Sector 8.
The Wasteland.
The harshest and most desolate region within the fortress of the Thousand Kingdom.
There were no cities there.
No cathedrals.
No libraries.
No farms.
Only red sand and black rocks stretched out endlessly.
The sky hung low.
The winds were savage.
The earth was parched, like the remains of a world burned long ago.
In the distance, a colossal dragon lay curled.
Seven heads.
Ten horns.
Seven crowns.
It was no mere dragon.
The Dragon of Ruin.
A legendary World-class Enemy that had once slaughtered a million players in Yggdrasil.
The dragon remained still, merely breathing.
Yet, its breath alone distorted the atmosphere.
The sands of the wasteland trembled.
The surfaces of the black rocks cracked minutely.
Space itself was warping bit by bit, as if unable to endure the creature's presence.
In the center of that wasteland stood a single being.
The Chief of Sector 8.
Skoteiel.
Behind him floated a strategic command magic tablet.
On the tablet, the predicted reactions of the various nations of this New World were displayed in a grid format.
The Slane Theocracy.
The Re-Estize Kingdom.
The Baharuth Empire.
The Roble Holy Kingdom.
The Argland Council State.
The Dragon Lord Factions.
The Six Demi-Human Nations of the Center.
The Eastern Nations.
The reactions of each power were broken down into numbers and colors.
Fear.
Vigilance.
Alliance.
Submission.
Backlash.
Division.
The world did not yet know of the Thousand Kingdom.
However, the Thousand Kingdom was already calculating the world.
It was at that moment.
A blue rift opened in the middle of the wasteland's sky.
There was no sound.
No explosion.
No magic circle.
Space simply folded quietly.
Like a thin sheet of paper crumpling inward, a single point in the world folded into a blue light.
And from that gap, a man descended.
He wore black and blue scholarly robes.
Glasses.
In his hand was a strange sword resembling a Chiljido—a seven-branched sword.
Around him, blue mana and afterimages of foresight overlapped.
He appeared to be a single human.
Yet, it looked as if dozens of shadows were descending alongside him.
The shadows were all in different poses.
One shadow was dead.
One shadow was laughing.
One shadow was fleeing.
One shadow was kneeling before Caesar.
And one shadow was already sitting in the strategist's seat of the Thousand Kingdom.
Afterimages of the future.
Traces of choices.
Residue of possibilities.
All of it flickered around the man.
Griel.
A former Yggdrasil operator.
The God of Foresight.
The one who designs the choices of life.
He had descended upon the wasteland of the Thousand Kingdom's Sector 8.
Skoteiel slowly turned his head.
The Dragon of Ruin, curled in the distance, also lifted its eyelids.
Seven pupils turned toward Griel simultaneously.
Griel's feet touched the red sand.
In that instant.
Dozens of future afterimages flickered around him before vanishing.
The Scripture units of the Slane Theocracy.
The armor of the Platinum Dragon Lord.
Gazef Stronoff.
Iel standing amidst blue mana.
And Caesar sitting upon the Throne of Heaven.
Griel slowly pushed up his glasses.
"Hmm."
That was all.
He had not said a word yet.
But a blue light was already spreading across the wasteland of Sector 8.
Griel walked forward slowly, his seven-branched sword resting on his shoulder.
One step.
Then another.
As if he were an invited guest rather than an intruder.
At that sight, Skoteiel's gaze turned cold.
He immediately drew a Relic-class sword.
The tip of the blade pointed at Griel's throat.
The wind of the red wasteland ruffled Skoteiel's beard.
"Who are you?"
His voice was firm.
However, his fingertips were trembling minutely.
"How did you manage to enter this place?"
It was a natural question.
The Thousand Kingdom was protected by dozens of layers of quantum encryption systems.
The structure was specifically designed to allow no intrusion before reaching Sector 8.
Spatial coordinates shifted constantly.
Causal coordinates were cloaked.
Mana patterns were rearranged every second.
No unauthorized being could enter.
To be precise.
The moment someone entered, their very existence should have been caught in the Thousand Kingdom's recognition network and dismantled.
But Griel stood there.
As if it were nothing.
He stood upon the red sand.
Skoteiel gritted his teeth.
From Sector 8 onward, there was actually no encryption.
Instead, there were simple physical barriers.
Thick iron gates.
Absolute walls.
A structure that had to be breached physically rather than bypassed technically.
That was the way of the Thousand Kingdom.
The oldest method of preventing incomprehensible intrusion.
Locking the door.
Building a wall.
Cutting off the path.
As if reading those thoughts, Griel smiled.
He adjusted his glasses slightly.
"I can't do anything about the areas beyond Sector 8 either," Griel said nonchalantly.
"It's not like I possess immense physical strength."
He looked at the tip of Skoteiel's sword.
He showed no fear whatsoever.
"But if I am an operator of Yggdrasil..."
A thin smile played on Griel's lips.
"Wouldn't I be able to enter up to Sector 8, even if I have to take a detour?"
A blue light flashed in his eyes.
"Quantization isn't a weapon only you possess."
Skoteiel's expression hardened.
Those words were not a mere provocation.
They were a declaration.
The fortress of the Thousand Kingdom is perfect.
But even in a perfect structure, there are gaps.
If there is no door, one climbs the wall.
If there is no wall, one changes the coordinates.
If there are no coordinates, one enters through possibility.
Griel was such a being.
He was not one to break down a door with force.
He was one who bypassed the very premise that a door existed.
Skoteiel raised his hand behind him.
The entire wasteland shook.
A massive shadow rose from beneath the red earth.
The sleeping Ruin had awakened.
Seven heads.
Ten horns.
Seven crowns.
The red dragon slowly raised its body.
Just its act of standing made the sky seem lower.
Space was compressed.
The atmosphere screamed.
The red sand swirled like a storm.
The Dragon of Ruin.
The legendary monster that had slaughtered a million users was fully awake.
Griel watched the spectacle.
And he laughed.
Softly at first.
Then loudly.
Finally, he clutched his stomach and began to howl with laughter.
"Ahahahaha!"
That laughter echoed across the red wasteland.
Skoteiel frowned.
Griel spoke without stopping his laughter.
"To think you'd pull out this broken World-class Enemy here!"
Amusement pooled in his eyes.
"Truly impressive. Truly impressive."
Griel rolled the seven-branched sword over his shoulder once.
"However..."
His voice dropped.
"I can avoid it."
Skoteiel's gaze sharpened.
"Use your full power to annihilate that intruder."
The order was given.
In that instant.
The seven heads of the Dragon of Ruin lifted toward the sky simultaneously.
Within each mouth, the flames of calamity condensed.
It was not a single flame.
Seven disasters.
Seven apocalypses.
Seven world-endings were converging on a single point.
Space boiled.
The atmosphere scorched.
The sands of the red wasteland began to melt like glass.
The black rocks glowed red-hot.
The values on the magic tablet went haywire.
Hit Probability.
99.999999%.
Evasion Probability.
0.000001%.
It was, for all intents and purposes, an unavoidable attack.
An attack that could not be dodged.
An attack that could not be blocked.
An attack that erased existence.
A red flash exploded.
The entire wasteland was swallowed by light.
In that moment.
Griel vanished.
No.
He hadn't vanished.
He had chosen a single future.
Hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Tens of thousands of annihilations.
Thousands of failures.
Hundreds of captures.
Dozens of fatal wounds.
And a single evasion.
0.000001%.
A branch nearly impossible to reach.
Griel seized it.
That possibility became reality.
The red dragon's attack tore through the opposite side of the wasteland without so much as grazing Griel's hem.
The earth split.
The sand evaporated.
The black rocks melted away.
A massive wound was carved into the earth, stretching to the very edge of the wasteland.
Yet Griel stood there.
Without a speck of dust on him.
He adjusted his glasses once more.
Skoteiel's hand trembled.
"...Impossible."
Griel laughed low.
"Even an impossible future can be chosen if it exists as a possibility."
He looked at Skoteiel.
"That is foresight."
It was at that exact moment.
The sky of Sector 8 split open.
This time, it was not a blue rift.
It was a black rift.
The sky itself parted to both sides as if opening a door for a king.
From within, an overwhelming divinity descended.
The winds of the red wasteland ceased.
The sand stopped moving.
All values on the magic tablet froze instantly.
Even the Dragon of Ruin lowered its breath.
The Celestial Emperor, Caesar.
He appeared.
Skoteiel immediately knelt.
He placed his Relic-class sword on the ground and bowed his head.
"My Lord."
The seven heads of the Dragon of Ruin lowered simultaneously as well.
The seven crowns drew close to the red sand.
Griel stopped laughing.
He looked up at Caesar.
Silence settled over the red wasteland.
Caesar looked down at Griel.
There was no anger in his gaze.
No curiosity either.
It was the look of someone confirming a variable they already knew existed.
Caesar spoke.
"You are a pawn of the Company."
Those words fell upon the wasteland.
"However, I am one who will transcend the Company and conquer Earth itself."
Silence.
Skoteiel remained kneeling, his head unraised.
The Dragon of Ruin did not move.
Only Griel remained standing.
Griel stared at Caesar for a moment.
Then he chuckled softly.
"Heh... hehe."
A blue light spread through his eyes.
"I have come to cooperate with you."
In that instant.
Foresight activated.
Countless branches unfolded before Griel's eyes.
A future where he opposed Caesar.
In that future, he was torn apart and died.
A future where he was captured by Skoteiel.
In that future, he was sealed away.
A future where he was annihilated by the Dragon of Ruin.
In that future, not even his name remained.
A future where he was expelled from the Thousand Kingdom.
In that future, he gained nothing.
A future where he approached Iel.
That future was indeterminate.
A future where he betrayed Caesar.
That future was closed in darkness.
And then, there was one future.
A future where he became a strategist for the Thousand Kingdom.
A future where he designed the world's choices by Caesar's side.
Moving nations.
Moving humans.
Moving fear.
Moving hope.
A future where he pre-arranged the choices that people believed they had made for themselves.
Griel seized one of those.
The future where Griel cooperates with Caesar.
That possibility was fixed.
Probability.
100%.
Caesar sensed that change.
He looked at Griel for a moment.
Griel's foresight sees the future.
Caesar's authority feels the flow of possibilities.
The gazes of the two beings collided in the air.
The one who chooses the future.
The one who intends to rule the future.
A brief silence passed between them.
Then Caesar spoke.
"You will have to prove yourself through your actions from now on."
Griel bowed his head.
It was not deep.
Nor was it shallow.
It was a gesture closer to a contract than submission.
"Of course."
Skoteiel still did not lower his guard.
The Dragon of Ruin did not take its eyes off Griel either.
However, since Caesar's word had been given.
The hostility in Sector 8 ceased.
The sword tip was lowered.
The dragon's breath was withdrawn.
The wind of the wasteland began to blow once more.
From that day on.
Griel became a strategist for the Thousand Kingdom.
Above the wasteland of Sector 8.
Ea's records were updated.
Griel.
Former Yggdrasil operator.
God of Foresight.
Possesses Future Sight.
Quantization bypass intrusion record confirmed.
Registered as a collaborator of the Thousand Kingdom.
Status.
Strategist.
Danger Level.
Extreme.
Utility Value.
Extreme.
Surveillance Necessity.
Extreme.
Final Judgment.
Conditional Acceptance.
A new sentence appeared on the last line of the record.
He is not the sword of the Thousand Kingdom.
He is not the shield of the Thousand Kingdom.
He is the eye of the Thousand Kingdom.
No.
More accurately.
He is the one who lays his hand upon the future that has yet to arrive.
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