Lock the door behind you, Sebastian ordered.

And log into the primary console. I want to see what your bosses are doing about the little mess I made in the Juncture.

Corvin rushed to the table, his hands trembling as he typed his credentials into the glowing runes.

"They’re going to know I accessed this," Corvin whispered aloud, the sheer paranoia making him sweat. "This is a restricted tactical feed. If the Grand Archons catch me..."

If they catch you, I will pop out of your skull and beat them to death with your arms, Sebastian deadpanned. Log in.

Corvin gulped and hit enter.

The massive holographic projector in the center of the room flared to life. It showed the entire multiverse, a swirling galaxy of assimilated planets. But the interface was flashing with critical, red warning banners.

[STATUS: ANOMALY ZERO UNCONTAINED.] [THREAT LEVEL: OMNIVERSAL.] [INITIATING EMERGENCY PROTOCOL: THE ETERNAL DRAFT.]

"What is the Eternal Draft?" Sebastian asked, forcing Corvin’s eyes to focus on the scrolling text.

"It’s... it’s a panic button," Corvin breathed, genuinely horrified by what he was reading. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"The System requires massive amounts of processing power to run localized deletion commands on a Demigod. You destroyed the Holy Crusade. You deleted their entire armada. The Grand Archons are out of raw mana."

Corvin swiped a hand across the console, pulling up a live video feed from one of the outer servers.

"To get that power back," Corvin explained, his voice hollow, "they are force-triggering global deathmatches across every single assimilated world simultaneously."

Sebastian watched the feed.

It was a broadcast from a ruined, desert planet. Millions of players had been forcefully teleported into a colossal, inescapable canyon. There were no monsters. There were no Void Crawlers. The System had simply dropped a single, glowing chest in the center of the valley.

A massive, golden system prompt hovered in the sky above the desperate players.

[ONLY ONE SURVIVES. THE VICTOR RECEIVES YOUTH, A DIVINE WEAPON, AND A TICKET TO THE INNER WORLDS. BEGIN.]

It was a slaughter.

Sebastian watched as a man literally tore the throat out of his own guildmate just to get closer to the center. Mages rained fire down on unarmed crowds. Warriors cleaved through families. It was pure, unadulterated greed and desperation weaponized into a meat grinder.

The feed zoomed in on the victor. An old, scarred warlord named Vargas stood atop a mountain of corpses, entirely bathed in blood.

A beam of golden light struck him from the heavens. The System kept its promise. The old man’s scars vanished. His withered muscles bulked up. A glowing, Divine-tier halberd materialized in his hands. He raised it to the sky, screaming in ecstatic, religious triumph.

As Vargas cheered, millions of tiny, grey Soul Shards from the dead players floated up into the sky, feeding directly into the System’s mana grid.

They’re using the game to farm us, Sebastian realized, a cold, heavy disgust settling over his mind.

"It’s a localized crucible," Corvin whispered, staring at the screen. "They are manufacturing tragedy. They promise the survivors absolute power, and in return, the System gets the condensed energy of millions of dead souls to fuel their hunt for you."

Sebastian watched the old warlord cheering on the screen. He watched the absolute, fanatical devotion in the man’s eyes.

The System didn’t just control the players with fear. It controlled them with hope. It gave them a shiny piece of loot, it gave them a level up, and it convinced them that the meat grinder was actually a staircase to heaven.

If Sebastian just walked into the Archons’ throne room and punched them to death, it wouldn’t stop the game. The System was self-sustaining. Another ambitious player like Vargas would just step up to take their place, eager to be the next god of the simulation.

To break the game, you had to break the players’ faith in it.

You had to show them that the shiny loot was meaningless.

Corvin, Sebastian’s voice echoed, completely devoid of sarcasm. It was a terrifying, absolute hum of pure sovereign authority. Where is the central broadcasting room?

"The... the broadcast room?" Corvin stammered. "It’s two floors up. It controls the localized feeds for every server in the network. Why?"

Because killing a few Wardens isn’t enough, Sebastian stated, the green data of his compressed form practically vibrating inside Corvin’s skull. They’re using this tournament to build momentum. They’re using it to make the players think the System is a benevolent god handing out prizes.

Sebastian’s digital avatar smiled a dark, unhinged smile.

I need to hijack the feed. I need to show every single player in this entire multiverse exactly what happens when you win the grand prize.

"You want to hijack the Eternal Draft broadcast?!" Corvin panicked, stepping back from the console. "Are you crazy?! The Archons are actively monitoring that feed! If you expose yourself, they’ll drop the entire Hub’s firewall on our heads!"

Let them try, Sebastian commanded, forcefully grabbing Corvin’s motor functions again and marching the terrified bureaucrat toward the door. I’m tired of watching these corporate assholes run their little casino. It’s time to show the players that the house always loses.

We’re going to the broadcast room, Corvin. We’re going to put on a show.

Corvin was sweating so profusely his pristine white silk suit was starting to turn translucent.

He walked briskly down the immaculate, glowing blue hallways of the System Hub’s main administrative building, trying desperately to look like a man who belonged there. The architecture around him was a dizzying, sprawling labyrinth of raw data processing. Massive pillars of softly glowing code stretched from the polished marble floor all the way up to the vaulted ceilings.

Thousands of translucent blue screens hovered in the air, actively tracking the status of millions of Ethereal Plane players across the multiverse.

It was a beautiful, sterile utopia designed by a futuristic god. And Corvin felt like he was going to throw up all over it.

Take a left, a cold, metallic voice scraped against the inside of his skull. There’s a primary broadcast relay tower up ahead. I can feel the data density from here.

Corvin swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He kept his mouth firmly shut, terrified that if he spoke out loud, the other Elite Administrators milling about the corridors would notice him. He turned left, his leather shoes squeaking slightly on the flawless floor.

I am walking as fast as I can, Corvin thought back, hoping his mental projection was clear enough for his terrifying hitchhiker to hear. If I run, the security sub-routines will flag me for irregular behavior. The Archons monitor heart rates in this sector!

Then think about something boring, Sebastian’s voice echoed from the dark, compressed corner of Corvin’s digital recycle bin. Think about filing taxes. Think about a really long corporate seminar where someone is reading off a PowerPoint presentation. Just keep your pulse down.

You’re doing great, buddy. Five stars for the Uber ride so far.

Corvin felt a phantom twinge of absolute dread. It was incredibly difficult to think about spreadsheets when a literal Demigod, currently operating as a hyper-compressed piece of malware, was actively chilling in his nervous system.

He navigated the winding corridor, moving past several heavily armored Void Wardens.

The faceless, chrome executioners stood like statues at the intersections, their red optical sensors sweeping the area. Every time Corvin passed one, he expected the heavy iron hand to drop onto his shoulder. He expected the blinding flash of an instant deletion command.

But the Wardens ignored him. To their advanced, perfect logic gates, Corvin was just a Junior Administrator returning from a field assignment. The localized firewall didn’t detect the Anomaly because Sebastian was perfectly disguised as an old, forgotten error log.

They finally reached the end of the corridor.

Looming before them was a massive, circular antechamber. In the center of the room stood a towering spire of spiraling, golden metal. Thick, pulsating cables of pure blue mana connected the spire to the ceiling, feeding directly into the Hub’s multiversal communications grid.

This was the primary broadcast relay tower. It was the absolute center of the Ethereal Plane’s media control, capable of sending a synchronized message to every single assimilated planet in the Void’s vast empire.

Perfect, Sebastian murmured. Get me to the main console.

Corvin nervously approached the heavy, runic-carved terminal sitting at the base of the golden spire. There were no guards inside this specific room. The System relied entirely on the Hub’s outer defenses. Nobody was supposed to be able to make it this far without a Grand Archon’s personal biometric signature.

Corvin placed his trembling hands on the smooth glass of the console. I’m here. Now what? You want me to type a message? A manifesto?

No, Sebastian replied, his voice dropping the sarcastic, conversational tone. It shifted back into that heavy, unyielding hum of absolute sovereign authority. I’m an incredibly hands-on manager. I’ll type it myself.