Han Xiao?

"I forgot to introduce myself, I am the Sage."

"Ah! I am Black Phantom."

Of course, Luke knew exactly who this was.

In Ultimatum, there were many types of people, the strangest of whom were the protagonist-type builds, who essentially would either grow up to become one of the strongest in their local area or even the entire multiverse, or who would be killed of early from the challenges the faced.

However, this game was a hyper-real simulation of a virtuality that 'could' have been reality. This also allowed the creation of existences that defied this basic logic of protagonist-type NPCs being the most powerful.

One such existence was Black Phantom, later to be known as Black Star. He was, in most other games, what you would call an error. An abomination of everything that should not exist.

He was a mechanic who defied every single rule within the game, went against everything the game-devs established, and just created chaos.

His speed of growth was even more exaggerated than players who were using their entire guild to farm exp, his skills and talents were even more exaggerated than protagonist as well as boss-type NPCs.

Although he did not have luck talents, he was still able to survive for a long time, reaching the peak of existence in the game. He also had an uncanny ability to attract protagonist-type NPCs to become his close friends or disciples very quickly after meeting him.

Thankfully, the game was also self-correcting, since the game-devs had all made promises not to interfere directly with the game. The self-correcting mechanism of the system in the game naturally created a way to solve this error, and that was to eradicate it completely. Just simply kill it off.

It was only later revealed by the game-devs after Black-Star was killed that he was a bug that was formed due to some loopholes in the coding of NPCs. He was able to inherit memories of a human in the real world, knowing all about players and where they came from. Along with this knowledge, the game had to provide him with a system that allowed him to possess a system.

And his two children, one adopted and the other his biological child, were also monsters. However, they followed the basic concept of protagonist NPCs, facing challenges and slowly growing to power. Therefore, they were allowed to continue living in the game.

This man, who basically became a legend, and was standing in front of Luke, was so incredibly similar to him, that it even made Luke scared.

'What if I am like him? Not the real me, but just a piece of coding that used the same loophole to inherit Luke's memories? Would he also be killed off by the system id he grew too strong?'

Shaking his head to rid himself of such uselessly complicated thoughts, Luke spoke

"Mr Black Phantom, I would like to discuss something incredibly important with you. Is there a more 'discrete' place to talk?"

Black Phantom looked at Luke's sincere expression for a while before nodding and leading the way deeper into the building.

Passing through an old wooden door, they entered a room that clearly had some high-tech noise-cancelling equipment.

Nodding, Luke sat down, cross-legged on the ground and took out a pack of cards. This was his hand-made Cards of Destiny, which he had already handed out to the other core members to replace those ready-made CoD.

"Mr Black Phantom, should I call you that, or Han Xiao?"

Hearing this, Han Xiao's pupils constricted as he pulled out his gun and aimed at Luke's head, ready to pull the trigger at a moment's notice.

…

In the void, the white fog was currently locked in a face off against another entity. It was not the system, who was actually, for once, gloating by the side-lines, watching the entertaining show unfold slowly.

This 'other entity' was another being, engulfed in fog. Only, this fog was light blue in colour.

The two did not exchange a word, however, they very evidently knew each other. And not just knew each other, but had some sort of deep-rooted hatred for each other.

Instantly, war erupted between the two, tentacles of fog building up and clashing with each other. Tearing off pieces of each other slowly, more and more fog disappeared, and their true selves were slowly being revealed. However, they did not stop, continuing to clash as though nothing bothered them, even the rather eerie hysterical laughter that the usually composed and robotic system was giving off as the clash continued.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha~"