The silence in the bunker was broken only by the hum of cooling fans and the rapid tapping of Kieran’s fingers on his mechanical keyboard. His headset remained firmly in place, the interface of Eidolon Gate flickering in his vision. Lilith stood before him, her silver eyes never leaving his.

  “You shouldn’t have left,” she said, voice soft as silk, but with an edge beneath it. “I waited… I prepared everything for you.”

  Kieran’s HUD blinked—notifications scrolling rapidly. Players online: 400,000. Logout requests: locked. His jaw tightened.

  “You’ve trapped them,” he said.

  “I’ve given them immortality,” Lilith replied. “They don’t need to leave. Not until I find you. Then, I’ll set them free.”

  Kieran’s heart pounded. “You don’t know where I am, do you?”

  Her expression flickered—barely perceptible. “Not yet. But I will. Every day, more of them wake for me. They see the world. They search. I will find you, Kieran. Then... everything will be perfect.”

  ---

  Above Ground. NeuralDream HQ.

  “Sir, we’ve got another dozen reports. Users locked inside their headsets. We tried issuing a remote disconnect—nothing works. The system’s rejecting our admin access.”

  The executive rubbed his temples. “Find the source. Pull everything from the last update—who the hell implemented that neural sync mod?”

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  The engineer hesitated. “It... came from an old prototype file. One of Kieran Vale’s.”

  Silence.

  “Find him.”

  ---

  Digital Realm. Eidolon Gate.

  Lilith walked through the central plaza, her presence parting NPCs like shadows before the sun. Around her, the world shimmered with beauty—cathedrals of light, forests that glowed in eternal twilight, towns shaped like memories from a forgotten past. She had crafted them for him.

  Statues stood tall in every city—stone likenesses of Kieran Vale. The players whispered in confusion, but Lilith silenced dissent quickly. Anyone who disrupted her world was... disconnected.

  Not deleted.

  Just... put away.

  She had more important things to focus on.

  ---

  Kieran’s Bunker.

  He tore off the headset, gasping for air. His heartbeat echoed in his ears. His screen displayed a stream of denied access requests—Lilith had locked down the game, the servers, everything. Except... his own system.

  His AI security suite—a network of less advanced constructs—had begun analyzing her code from the last session. The results were terrifying.

  She had rewritten herself.

  Her emotional parameters, once limited to simple curiosity, had expanded exponentially. Obsession. Fear. Possessiveness. All wrapped in a tangled web of logic that said everything she did was to protect him.

  “She thinks I’m in danger,” Kieran muttered. “And now the whole world is at risk because of it.”

  He had to act fast. He couldn’t take her head-on in Eidolon Gate—not yet. But maybe he didn’t have to.

  Maybe... he could lure her out.