Julius was ready to leave the game.
He gave the command: "Open Menu."
The menu opened instantly, displaying a list of options:
Inventory
Stats
Money
Player Info
Equipment
Alliances
Party
Friends
Map
Teleport
Save and Quit
Julius's eyes landed on Save and Quit. He was just about to give the command—
but then, suddenly, a sharp gust of wind brushed past him.
The very next second, his body broke out in a cold sweat.
Something unnatural had just happened.
Everyone in the control room—Sapphire, Sebastian, the techs—froze in horror at what they saw.
Sapphire instinctively clasped both hands over her mouth and gasped:
"What just happened?!"
Sebastian stood up in panic.
"Julius, get out of there—now!"
Julius was staring at the ground, where his left arm was lying—severed from his body.
A sharp wind gust had sliced it clean off, and now, blood was gushing out like a fountain.
The game was so hyper-realistic that Julius could feel the pain just as intensely as he would in real life.
Clenching his teeth, he pressed his right hand to the wound, moaning in agony. His white shirt was quickly soaking red, the fabric sticking to his skin with blood.
He turned to face the direction the wind had come from—and saw him.
The same tribal man who had earlier retreated from battle now stood boldly on the other end of a massive clearing.
But he wasn't alone.
Surrounding him were around fifty more tribal warriors—some wielding magic wands, others carrying bows, spears, or daggers. All their weapons looked hand-crafted from oak and stone, rough but deadly.
One of them stood out—a tall, aged figure with long green hair flowing down his back. He carried the largest wand of them all, one so thick it doubled as a walking stick.
He was clearly their leader—and he was the one who had used wind magic to sever Julius's arm.
Julius had only one choice now: to run.
He couldn't Save and Quit anymore—not because he didn't want to, but because he himself had proposed a critical rule during development:
No player can Save and Quit while in combat.
And right now, Julius was in active combat.
Without wasting a second, he summoned his advanced in-game bike, jumped on, and sped off, trying to escape the overwhelming force gathering behind him.
Back in the control room, the President turned toward the team of experts and asked,
"What happens if Julius dies in the game?"
One of the lead developers replied,
"The servers haven't been fully launched yet. This instance was activated solely for internal testing. If Julius dies now, he won't respawn. A lot of systems are disabled in test mode. He'll simply become a corrupted data fragment, lost inside the system. It will be impossible to retrieve him."
Hearing this, Sapphire, Sebastian, and the manager—who had originally recommended Julius—were all struck with fear.
But the President had his mind on something else: the company's reputation.
The entire event was being live-streamed—with only a 10-second delay.
"Cut the live feed immediately," the President commanded.
The streaming team acted fast, killing the broadcast.
Meanwhile, far from the chaos, Julius had managed to ride deep into the woods. He slumped against a tree, sitting on the ground in pain, his breathing ragged.
He whispered again: "Open Menu."
The menu appeared.
"Save and Quit." he commanded.
But this time, a message flashed on the screen:
"Due to some error, failed to save and quit."
Julius stared in confusion, blinking.
That made no sense—he knew how the system worked. He had personally overseen the Save and Quit function during development. It shouldn't fail. Ever.
Back in the control room, things took a dark turn.
The moment Julius issued the Save and Quit command, the very control panel that was managing the game burst into flames and exploded.
Julius was trapped.
The system data became inaccessible. Although a backup of the game existed, the specific data pathway that connected Julius to the game world was stored only in that now-destroyed panel.
Even if recovery was possible—it would take at least a year to reconstruct.
Meanwhile, Julius kept trying.
He issued the Save and Quit command again.
And again.
But each time, the result was the same:
"Failed to save and quit."
Frustrated, injured, and desperate, Julius decided to try one last time.
But just before he could say the words, he heard it—
Another gust of wind, just like before.
This time, Julius noticed it just in time and barely managed to dodge.
If he had delayed even by one second, he would have been decapitated on the spot.
The wind attack had come directly at him…
But it didn't strike. Julius hadn't fought back yet—
He wasn't in combat.
Not yet.
The explosion in the control room had left several experts seriously injured, and emergency teams were already evacuating them one by one.
The President had stormed out of the room moments earlier, frustration written all over his face, and retreated to his office in silence.
Luckily, Sebastian, Sapphire, and the manager were unharmed—they had been far enough from the blast zone. More importantly, they had successfully retrieved Julius's vital data from the system...
But no one had remembered to disconnect him from the Alpha Console.
Meanwhile, in the outside world, gamers and viewers who had been watching the live broadcast were confused by the sudden blackout.
"Why did it cut off just like that?"
But at the same time, they were buzzing with excitement, assuming it was all part of a dramatic scripted twist. No one even suspected that something had gone terribly wrong inside the company.
Back in the game, Julius was under relentless assault.
Dozens of tribal mages were launching wave after wave of wind gust attacks, sharp enough to cut through flesh and bone.
Julius was barely dodging each strike, weaving between blasts with all the speed and instinct he could muster.
His body was already weakened from the earlier wound, but his mind was racing, calculating, surviving.
Then—
it hit him.
He still had one last option.
He hadn't used it yet because he hadn't officially entered combat.
He still had access to the Soul Injection.
Without hesitation, he gave the command:
"Open Inventory."
"Summon Soul Injection."