Ash knew he’d put it off long enough when his raid tab started blinking like a warning light.

  Seven unread messages.

  Then twelve.

  Then twenty-three.

  He hadn’t even opened chat since leaving the forgotten layers. He’d been moving carefully, deliberately, practicing descent like a balance exercise.

  Apparently, the rest of the game hadn’t been practicing patience.

  The dragon shifted on his shoulder. “You are being summoned.”

  “I can tell,” Ash said.

  He finally opened raid chat.

  [RAID] Ravenous: ASH

  [RAID] Ravenous: WHERE DID YOU GO

  [RAID] HealerDad: dude your frame keeps blinking

  [RAID] Dove: mine too??

  [RAID] Ravenous: your pet just popped as a BOSS ICON

  [RAID] Ravenous: YOU GOOD???

  Ash winced.

  “Yeah,” he said. “This was inevitable.”

  The dragon peered at the floating text. “They are anxious.”

  “They should be.”

  Ash typed.

  [RAID] Ash: sorry went exploring. coming back now.

  The response was instant.

  [RAID] Ravenous: DO NOT MOVE

  [RAID] Dove: too late he’s already doing something weird again

  [RAID] HealerDad: my ui just froze lmao

  Ash sighed and started toward the rendezvous point Ravenous had marked.

  The hum rose as he climbed back into higher-attention terrain. His HUD brightened. Ambient noise thickened.

  The world wanted him back.

  He didn’t.

  They met near a quest hub, one of those natural party gathering spots with repair vendors, mailbox NPCs, and a glowing dungeon portal humming softly at the center of the plaza.

  The moment Ash entered range, everything hiccupped.

  Player models jittered.

  Nameplates flickered.

  The dungeon portal dimmed like a light being unplugged.

  The dragon stretched its wings.

  Chaos.

  “WHAT IS THAT,” Ravenous said in voice.

  Ash hadn’t even realized they were in voice until the audio kicked in late, like the system was hesitant to route sound to him.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “It talks,” Dove said.

  “IT MOVED,” HealerDad said.

  “WHY IS IT TARGETABLE,” someone else said.

  Ash raised his hands instinctively like that would help.

  “Hey. Everyone relax.”

  The dragon leaned forward politely. “Hello.”

  Pandemonium.

  Someone screamed.

  Another player’s mic clipped hard.

  Ravenous’s voice cut through the noise. “ASH. YOU. EXPLAIN.”

  Ash rubbed his face. “Long story.”

  “Try medium.”

  “Still too long.”

  The dragon added helpfully, “I was once a gate of infinite escalation.”

  Silence.

  “What,” HealerDad said.

  Ravenous cleared his throat. “Okay. New rule. The lizard doesn’t talk anymore.”

  “I am not a lizard.”

  “New rule stands,” Ravenous said.

  Ash laughed despite himself.

  “Look,” Ash said. “I fell into something underground. It spat me back out with him.”

  “With the boss,” Dove said.

  “Former boss,” the dragon said.

  “That does not make it better,” Ravenous said.

  As if on cue, Ravenous’s threat meter exploded.

  The dragon’s name, or rather its broken placeholder string, shot to the top.

  BOSS_Prototype_03 — 999999 Threat

  The meter glitched out entirely and disappeared.

  “Guys,” Dove said, “my UI just turned pink.”

  HealerDad groaned. “My heals won’t target Ash anymore.”

  Ash tried to step closer.

  Every time he did, someone’s buff dropped.

  A tank stance deactivated.

  A cooldown reset randomly.

  “STOP MOVING,” Ravenous said.

  Ash froze.

  The dungeon portal behind them flickered violently.

  A system chime rang out.

  [SYSTEM NOTICE]

  Party coherence unstable.

  Unsupported entity detected.

  The dragon perked up. “Ah.”

  “AH WHAT,” Ravenous said.

  “Ah is never good,” Ash said.

  Another message appeared.

  [SYSTEM NOTICE]

  Entity exceeds permitted complexity.

  Then another.

  [SYSTEM NOTICE]

  Instance access restricted.

  The dungeon portal dimmed completely.

  No glow.

  No interaction prompt.

  Dead.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dove said.

  Ravenous stared at the portal like it had betrayed him personally.

  “ASH.”

  “I didn’t do anything this time.”

  The dragon tilted its head. “Your association with me disrupts instanced content.”

  “You think?” Ash said.

  Players nearby were starting to stare.

  Whispers popped in local chat.

  [LOCAL] why is there a dragon boss in town

  [LOCAL] is that a dev event???

  [LOCAL] bro that portal just died

  [LOCAL] someone clip this

  Ash felt the awareness spike, that familiar pressure.

  The system was paying attention.

  Ravenous lowered his voice. “Okay. This is bigger than weird. This is like dev-flag weird.”

  “Great,” Ash said.

  “Are you exploiting?” Dove said.

  “No,” Ash said. “I swear.”

  The dragon added, “Not intentionally.”

  “That’s worse,” HealerDad said.

  Ash opened his party UI.

  The seventh slot, the dragon, still flickered violently, its frame clipping into others, overlapping health bars.

  WARNING: PARTY LIMIT EXCEEDED — 7/6

  WARNING: SUPPORT NOT AVAILABLE

  “I think the game doesn’t want you with us,” Ravenous said.

  Ash felt that land harder than expected.

  “Because of the dragon,” Ash said.

  “And whatever else you triggered,” Ravenous said.

  Another system chime.

  This one sharper.

  [SYSTEM NOTICE]

  Anomalous grouping behavior detected.

  Corrective measures pending.

  The dragon stiffened.

  “That is new,” it said.

  “Pending sounds bad,” Ash said.

  “Very bad.”

  Ash looked around at his party, his friends, his normalcy, the life he’d had before the Hollow.

  “Okay,” he said. “We need to split.”

  “What?” Dove said.

  “For now,” Ash said. “Before the system does it for us.”

  Ravenous hesitated.

  “You sure?”

  “No. But I’m pretty sure something nasty is about to happen.”

  As if summoned by the word nasty, the party UI shuddered violently.

  Names scrambled.

  Health bars duplicated.

  Then, one by one, players were forcibly removed.

  Not kicked.

  Displaced.

  Each vanished in a soft flash of light like emergency teleports.

  Within seconds, Ash stood alone.

  The dungeon portal re-lit instantly.

  Ambient noise normalized.

  The plaza breathed again.

  The system was satisfied.

  Ash stared at the empty space where his party had been.

  “Well,” he said.

  The dragon folded its wings slowly. “That was the correction.”

  Ash swallowed.

  “So it’s not just watching me anymore.”

  “No,” the dragon said softly. “It is shaping your interactions.”

  Ash felt the awareness settle closer than ever.

  Not heavy.

  Intentional.

  The world was no longer reacting.

  It was adapting.

  Whatever path Ash was walking now, it was one clearly the game did not want him sharing.