The twelve ironclad guards of the House of Vermis were still trapped in the zero-friction zone, sliding, colliding, and cursing in a chaotic tangle of limbs and steel armor. To them, the physical laws of gravity and inertia had completely broken down. They were totally helpless, unable to even stand, let alone defend themselves.
Leo walked to the edge of the frictionless boundary, tapping his fingers against the air as his developer console flickered with cascading green data.
"Now then," Leo said, his voice flat and analytical. "Let's talk about resource management. In software development, leaving unused, inactive assets running in memory is a massive waste of processing power. It causes memory leaks."
"And these guards are the leaks?" Aria asked, stepping up beside him, her violet eyes coolly tracking the flailing soldiers.
"Exactly," Leo nodded. "Normally, we'd have to fight them one by one, chip down their 850 hit points, and waste a ton of mana. But since they're all grouped together in a single coordinate cluster, we can run a batch script. We call this **Garbage Collection**."
He opened a new command window in the Sandbox console.
```
[System Utility: Garbage_Collector.sh]
-> Target Group: Entity_Class.NPC [Status: Trapped/Glitched]
-> Location: Vector3 Radius (15.0m)
-> Action: Memory_Flush (Forced Knockout / Deplete HP to 1)
```
"Wait," Leo murmured, pausing before executing. "Let's not delete them outright. If twelve guards die all at once alongside Julian, the sheer volume of missing heartbeats might trigger a physical system-wide investigation from the main house, loopback or not. Let's just force a local crash."
He modified the script parameters.
```
-> Modified Action: Force_Crash (Apply State: 'Catatonic Sleep' / Set HP to 10)
-> Save Local State: True
-> Execute? [Y/N]
```
"Goodnight, boys," Leo muttered, and tapped **[Y]**.
*Bzzzt—*
A faint, static hum rippled through the clearing. The twelve flailing guards suddenly froze mid-motion. The panic faded from their eyes, replaced by a dull, vacant glaze. One by one, their heavy, armored bodies collapsed onto the frictionless snow, slipping into a deep, system-forced comatose state.
```
[System Event: Batch Process Executed Successfully]
-> 12 Entities transitioned to state: 'CRASHED_SLEEP'
-> Experience Gained: 2,400 (Shared: 1,200 each)
[Congratulations! You have reached Level 10.]
```
Leo felt another surge of vitality course through his veins as his level ticked up to the double digits.
```
==================================
STATUS SHEET (LOCAL)
==================================
Name: Leo Vermis
Level: 10 (Class: None)
Health: 45 / 120
Mana: 45,210 / 0 [CRITICAL OVERFLOW]
Unused Stat Points: 10
==================================
```
"Unbelievable," Aria whispered, walking onto the zero-friction snow—carefully mimicking Leo's pathing to avoid slipping. She looked down at the unconscious guards, who were snoring softly despite the freezing blizzard. "You defeated an entire elite squad without drawing a single drop of blood."
"It's all about choosing the right tool for the job," Leo said. He walked over to Julian's slumped, lifeless body and knelt down. "Now, let's see what kind of premium loot our beloved heir was carrying."
He reached into Julian's smoking armor and pulled out a sleek, silver ring carved with intricate wind runes.
```
[Loot Detected: High-Grade Spatial Ring (Wind Attribute)]
-> Storage Capacity: 100 Cubic Meters
-> Security: Soul-Bound Encryption (Julian Vermis)
```
"A spatial ring," Aria's eyes lit up. "But it is soul-bound. Only those of Julian's bloodline—or a master curse-breaker—can bypass the seal to access the pocket dimension inside."
"Lucky for us, I *am* of his bloodline," Leo smirked, slipping the ring onto his own finger. "And even if I wasn't..."
He opened his Sandbox console, dragged the spatial ring's item ID into his decryption compiler, and executed a quick script.
```
[Analyzing Encryption Key...]
-> Checking Bloodline Registry... MATCH (Vermis Lineage)
-> Overriding Soul-Bound Lock... SUCCESS
[Spatial Ring Unlocked]
```
With a soft *click*, the silver runes on the ring glowed blue before settling into a warm, inviting white light. Leo closed his eyes, his consciousness dipping into the spatial pocket. Inside, he found a treasure trove of noble resources: hundreds of high-grade gold coins, several glowing elemental beast cores, top-tier recovery potions, and a strange, tightly sealed black iron scroll box.
"We hit the jackpot," Leo said, pulling his hand back. "We've got gold, cores, and supplies to last us months."
"Then we must leave immediately," Aria said, looking back toward the western horizon, where the distant lights of the Vermis Estate flickered through the mountain passes. "The simulated heartbeat loopback will buy us time, but once Julian fails to report back by dawn, they will send trackers."
"Agreed," Leo said, standing up. He looked out into the vast, lawless expanse of the Whispering Woods. For the first time in his two lives, he wasn't a prisoner, a servant, or a disposable asset. He was the controller.
"Let's get out of bounds," Leo smiled. "It's time to see what else we can hack."