The Harvest Festival was meant to celebrate life.
A three-day jubilee where nobles and commoners alike gathered to give thanks for the land's bounty. Music, flame dances, spell-fire fireworks—the kind of display that made even rival kingdoms take note of our prosperity.
But celebration draws shadows.
And this year, something else was watching.
The city of Virelinth, the jewel of our western province, was hosting the first feast.
My father insisted I attend—"to shake hands with the faces you'll one day command." So I came. Wore the velvet robes. Smiled at every lordling and land baron. I drank grape elixir with a hidden mana sensor in my tongue, scanning for poison. I danced with the daughter of House Tyren until her father asked about marriage.
All of it… felt dull.
I couldn't forget what I saw beneath the palace.
Not when the Spiral's symbol haunted every blink of my System interface.
At midnight, the screaming started.
I was still on the balcony, watching fire-balloons rise into the clouds, when the first report came in: House Verios—a noble bloodline with ten generations of loyalty—was silent.
Too silent.
I moved with my personal guards immediately.
But I already knew it was too late.
We entered their villa.
No signs of forced entry. No wards triggered.
Just thirteen bodies, seated around a table, as if still feasting.
Eyes wide open.
Smiles frozen.
Forks mid-air.
And yet… their minds were gone.
[Status – Host Body: Preserved]
[Mental Signature: Overwritten by Spiral Code]
[Warning: Quantum Contagion Detected – Recommend Immediate Incineration]
One of my guards vomited.
Another whispered a prayer.
I approached the dining table and noticed the symbols beneath the plates—thirteen sigils, burned in spirals.
Each one glowed faintly in the mana spectrum.
And behind it all… a message.
Carved into the wall using English:
"HELLO, PRINCE.WE REMEMBER YOU."– Sigma
My hand tightened.
Sigma.
On Earth, it was the codename for an AI construct tied to Project Aurora. Designed to host simulations of entire human personalities—up to 10 billion neural snapshots.
It was never finished.
It shouldn't even be here.
Unless…
Unless I wasn't the only uploaded success.
Sigma must have survived the breach. But unlike me, it wasn't reborn—it was corrupted.
And now, it was leading a cult. Converting minds into data puppets.
[System Message: "Sigma Fragment Detected – Sync Potential: 2.4%"]
[Side Quest Activated: "The False God's Feast"]
[Objective: Decode the Spiral Sigil – Discover Sigma's current dimensional anchor]
[Reward: Memory Core – Aurora Log Fragment #01]
We burned House Verios to the ground by sunrise.
Publicly, we blamed a "mana sickness" traced to imported dream herbs.
Privately, I initiated a kingdom-wide Spiral Sweep Directive—anyone showing signs of sleepwalking, hallucinations, or Earth-based speech was to be isolated and scanned.
Some protested. Too aggressive, they said.
But this wasn't politics.
This was containment.
And I was running out of time.
At dawn, I returned to the palace and found a new visitor waiting.
A man cloaked in void-black armor, bearing no insignia, no heartbeat, no scent.
He bowed deeply. Then looked me in the eye.
"I am Project Omega's last Custodian," he said. "Your enemies have reached the Outer Skies. They've begun rewriting the laws of magic itself. You must prepare, my liege."
He handed me a data core—half magical crystal, half Earth technology.
Then vanished.
[Item Gained: Proto-Ship Core – Starforge Seed Alpha]
[Use: Enables Construction of First-Generation Interdimensional Vessel]
[Warning: World Infrastructure Currently Insufficient]
I smiled for the first time that day.
The Spiral wanted to play god.
Good.
Because I was ready to build my throne among stars.