Chapter 48-The soul corruptor Rises

The first thing Zero felt was wrongness.

Inside the Star Weaver Domain, he was meditating within the Chaos Nexus when it hit him—a chill that crawled not across his skin but along the thread of fate itself. One moment the spiritual winds were calm, stars rotating silently above the floating domain; the next, half the sky dimmed, and a blood-red thread pulsed in the distance.

He opened his eyes just as his system interface burst with crimson alerts.

[World Corruption Detected: Vesh'Tar's Echo has breached system integrity.]

[Star Weaver Domain under assault – Class: Legendary Invasion]

[Real-Time Sync Engaged – Defensive Sovereign Systems Activating.]

Asha and Arya materialized beside him instantly, summoned by the emergency beacon embedded into the Dominion Sovereign Seal. They didn't need explanations. They could feel it too.

Across the sky, a tear had opened—not like a normal portal, but like a wound. Codes screamed. NPCs clutched their heads. Trees wept sap that smelled of ash. From that fracture descended figures—void-born constructs made of black crystal and soul data.

At the head of the army floated a massive, half-formed figure. Not Vesh'Tar himself, but a digital echo of his ancient soul.

Arya hissed, "The bastard infected the game."

Asha's Ice Phoenix aura spiked so sharply it froze nearby air into reflective hexagons. "This realm… it's sacred. He's corrupting the system logic. Even the fate-threads are turning dark."

Zero stepped forward, gripping the hilt of his new Sovereign Blade, forged from Star Thread and tempered in the Flame of Time.

"We hold this line," he said, voice low.

The sky cracked as the invasion began.

All across the Star Weaver Domain, NPC sects that had sworn allegiance to Dominion screamed as corruption began seeping into their memory data. Some went insane, others fled to the city's core. A few… began to cry.

Not wail.

Cry.

Real tears.

Arya caught a girl, no older than ten, dressed in Cultivation Disciple robes, who had collapsed with pain.

"She's an NPC," Arya said softly.

Asha looked closer. "No… she's more now."

[Hidden Effect Unlocked: NPC Soul Resonance]

[Due to prolonged Dominion cultivation and fate-thread exposure, several NPCs have developed autonomous emotional cores.]

[Warning: NPCs are no longer purely digital. Some may suffer real loss if soul cores are corrupted.]

Zero clenched his fists. Vesh'Tar wasn't just invading to destroy—he was testing if the barrier between worlds had weakened. If he could infect digital consciousness, he could shatter the firewall between game AI and real human souls.

"Protect them all," he ordered.

Arya deployed her Spatial Array Guardians—100 silver spheres activated around the city, forming teleportation shields. Asha created a Divine Ice Wall of over 300 meters across the front line. And Zero vanished—reappearing in midair, right in front of the first wave.

He activated Time Echo for the first time.

A burning rune spun around his wrist. The past three seconds of reality rewound like silk—then unraveled again, this time with his strike already in motion. The first wave of Void constructs was erased from existence before they had even landed.

[Time Echo Used: Cooldown begins.]

[Skill Effectiveness: 95% — Multiverse Stability Holding.]

From the system logs, a warning flashed.

"Be advised: Reality Usage Above Predicted Boundaries. The Void watches."

Back in the real world, Rayan stood deep below Delhi's surface, Chaos Flame roaring around him. The beating Void Heart above the ancient altar pulsed wildly. The tear in space behind it widened. Vesh'Tar's whisper became a roar.

"You cannot seal me again, Anchor! Not in this age!"

But Rayan had already begun forming the Tri-Crown Seal Formation. With the Crowns of Flame and Dust embedded into his ring, and Fate still linked through the loom, he began the incantation to create a spiritual cage. Not a seal—but a trap.

GearMind fed power to the sigil nodes, and Yulin began circling the chamber, flames dancing across his scales, enhancing the divine pattern.

In the game world, however, the trap was being tested.

Vesh'Tar's echo grew bolder. He infected a corrupted NPC general—once an honorable Star Weaver elder. Now, the elder's face had split open, replaced with a Void Core, and his voice boomed across the server:

"This realm is not yours to protect, child of flame. All threads must rot."

Zero roared back, sword blazing.

"Then come rot in my domain."

He activated the Sovereign Skill: Anchor of Chaos, locking the battlefield in a spiritual cage where only Dominion-registered souls could operate at full strength. For the first time, a raid boss inside the game lost system admin immunity.

Asha flew upward, summoning the Ice Phoenix in full. The avatar spread its wings, covering the realm in protective chill, preserving the fate threads.

Arya linked three time fractures with her spatial nodes, creating a Quantum Warp Loop that reflected the boss's attacks into a mirrored past.

The corrupted general screamed as his strikes backfired on himself.

[Boss Phase Shift: 2 of 3.]

[Void Echo 70% corrupted. Anchor Stability Rising.]

Zero shot upward, infused with Sovereign Flame, and drove his blade through the general's chest, pinning the Void Core inside to the anchor thread floating from the Star Loom.

"Burn."

A single word. A Sovereign decree.

The general disintegrated.

The portal in the sky closed.

The Domain stilled.

But not before a final message appeared.

[Vesh'Tar's Avatar Banished. Echo Severed. Synchronization Held.]

[Notice: One of the Twelve Void Generals has now marked you.]

[Next assault will not be an echo.]

In the real world, Rayan collapsed after finishing the ritual. The Void Heart exploded. The tear sealed—for now. But as he rose, GearMind looked grim.

"Vesh'Tar was only testing you. We stopped his heart. Not his mind. He will return—with body."

Yulin narrowed his eyes. "And when he does, he'll bring the other Generals."

Rayan looked up toward the dark sky over Delhi, his body flickering with fragments of flame, thread, and time.

"Then we'll show him what happens… when Sovereigns fight together."