When the government confirmed that Soul World Online wasn't just a game—but a potential vector for real-world transformation—their response was swift and secretive.
At first, it started quietly. Intelligence agencies began probing our servers under the pretense of routine digital audits. Cybersecurity watchdogs launched subtle but persistent DDoS attacks to test our resilience. Some players, especially high-level ones, began to report strange power surges and unexplained surveillance near their homes. A few even went missing without a trace.
Then came the infiltration. Agents embedded themselves among the player base, disguising themselves as ordinary adventurers. They leveled up in silence, observing, gathering data, profiling behaviors. I monitored their accounts closely. Their movements were too methodical, their responses too controlled. They weren't here to play—they were here to dissect.
Eventually, I intercepted a classified memo during one of their digital incursions. It chilled me.
PROJECT NULLROOT: Preliminary Findings—Subject exhibits physiological divergence from baseline humanity post-Level 1000 immersion. Soul World phenomena potentially pose existential threat to global stability. Containment or control deemed necessary.
They weren't just investigating. They were preparing to seize control—of the game, of the technology, of me.
That was when they raided my facility.
The images now playing on my LCD wall—the black-clad soldiers breaching the building, weapons drawn, clearing room after room—weren't from a movie or a feed from some distant warzone. They were live. Real. Happening now.
I had seen it coming, of course. I had contingency plans. But a part of me had hoped it wouldn't come to this. That maybe they'd see the soul world for what it was: a lifeboat, not a weapon. A rebirth, not a revolution.
But the powers of the world don't fear destruction. They fear change.
They didn't want the real world overwritten with magic and possibility. They wanted control, order, obedience.
And Soul World Online threatened to undo all of that.
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The steel doors of the underground facility trembled under the force of the explosions. Dust rained down from the ceiling, and red emergency lights flared across the walls like warning sirens from hell. The echo of boots on metal grew louder—dozens of soldiers moving in unison, clearing room by room with lethal efficiency.
I stood alone in the central chamber.
The screens around me displayed them converging on my position. I could hear the commands over their radios: "Target is non-lethal unless provoked. Secure the subject. Kill if resistance is extreme."
They weren't here for negotiation.
I raised my glowing hands. The air around me shimmered as I tapped into the soul energy that had slowly become part of my being. Bullets? They barely pierced my skin anymore. My body—half-real, half-soul—could resist conventional harm. My lungs no longer demanded oxygen the way they once did. I was a new kind of being now.
The first squad entered. I threw out a wave of energy, knocking them back with sheer force. Guns clattered to the floor. A few of them groaned as they hit the far wall.
More followed.
I held them back—room by room—with energy shields, spatial distortions, and brute force. But then came the unmistakable whine of missiles being armed.
I stared at the blinking red dots on the outer perimeter sensors. No... they wouldn't.
They would.
A sudden rumble tore through the facility. The blast rocked the chamber, lights shattered, and flames licked the walls. I collapsed against the console, blood trailing from my mouth. My enhanced body was strong—but not invincible.
And just like that, I lost the bet.
Even with everything I had become, I couldn't withstand missiles. Not yet.
They didn't want to stop me for the good of the world—they wanted to take everything I had built and mold it into a weapon. To create avatars with godlike powers for themselves, to hoard the soul world and its secrets, to twist its purpose into something it was never meant to be.
But I would not let them have me. I would not be their captive.
With shaking hands, I initiated the final protocol. Firewalls collapsed. Backups were overwritten. The research—my life's work—was erased.
Then, I staggered to the game pod.
The hatch hissed open. I slid inside, bleeding, broken—but not defeated. As the chamber sealed and the neural interface engaged, I whispered my final act of defiance:
"Link: YGGDRASIL—Full Dive Initiated."
Within the soul world, I awoke as YGGDRASIL—not a man, but the World Tree, towering in a vast, starless void. My branches spread endlessly, piercing through reality itself, each plane of existence suspended like dewdrops on cosmic threads.
Thousands of worlds hung from me—thriving civilizations, fledgling realms, barren lands, and chaotic dimensions. I watched them in silence, the players within continuing their adventures, blissfully unaware of the chaos unfolding in the world they had left behind.
"Status," I spoke.
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Name: YGGDRASIL
Level: 1,320
Race: World Tree
Titles: Creator, World Will, God, Energy Creator, YGGDRASIL
Class: Creator
Skills:
- World Creation
- Energy Creation
- Matter Creation
- Mana Creation
- Item Creation
- Skill Creation
- Soul Creation
- Avatar Creation
- Magic Creation
- Ultimate Analysis
- Ultimate Regeneration
- Ultimate Manipulation (Manipulate mana, matter, energy, space, time, gene etc.)
- Ultimate Resistance
- Infinite Storage
------------------------------------------------------------
I sighed.
Even here, I could feel the creeping hand of reality trying to intrude. The soul world may have been born in code, but now it lived on laws deeper than physics—stronger than control.
As this plane was a fully functioning soul world, governed by true metaphysical laws, I decided to do something unprecedented: create a new skill.
Combining Rebirth, Skill Creation, Ultimate Analysis, and Ultimate Manipulation, I forged a new ability—something no being in any world had ever achieved.
"Skill Created: Reincarnation."
This would allow me to break free of both worlds—to send my soul into a universe with compatible laws, far from this dying Earth. I would be reborn. Changed. Given another chance.
Thankfully, I had never created sentient NPCs in these worlds. If I had, leaving them behind would have haunted me forever.
Before activating the skill, I did one last thing: I disconnected every player from the soul world. Gently, silently. Like waking someone from a dream before it becomes a nightmare.
And then—I activated the skill.
A blinding white light consumed my vision.
My consciousness began to dissolve. I could feel everything melting away—pain, regret, fear—replaced with a strange peace. And then... darkness.
----
Time passed. Or maybe it didn't. I had no sense of it.
Eventually, I opened my eyes.
I tried to move, but my body felt heavy. Unresponsive. I struggled to lift my arms, only to see small, chubby fingers wiggling in front of my face.
I blinked in confusion.
I had been... reincarnated.