The wind at Incheon didn't howl; it whispered in the voices of deleted data. The black-and-violet spire of the reclaimed Vault pulsed behind Si-woo, acting as a beacon for the newly awakened.
Lee Jin-chul approached, his footsteps heavy. He wasn't just a man anymore; he was a living tank of void energy. "The men are ready, Sovereign. But you're asking for the impossible. We have no ships. The Association's aerospace division was dismantled years ago when the Vaults made satellite travel 'unstable.'"
Si-woo turned, his white hair catching the faint violet glow of the tower. "We don't need ships, Jin-chul. Ships are built to fight gravity. We're going to make gravity work for us."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[SKILL ANALYSIS: 'UNIVERSAL SUBTRACTION']
[PROPOSED MANEUVER: 'THE VOID LIFT']
[CONCEPT: Subtract the mass of the Guild members relative to the Lunar Pull.]
"Seol-ah," Si-woo called out.
The Regressor stepped out from the shadows of a defunct hangar. She looked exhausted. The more Si-woo changed the world, the more her "future knowledge" became useless, a library of books written in a dead language. "You're going to kill them all," she said flatly. "The vacuum of space doesn't care about your 'Zero-Sum' philosophy. Their lungs will collapse before they clear the stratosphere."
"Not if I redefine what 'Breathing' means," Si-woo countered.
He raised his hand, and the Abyssal Abacus manifested in the air. The golden beads of reality clicked and slid under his mental touch. He wasn't just looking at the airport; he was looking at the chemical composition of the atmosphere.
[SKILL: 'GEOMETRIC OVERWRITE — ATMOSPHERIC ENVELOPE']
"Gather everyone," Si-woo commanded. "In a circle around the spire."
The Training of the Hollow
The 1,402 members of the Shadow Sovereign Guild moved with a grim, synchronized silence. They were a motley crew: former office workers, street kids, and disgraced low-rank hunters. But as they stood in the shadow of the obsidian tower, they looked like a single organism.
"Listen to me," Si-woo's voice rang out, bypassing their ears and echoing directly in their consciousness. "The Designers think they own the air you breathe and the weight that holds you to the ground. They built a world of 'Addition'—where you had to pay for every scrap of power. I am teaching you 'Subtraction'."
He gestured to a nearby piece of wreckage—a charred engine from a commercial jet.
"Jin-chul, lift it."
The big man stepped forward, his brow furrowing. He tried to use his void-strength to hoist the metal, but it was heavy, cumbersome.
"Don't lift the weight," Si-woo corrected. "Delete the 'Concept of Mass' from the object. Don't add strength to your muscles; subtract the planet's grip on the metal."
Jin-chul closed his eyes. He reached out with his void-spark, feeling the "Weight" of the engine as a golden thread tying it to the earth. He didn't pull. He snapped the thread.
The engine didn't just go up; it drifted. It became a weightless ghost of itself. The Guild members gasped.
"In the vacuum," Si-woo continued, his eyes glowing with a terrifying intensity, "there is no oxygen. But oxygen is just a chemical value. I will give you a 'Void-Lung'—a skill that allows your body to process the 'Lack of Energy' as fuel. You won't breathe air; you will breathe the vacuum itself."
[GUILD SKILL GRANTED: 'VACUUM ADAPTATION — LEVEL 1']
[COST: 10% OF THE LEADER'S PERMANENT MANA REGEN]
The members shuddered as the skill took hold. It felt like swallowing a cold stone. Their chests felt hollow, but they no longer felt the need to gasp for air. They were becoming independent of the planet's biology.
The Moon Vault's Response
While the Shadow Guild prepared for their "Space-Leap," the Moon was no longer silent.
From the dark side of the lunar surface, a massive structure began to unfold. It looked like a silver eye, miles wide, turning slowly to gaze down at the Earth. This was the Lunar Sentinel, the "Quality Control" hub for the Designers' Sector 7-G farm.
Inside the Sentinel, a being made of liquid mercury stood before a display of the Earth's energy readings.
"The anomaly is organizing," the being spoke, its voice like a digital signal. "He has converted 0.002% of the biomass into 'Entropic Units.' He is attempting a Breach of the atmospheric shell."
"Intercept?" another voice asked.
"No. Let him come. The 'Sovereign's Crown' is a trap designed for exactly this scenario. If he attempts to wear it, the Engine will reach critical mass and detonate. He will save us the trouble of a Solar Collapse by deleting himself and his planet in a single stroke."
The Mercury Being touched the screen, and the Moon's gravity shifted—just a fraction—to "pull" on Seoul, intending to hasten Si-woo's arrival.
The Space-Leap: Zero-G War
Back on Earth, the ground began to shake. Not from an earthquake, but from the sudden, violent tug of the Moon.
"It's time," Si-woo said. He stood at the very tip of the Incheon Spire, his white hair flowing upward as if he were already underwater.
He slammed his blade into the heart of the tower, and the Abacus beads flew into a frenzy.
"Everyone! Anchor to the Spire!"
The 1,402 members gripped the obsidian railings of the tower. Si-woo closed his eyes and felt the massive, crushing "Debt" of the planet's gravity. He reached into the code of the world and found the variable for 'Gravitational Constant.'
"Delete," he whispered.
[SKILL: 'MASS INVERSION — PLANETARY SCALE']
[MANA EXPENDED: 900,000,000]
The world didn't explode. Instead, the "Weight" of everyone on the tower simply inverted. The Incheon Spire didn't just sit there—it became a projectile.
With a sound that was less of an explosion and more of a "pop" in the fabric of reality, the entire tower, and everyone on it, shot into the sky.
They didn't feel the G-force. Si-woo was "Subtracting" the inertia as they moved. They watched as the city of Seoul shrank into a map, then a blue marble, then a distant memory.
The sky turned from blue to black in a matter of seconds.
"Look," Su-jin whispered, standing beside her brother. She pointed toward the stars.
The "Lattice"—the golden cage of the Designers—was visible now. It was a shimmering web of golden wires that surrounded the Earth, trapping it. And they were headed straight for it.
"The cage is in the way," Jin-chul shouted, his shield raised as he braced for impact.
"No," Si-woo said, his blade glowing with a violet light that outshone the distant sun. "The cage is the bridge."
As the obsidian spire hit the golden web, Si-woo didn't try to break it. He grabbed the golden wires with his bare hands and re-routed the energy.
[SKILL: 'LATTICE HIJACK']
[CONVERTING: DESIGNER MANA -> KINETIC THRUST]
The Spire accelerated, the golden wires snapping behind them like the strings of a broken violin. They were no longer just falling upward; they were being slingshot across the void at speeds that should have been impossible.
The Arrival
The journey across the vacuum took only minutes of perceived time, though the "Abacus" showed they had crossed 238,000 miles.
The Moon loomed before them, not as a gray rock, but as a gleaming, silver machine. The "Moon Vault" was a city of white marble and liquid light, protected by a dome of shimmering force.
[WARNING: LUNAR DEFENSE SYSTEM ACTIVATED]
[TARGETING: 1,402 UNAUTHORIZED LIFEFORMS]
A swarm of "Lunar Guardians"—spherical drones that looked like silver eyes—poured out of the dome. Each one carried enough firepower to level a city.
Si-woo stood at the prow of the flying spire, his black blade raised. He looked at his Guild—his Shadow Sovereigns. They were breathing the vacuum, their eyes glowing with violet fire, their fear replaced by a cold, predatory hunger.
"They think we came here to take the Crown," Si-woo said, his voice echoing through the void. "But they're wrong."
He pointed his blade at the Lunar Sentinel.
"We came here to take the Moon."
As the spire slammed into the silver dome, Si-woo leaped. He didn't use a skill. He just used the pure, unadulterated "Hunger" of the Entropy Engine.
He landed in the center of the silver city, the ground shattering beneath his boots. Thousands of Lunar Guardians swarmed him, but as they fired their lasers, Si-woo simply stood there.
"Subtract," he said.
The light of the lasers didn't hit him; it turned into gray ash and fell to the lunar dust.
In the center of the city, atop a pedestal of liquid mercury, sat the Sovereign's Crown. It pulsed with a rhythmic, golden light—the same light as the Architect.
Si-woo walked toward it.
"Wear it," the voice of the dead Architect whispered in his mind. "Become the King of the Farm. Save your people. All it costs is your soul."
Si-woo reached out his hand. His fingers brushed the cold, golden metal of the crown.
[SYSTEM ALERT!]
[THE SOVEREIGN'S CROWN DETECTED]
[WOULD YOU LIKE TO COMMENCE: 'THE FINAL EVOLUTION'?]
Si-woo looked at the crown, then at the Mercury Being watching him from the balcony above. He smiled—a jagged, dangerous expression.
"I don't like gold," Si-woo said.
He gripped the crown and crushed it in his palm.
[ERROR! ERROR!]
[THE SOVEREIGN'S CROWN HAS BEEN: DELETED]
[DATA RECLAIMED: 5,000,000,000 UNITS]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL 250 REACHED]
The silver city began to shake. The Mercury Being let out a digital scream.
"You fool!" it shrieked. "That was the only thing holding the Engine in check! You've just removed the safety valve!"
Si-woo's body began to glow with a violet light so intense that it blinded the sensors of the Sentinel. The runes on his skin were no longer just glowing; they were tearing through his flesh, manifesting as physical spikes of obsidian.
"I didn't want a safety valve," Si-woo said, his voice sounding like the collapse of a star. "I wanted the explosion."
[NEW CLASS UNLOCKED: THE GALAXY-EATER]