"The Unclaimed Wastes?"
Ray and Caden exchanged a hollow glance, the confusion in their eyes mirrored by every other player in the room. The term was foreign, a relic of a mechanic they hadn't yet grasped.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" someone whispered from the back.
"Use your head," another barked back. "The Wastes are the Novice Zones that got overrun during the Beast Surge. They're dead zones."
"Then why the hell would we want them? They're crawling with monsters!"
"Because there’s nothing left to hunt here! How are we supposed to level up after the Class Awakening if the Novice Zone is empty? We’re burning through Chrono just sitting here."
"Leveling on Rank 10 trash? You’d need a mountain of kills just to break even. At this stage, Time is measured in days, not minutes. It’s a death trap."
Calder let the murmurs rise and fall, his expression unreadable. He didn't bother with mystery. "The Novice Grace Period is expiring. Once it’s gone, the Novice Zones won't be isolated bubbles anymore. They’re going to be integrated into the map of the Eternal Dominion."
He leaned forward, his voice dropping an octave. "The Warding Seals are coming down. The borders are expanding."
The room erupted.
"The seals are breaking? I can go home?"
"My house is only two towns over! I’m getting the hell out of here!"
"I need to find my family... please, tell me they’re still alive."
Calder watched them with the cold detachment of a man watching ants scramble in a glass jar. "The Convergence isn’t a homecoming," he cut through the noise. "Azura isn't the world you remember. You won’t be going wherever you please."
He stood up, pacing the front of the room. "The seals aren't disappearing; they're widening. Novice Zone 911 will become a Safe Zone—a foothold. Beyond it lies the Eternal Dominion: a landscape of forgotten ruins, Veiled Sanctums, feral tribes, and things much worse than the beasts you’ve faced."
The hope in the room died a sudden, agonizing death.
"If you want to go home, there is only one path: progression. Not just your personal level, but the level of the Novice Zone itself. To merge with other zones, to reclaim the shattered pieces of Azura, this zone must grow. And that growth requires territory."
Calder’s eyes swept the room. "The Unclaimed Wastes are the first step. More land means more resources, more dungeons, more Sanctums. The game was rigged from the start to favor the expansionists. In the Eternal Dominion, if you aren't growing, you’re being erased. It’s a war of evolution, and the only rule is seize everything."
The silence that followed was heavy with despair.
"What's the point then?" someone grumbled. "I just wanted to see my mom."
Calder didn't waste breath on comfort. "To claim the Wastes, I need a majority vote from the players in this zone. I’m here for your voting rights."
That was the hook. The reason for the gathering.
"And why should we give them to you?"
A woman stood up, her arms crossed. Yvette. She had a sharp face and an even sharper tone. "Just because you're strong doesn't mean you get to dictate our future. This should be a collective decision. Who knows what kind of risks you're dragging us into? We’ve barely survived as it is."
A few nods followed her lead. Ray and Caden, however, looked like they had seen a ghost.
"Yvette, shut your mouth," Ray hissed, his face pale.
She scoffed, throwing a contemptuous look at Ray. "What's the matter? Frustrated because you couldn't cow us into being your lackeys, so you brought in a 'big brother' to do the dirty work? The world changed, Ray, but that doesn't mean women are going to roll over for you."
Ray’s head throbbed. He’d made the mistake of trying to "recruit" Yvette early on with some less-than-subtle intentions, and she’d turned it into a crusade, rallying her roommates against him. He’d gained nothing but a headache and a bad reputation.
He glanced at Calder, who remained motionless, then turned back to Yvette. "Listen to me, you idiot. You're a C-Tier. Don't push your luck. Just do what he says."
Yvette’s lip curled. "C-Tier? I cleared the Novice Trial in under ten hours. I finished my Class Awakening quest faster than anyone I know. I’m an Elementalist now. My stats already hit the B-Tier threshold. Maybe I'm not as far behind you as you think."
She hadn't seen the slaughter at the gates. To her, the stories of Calder were just that—stories. Exaggerations by men who had failed where she had succeeded.
She turned her gaze to Calder, greed flickering in her eyes. "You want our votes? Fine. But everything has a price. We want Chrono."
Ray buried his face in his hands.
"One vote, one Chrono," Yvette demanded, gaining confidence. "You want the Domain Authority for Zone 911? Surely the great Calder can afford the entry fee."
Calder’s voice was a flat line. "One Chrono per vote. Understood."
Ray blinked. He hadn't expected Calder to fold. Yvette’s smile widened, her contempt for the "legend" growing by the second. She decided to push further.
"Wait, I misspoke," she said, leaning back. "An F-Tier vote is worth one. E-Tier is two. As a C-Tier and the leader of the Valkyrie Vanguard, my vote is worth ten—"
CRACK.
The sound was like a thunderclap in the small room.
Before anyone could track the movement, Yvette was gone. A massive, jagged weight of biological mass—an Aberrant Shift—had erupted from Calder’s right arm, slamming into her chest with the force of a freight train.
She was pinned against the back wall, the concrete spider-webbing around her. Her ribcage was a shattered mess, her face distorted as blood leaked from every orifice. She wasn't dead, but she was no longer a person; she was a broken doll twitching in a crater.
Calder slowly retracted the heavy, fleshy morning star back into his forearm, the mass melting back into his skin.
"I forgot to mention," Calder said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "My Chrono is limited. I’d rather save it where I can."
He scanned the room, his eyes like shards of ice. "Anyone else want to talk about the price?"
Total, suffocating silence.
Ray cleared his throat, his voice trembling only slightly. "Calder... don't mind her. She was always a loudmouth. My guys and I? We’re with you. Whatever you need."
"Yeah," Caden added quickly. "We follow your lead."
The rest of the room followed suit, the fear of God finally instilled in them.
"Calder saved the zone during the Surge! We owe him!"
"I’m in. Total support!"
Calder didn't care if they were sincere or just terrified. "Good. When the Grace Period ends, you will all select 'Abstain' or 'Transfer.' Leave the rest to me."
He sat down on the edge of the instructor's desk and closed his eyes, signaling the end of the conversation. Nobody dared to leave. Nobody dared to help Yvette, who was still wheezing wetly from the wall. Even her "sisters" sat with their heads down, staring at their feet.
To kill the time, those with access opened the world forums. The digital space was a chaotic mess of grief and "missed connection" posts, but the top threads were dominated by the elites.
A player with an A-Tier Divine Gift had posted a clear time for the Novice Trial: 2 hours.
The room buzzed with low whispers. Ray and Caden felt a sting of inadequacy. Even with their knowledge, they’d taken five or six hours. The gap between B and A was a chasm.
But that record didn't stay on top for long.
2 Hours? Pathetic. 1 Hour Clear here. ##
50 Minutes. S-Tier Talent. Bow down. ##
SS-Tier: The Trial was a joke. 30 Minutes. ##
The numbers kept dropping. 25 minutes. 20 minutes.
"Twenty minutes?" someone gasped. "That’s twenty waves. They were clearing a wave a minute?"
"Must be an S-Tier or higher," another whispered. "There’s nobody like that in 911. We’re small fry."
Calder heard it all. He knew these names. In his past life, these "prodigies" had been the darlings of the early game. With his Blight talent, even with his future knowledge, he could only dream of a twenty-minute clear. His power was a slow burn—it required accumulation, infection, and time to bloom.
But clearing a trial quickly didn't make you a god. It just meant you were a fast sprinter. The Eternal Dominion was a marathon through a meat grinder. Half of those names on the leaderboard would be dead or broken within a month, their "invincible" talents countered by the brutal reality of the later tiers.
Genies, Calder thought, a cold smirk touching his lips. I wonder how many of you will survive long enough to see the first War.
A chime echoed in the minds of every player simultaneously.
[World Announcement 1: Novice Grace Period has ended. Time-flow normalized.]
[World Announcement 2: Azura Sector is now merging with the Eternal Dominion. Entering Open Beta: Tier 1. Players, choose your path.]
[Notice: The Convergence will take 12 hours. Please remain within a Safe Zone.]
The messages repeated, burned into their retinas. Panic, suppressed only by Calder’s presence, began to bubble up again.
"Twelve hours? My Chrono is at 0.4 days! I won't make it!"
"I spent mine on a Skill Book! I only have six hours left!"
"What are we supposed to do? We can't go out and hunt if the world is merging!"
The realization hit them like a physical blow. The game had just tightened the noose. If they didn't have enough "Time" to survive the transition, they would simply cease to exist before the new world even opened.
This was the filter. The weak, the reckless, and the poor were being culled before the starting gun even fired.
Calder opened his eyes. He tapped a finger against the desk, the sound cutting through the frantic whispers.
"If you're short on Chrono," he said, "I can lend you some."
The players looked at him, hope warring with suspicion. Had the monster found a heart?
"One condition," Calder added, his smile devoid of any warmth. "You pay back ten times what you take. Limited supply. First come, first served."