mountain, then at the screeching Lin Yue, then at the freezing Bai Ling. It seemed to consider the offer. With a slow, dignified nod that caused a minor avalanche, it began to retreat back into the vortex.
[DAO MESSAGE: RETIREMENT PLAN ACCEPTED. THE SERPENT HAS OFFICIALLY 'SIGNED OFF' FOR THE MILLENNIUM. I'VE DEDUCTED THE CLOSING COSTS FROM YOUR KARMA BALANCE.]
The vortex closed. The mountain went still. The Bio-Humans were free, blinking in the sunlight as they realized their neural-links had been converted into "Wellness Monitors" by Lin Yue's quick thinking.
Bai Ling landed next to me, her ice-armor cracked but her pride intact. "You... you talked it into leaving? That's not a Bender technique. That's... that's just cheating."
Lin Yue walked up, dusting off her suit. "It's called 'Negotiation,' Bai Ling. You should try it sometime when you aren't busy freezing the scenery. Ren, that was brilliant. But we have a problem."
She pointed to the sky. A fleet of Aethelgard High-Council ships was descending, their sensors locking onto us.
"The Academy thinks you're a hero," she whispered. "And the Council thinks you're a threat. And I... I still want to know why you have the God of Ruin's personal cell phone number in your head."
I looked at Zhou Min, who was currently trying to organize the liberated Bio-Humans into a "File-Sharing Queue."
"I'm just a 3.5 GPA student, Lin Yue," I said, putting my hands in my pockets. "I just want to go home and see if I passed that midterm."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: DAO STABILITY AT 96.5%.]
[NEW QUEST: THE ARCHIVIST'S REVENGE — KAEL IS PLANNING A 'GLOBAL SYSTEM UPDATE'.]
I groaned. "No more updates. Please."