Chapter 268: Who Are You?

Chapter 268: Chapter 268: Who Are You?

Jax stared at the floating blue text until his eyes burned. He dismissed the combat log, only to summon it again a second later. The string of nines remained perfectly intact, glowing with an arrogant finality.

The number defied the foundational mathematics of Aethelgard entirely. A level one player could not generate that much kinetic force under any known algorithmic circumstances. The system architecture should have collapsed under the weight of the calculation before rendering such a variable.

​Kael heavily planted his tower shield into the silver sand. The metallic thud echoed loudly in the newly quiet desert. He used the immense shield to pull his battered body upright. His golden armor was scarred with gray burns from the chaotic aura, but his health bar was completely full. The fifty consecutive level ups had washed away all his fatigue, resetting his physical condition to maximum efficiency.

​"Who are you?" Kael asked. His voice was no longer a commanding roar. It was a hoarse whisper filled with absolute reverence.

​Neo did not answer immediately. He was busy looking at his empty right hand. The rusty iron sword had been entirely erased by the kinetic feedback of his own strike.

He flexed his fingers, testing the simulated nerves of his avatar. The avatar was holding up exceptionally well, but the environmental loot pool was severely lacking.

​"Starter weapons are poorly optimized," Neo muttered to himself.

He turned to face the three towering veterans. "The durability parameters are far too low. I barely tapped the creature."

​Lyra finally found her voice.

"You barely tapped a level nine thousand elite anomaly. And it exploded into pure experience."

​"It had a flawed collision mesh," Neo explained casually. "The external developers who built that creature forgot to anchor its localized gravity matrix. If you hit it at the exact intersection of its physical hitbox and the terrain geometry, the physics engine panics. The system deletes the asset to prevent a localized crash. It is a simple exploit."

​Jax slowly got to his feet. He smoothly sheathed his poison daggers. As a Shadow Dancer, his entire class relied on reading the hidden data of his enemies to find their weak points. He decided to activate his supreme appraisal skill.

It was a technique that had never failed him in eight hundred levels of endless grinding. His eyes glowed with deep purple mana as he looked directly at the boy in the linen tunic.

​Jax expected to see a hidden class name. He expected to see masked attributes or a disguised level cap indicating a reincarnated master.

​Instead, his visual interface went entirely blank. There were no question marks. There was no error message. There was simply nothing. It was as if the boy did not exist within the system, or rather, as if the boy was the infinite space where the system itself resided. The sheer magnitude of the emptiness overwhelmed his senses.

​Jax gasped and deactivated the skill immediately. He clutched his head as a sharp, piercing headache flared behind his eyes.

​"Do not try to read his data. There is nothing there. It is just an endless void. My perception skill almost shattered."

​Neo offered a polite, apologetic smile. "My privacy settings are locked to the administrative tier. It is nothing personal. The raw data would likely melt your visual cortex."

​Kael took a cautious step forward. He was a Vanguard Tank, a natural protector born to stand between his allies and certain death. He had stared down ancient dragons without blinking.

But looking at the pale sixteen year old boy, Kael felt an overwhelming urge to kneel in submission. The hierarchy of power in Aethelgard was absolute. The strong commanded the weak. This boy had just dealt quadrillions of damage with a basic attack. He was the apex predator, disguised as a beginner.

​"You need a weapon," Lyra said softly.

​She stepped around Kael and reached into her spatial inventory. The air shimmered with celestial light, and a magnificent broadsword materialized in her grasp. The blade was forged from condensed starlight, pulsing with a gentle, rhythmic golden aura.

It was a legendary tier artifact they had acquired from a fallen Archangel raid three years ago. It had taken a guild of two hundred players a whole month to clear that dungeon.

​Lyra held the hilt out toward Neo. She bowed her head slightly, offering the blade like a priestess offering a tribute to a divine entity.

​"Please," Lyra said. "Take this. It is the Sunbreaker Blade. It has unbreakable durability and perfectly scales with the wielder’s kinetic output."

​Neo reached out and took the hilt. The moment his fingers wrapped around the leather grip, the golden aura of the blade flared to life. It burned brighter than it ever had in Lyra’s possession. The sword hummed a deep, resonant note, as if expressing pure joy at finally being held by a worthy master.

​Neo gave the broadsword a practice swing. The blade cleaved through the air with absolute perfection, leaving a faint trail of starlight in its wake.

​"A decent mesh. The weight distribution is highly acceptable. Thank you, Cleric. This will save me the trouble of farming the lower zones."

​"You are not a normal player. Are you a beta tester? An original founder of the realm? The ancient legends say there are players who achieved transcendence and ascended beyond the level cap entirely."

​Neo considered the question carefully. He did not want to lie. Lying to his own creations felt beneath his dignity. But he also could not explain that he had literally written the code for the gravity pulling their boots to the sand.

Mortal minds were not designed to comprehend the existence of the Dominator Core.

​"I work in development. I usually operate from a much higher altitude. But the recent invasion required a more localized approach. I am new to the ground level experience."

​Jax scoffed nervously. "New to the ground level. Right. You just one shot a Multiversal Curse."

​"It is not a true curse," Neo corrected them. "It is a brute force logic virus. The external entities attacking our realm are highly uncreative. They rely on overwhelming paradoxes to break our foundational math. But they do not understand the intricate balance of a closed loop ecosystem. They do not understand the beauty of the grind, the elegance of perfectly balanced stats, or the satisfaction of earning power through conflict."

​Lyra watched the boy speak. She noticed the way the ambient mana in the air unconsciously gravitated toward him. The wind did not blow against his clothes. It gracefully moved around him, as if the environment itself was asking for permission to exist in his presence. Even the silver sand seemed to part slightly beneath his boots.

​"You called us your party," Lyra pointed out. "Why? You clearly do not need our assistance. You could wipe out this entire corrupted zone with a wooden stick."

​Neo looked at the High Cleric. For a brief moment, the vast, ancient weight of the Gamemaster bled through the teenage avatar. Lyra felt her breath catch in her throat. She felt like she was staring into the center of a galaxy.

​"A game is not meant to be played alone. I built this realm to watch mortals struggle, adapt, and overcome impossible odds. Watching a single invincible entity delete problems is exceptionally boring. I want to see how you fight. I want to experience the progression from this perspective. Besides, I am only level one. I need to leach experience from higher level players to unlock my skill trees."

​Kael, Lyra, and Jax exchanged completely bewildered looks. The boy had just caused a system overflow of experience points, leveling them up fifty times over in a single second, and he was claiming he needed to leach from them. It was a completely absurd statement, yet he spoke with absolute sincerity.

​Before anyone could question his logic further, the horizon began to tear open.

​The silver sand of the Whispering Wastes violently shifted.

A massive fissure erupted a mile away. Dozens of jagged, gray rifts tore through the sky, vomiting pure chaotic energy into the atmosphere.

The temperature plummeted rapidly. The vibrant colors drained from the surrounding dunes, replaced by the sickening gray static of the Supreme Curse.

​The external developers were increasing the deployment rate. The invasion was escalating to the next phase.

​Kael gripped his tower shield, his honed combat instincts taking over his awe.

"Multiple signatures! We have at least twenty Paradox Weavers incoming, and something much larger is forming in the center of the distortion. It looks like a localized raid boss."

​Jax drew his daggers, the deadly poison dripping onto the sand.

"The spatial lock is still active. We cannot retreat to the citadel."

​Lyra raised her staff, preparing to cast her most powerful defensive barriers. Despite the overwhelming odds, she did not feel the crushing despair she had felt only ten minutes ago. She felt an entirely irrational sense of safety.

​She looked at the boy in the linen tunic.

​Neo was staring at the approaching army of anomalies.

A genuine, radiant smile spread across his face.

It was the smile of a dedicated player who had just logged into his favorite game on a holiday weekend. He rested the legendary Sunbreaker Blade comfortably over his shoulder.

​"Twenty elite targets. That should provide enough experience to unlock the basic combat modules. Tank, I need you to gather them into a single cluster. Assassin, focus on blinding their optical sensors to disrupt their pathing. Cleric, do not bother healing today. Just cast maximum haste buffs on me."

​Kael blinked in surprise. The level one boy was effortlessly giving tactical orders to a level eight hundred and fifty Vanguard.

​"And what are you going to do?" Kael asked.

​Neo’s inverted eyes glowed with terrifying golden light.

​"I am going to test the area of effect damage of this new sword."

​