Forbidden Sector

Ji-Hoon stumbled as the world solidified around him.

He landed on cracked glass.

Above him stretched a shattered skyline, twisted high-rises suspended mid-collapse. The sky was dim and jagged, as if someone had tried to delete the stars but left the broken code behind. The air buzzed faintly, like a monitor stuck between signals.

["You've entered a ghost sector. This place isn't mapped. It's not supposed to exist."]

Ji-Hoon stood slowly. His breath fogged, but not from cold. The rules here were different. Even gravity felt like it hesitated between steps.

["I'm detecting architecture from the original development branch—Version 0.00. This predates the public launch of Edenfall. You're walking inside the prototype."]

He adjusted the black cloak over his shoulder. The system-reforged threads shifted as he moved—his new coat, forged during the chaos of the last gate, was a deep onyx embedded with faint circuit-like etchings that pulsed when he activated his skills. A thick-lined hood framed his face in shadow, but left his eyes visible, reflecting faint data light from the ground. Underneath, sleek dark armor plates interlocked across his chest and spine, reinforced with responsive nano-fabric and jointed power threads running down to steel-toed boots. He looked like someone pulled from the backend of the system—half anomaly, half response code.

It fit too well.

In the distance, a massive tower pulsed. Red lights flickered near the top—irregular, like a heartbeat trying to restart.

He moved toward it.

The ground crackled under each step. It wasn't made of stone or steel, but of data fragments. Old maps, glitched interface pieces, scraps of player HUDs long deleted. He saw parts of old menus float past in the air like dust.

Ji-Hoon stopped at a bridge.

There was no water below—only darkness threaded with flickers of combat logs, unread errors, and player death records.

And on the other side of the bridge, something waited.

It had no face. Its body shimmered in and out of focus like bad rendering. Around it, dozens of user tags flickered rapidly, as if the system couldn't decide who it was supposed to be.

Then the names stopped cycling.

All of them were replaced by one.

[ADMIN – LV. ???]

Ji-Hoon's hand instinctively moved toward his interface. The figure didn't move, but the data around it compressed.

["That's not a person. That's a system construct. Something left behind by the original devs. It's running with full root privileges."]

Ji-Hoon didn't blink.

✦ Skill: System Trace – Activated

✦ Target: Entity [ADMIN]

✦ Attempting Access…

The skill failed. Hard.

The backlash hit like a physical shockwave. Ji-Hoon staggered as lines of red code bled across his vision.

["It just firewalled your trace. That thing's protected by the system itself. If it sees you as hostile—"]

"I know," Ji-Hoon said.

The figure stepped forward.

Its voice was layered, a synthetic mix of dozens of voices all talking at once.

"You carry unauthorized system fragments. Your existence disrupts the runtime environment."

Ji-Hoon tightened his grip.

"I didn't ask for any of this."

"You were chosen by deviation. An error. Correction must occur."

Ji-Hoon braced as the space around him folded. The construct didn't raise a weapon—its presence bent the environment itself. UI glitches exploded from the ground, distorted menus surged forward like blades, and system fonts turned into spears of light.

Ji-Hoon launched into motion. The new gear held under the pressure, absorbing part of the data storm. His boots left no sound as he moved low and fast across the bridge, avoiding bursts of corrupted memory and interface data. Every failed skill and dead quest became a weapon here.

["There—gap in its defense pattern. Four seconds before next waveform."]

Ji-Hoon struck with a feint, flanking right, baiting a menu-swipe attack.

Then he jumped high and activated his first skill.

✦ Skill: False Echo

✦ Output: Modified Illusion

✦ Duration: 3.4 seconds

The clone blurred into existence and sprinted directly at the Admin.

It worked. The construct fired a system beam that carved a trench across the ground, but Ji-Hoon had already dropped down behind it. He didn't waste time.

✦ Injecting Disrupt Code

✦ Payload: Phantom Thread – Unstable

He slammed a rewritten system command into the base of the Admin's spine. The figure shuddered, glitching violently. For a second, its permissions slipped.

[Root Stability Faltering. Override Level: Temporary]

Ji-Hoon didn't celebrate. He ran straight past it, toward the tower. Whatever this place was, he wasn't here by chance.

["Your System Trace triggered a buried access line. This was a forced transfer. Someone wanted you to find this place. Someone with old keys."]

Ji-Hoon reached the door to the tower.

It opened before he touched it.

Inside, the walls were covered in portraits. Players. Developers. Admins. Each one had a nameplate, and a line of system code burned underneath.

At the end of the hall was one last portrait.

The man who disappeared five years ago.

[CEO – Ryu Jae-Hwan]

[Access Level: Creator]

[Status: Offline – Redacted]

And below that…

[INHERITANCE PENDING]