Chapter 118: The Soul-Tether
The red error boxes on Levi’s screen violently glitched, turning into green hexadecimal static.
A new, massive notification overwrote the errors.
[OVERRIDE ACCEPTED.]
[SOUL-TETHER ESTABLISHED.]
Levi gasped.
A massive, overwhelming surge of raw data physically flowed up his arm. It felt like getting hit by a defibrillator. His avatar violently hitched as the mathematical calculation of the tether took effect instantly.
He watched his health bar at the top left of his UI completely transform.
The math processed in real-time. Levi’s Base HP was 24,180. Isolde’s Anomaly HP, despite being at 1%, had a maximum capacity of 52,620.
24,180 plus 52,620 equaled 76,800.
Then, the Mythic ring’s passive bonus kicked in, adding a flat +25,000 HP to the pot.
The final number locked into place.
[Shared HP: 101,800 / 101,800]
His mana bar went through the exact same transition. His 4,160 Mana merged with the ring’s 5,000 bonus.
[Shared Mana: 9,160 / 9,160]
"Holy crap," Levi breathed out, staring at the six-digit health pool. He literally felt heavier. The physical weight of anchoring a God-fragment to his human character model grounded his avatar firmly to the black ice.
But the massive health pool wasn’t what saved her.
It was the second line of the item’s description. *All passive health regeneration is perfectly merged.*
Levi’s [Siphon Aura] was currently toggled on. More importantly, he had a massive buffer of overhealing from his 25% Lifesteal during the final moments of the boss fight. The game engine had stored that residual healing data.
The second the tether connected, that massive wave of healing flooded the shared pool.
Isolde’s avatar violently reacted.
The translucent, fading mist of her body snapped. The green hexadecimal static that had been eating her legs and torso instantly burned away like paper catching fire. The solid, untextured gray colors of her cloak flooded back into existence.
Her legs materialized, entirely obscuring the black ice beneath her. Her arms solidified. The jagged, glowing green cracks on her face rapidly stitched themselves back together, sealing up perfectly.
The server stopped trying to delete her. She was tagged to Levi now. To the game engine, she was just an extension of his character model.
Isolde’s eyes snapped open.
She let out a massive, desperate gasp for air. It didn’t sound like a glitched audio file. It sounded exactly like a human being coming up from underwater after nearly drowning. Her chest heaved violently as her virtual lungs rapidly expanded.
She collapsed forward, planting both of her newly solid hands against the black ice to catch herself.
"Isolde?" Levi asked, keeping his hand hovering near her shoulder.
She didn’t answer right away. She just stared at her own hands pressing against the floor. She slowly lifted her right hand and flexed her fingers. Physical collision had returned. She could feel the freezing temperature of the ice. She could feel the air moving across her face.
She looked at the dark, starlight ring sitting on her finger. A thin, glowing crimson tether of light physically connected her ring to the identical ring on Levi’s hand before fading out of visibility.
She looked up at Levi.
Her gray eyes weren’t blank anymore. They weren’t robotic, and they didn’t have green static filtering through the pupils. They were just wide, terrified, and incredibly expressive.
Digital tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. They didn’t float up into the air like glitches. They spilled over her cheeks and dripped down onto the ice, behaving exactly like real water.
"You did it," Isolde whispered. Her voice was completely clear. The broadcasting overlay was entirely gone.
"I told you I was going to fix it," Levi smiled, though he looked completely exhausted.
Isolde looked at his chest. She couldn’t see the Diamond necklace. She knew exactly what the mathematical requirements were for forging a Mythic item. She knew what he had given up.
"You sacrificed your mathematical perfection," Isolde cried softly, her voice shaking. "Your fifty percent damage reduction. Your endgame scaling. You gave it all up for a God-fragment."
"I was getting tired of the math anyway," Levi smirked, leaning back on his heels. He looked at the ring on his finger. "Besides, I found something better to invest in."
Isolde didn’t try to calculate an optimal response. She didn’t check her logic parameters.
She just threw herself forward.
She tackled Levi, wrapping both of her arms tightly around his neck. The impact actually knocked him backward onto the ice. She buried her face into the collar of his Obsidian Carapace armor, holding onto him like he was the only solid thing left in the entire universe.
Levi let out a surprised grunt, but he didn’t push her away. He wrapped his arms around her back, holding her tightly against the freezing air of the Midnight Spire.
They just sat there on the black ice for a long time. The dark, swirling clouds above the arena had completely cleared out after the boss died, leaving a stunning view of a massive, glowing galaxy of dead stars overhead.
Arc 1 was over. They had beaten the Midnight Continent. They had broken the game’s code, forged the first Mythic item, and secured a health pool large enough to tank a small nuke.
But as Levi looked out past the edge of the platform, staring at the pitch-black waters of the Sea of Screams far below, he knew the easy part was done. In a few months, the true Gods were going to descend. The Level 280 Celestial Sentinels didn’t care about a hundred thousand health.
"We’ve got a lot of work to do before the Sky Fortress," Levi said quietly, resting his chin against her shoulder.
"I will optimize our artillery protocols," Isolde murmured, her voice muffled against his armor. "We will be ready."
Levi smiled. Yeah. They would be.
—
The *Wraith’s Wake* hit the wooden pier of the Docks of the Damned with a heavy, echoing thud. The enchanted ghost-ship didn’t have a crew to tie it down, but the system automatically registered their arrival and anchored the vessel.
Levi stepped off the wooden ramp, his Gold-tier boots hitting the mainland dirt.
He took a deep breath. The air didn’t smell like the freezing, ozone-heavy void of the Midnight Continent anymore. It smelled like burning wood and sulfur.
Isolde stepped off the ship right behind him. She didn’t float or glide like a glitched entity anymore. Her boots actually touched the dirt, leaving faint footprints. Her untextured gray cloak moved naturally with the coastal breeze.
Levi looked down at his left hand. The Mythic-tier [Ring of the Abyssal Tether] was pulsing with a faint, warm crimson light. He could literally feel her heartbeat through the game engine. Their massive shared health pool of 101,800 HP hummed in the background of his UI, a solid, unbreakable anchor.
"You good?" Levi asked, glancing over his shoulder.
Isolde held up her own hand, looking at the matching ring on her finger. She clenched her fist, testing the physical collision of her avatar.
"My code is entirely stable," Isolde said. Her voice didn’t broadcast into his head with that weird robotic buzz anymore. She just spoke normally. "The tether is functioning at one hundred percent capacity. The server recognizes me as a permanent extension of your character model."
"Great," Levi smirked. "Now let’s go check on my money."
He didn’t want to walk. He swiped his hand through the air, opening his Domain management screen, and hit the fast-travel button for his territory in the Ashen Peaks.
A flash of white light consumed them both.
When Levi opened his eyes, he was standing in the main courtyard of the Harvester’s Exchange. His massive, restored keep looked exactly the way he left it. The stone walls were pristine, and the Level 31 NPC guards were standing at their posts.
But something was incredibly wrong.
It was completely silent.
A week ago, this courtyard was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with thousands of top-tier players. Crafters, guild leaders, and merchants had flocked to his domain to use his custom auction house and avoid the ridiculous 15% NPC tax in the main cities. It was supposed to be the bustling economic center of the server.
Now? It was a ghost town.
There wasn’t a single player in sight. The stalls were empty. The auction house terminal in the center of the courtyard was completely dark.
Levi frowned. He opened his Domain wallet ledger.
[Domain Vault Balance: 0 Gold Coins]
[Passive Income (Last 24 Hours): 0 Gold Coins]
"You have got to be kidding me," Levi groaned, aggressively swiping the menu away. "Zero? Not a single copper coin? I built the ultimate tax haven, and nobody is using it!"
Isolde walked past him, her gray eyes scanning the empty courtyard. She tilted her head slightly, accessing the server’s public databanks. The green hexadecimal static didn’t overtake her vision anymore; it just faintly glowed around her pupils.
"The player population in this region has decreased by ninety-nine point eight percent," Isolde reported smoothly.