The night, filled with thrilling twists and perilous adventure, had finally come to an end.

As Sonya's consciousness returned from the Virtual World, her soul within her body reawakened. She opened her eyes and looked around the small meditation room. A strange sense of familiarity washed over her. It felt as though it had been a lifetime since she last returned to the real world.

Of course, that was the refined way to put it. To be blunt, Sonya felt as if she had taken a long nap. When she woke, the sky appeared faintly blue, and she couldn't tell whether it was dawn or dusk. The world was shrouded in an ambiguous, dreamlike haze.

As she stepped out of the Meditation Tower, she was met by the light of three luminaries flickering through the drifting dust and the soft echo of pure, golden notes. In that moment, her Virtual World Syndrome finally faded.

Virtual World Syndrome was a condition that typically appeared only among Sacred Realm sorcerers. It occurred when a sorcerer spent more time in the Virtual World than in reality, causing their perception of the physical and the illusory to overlap. Over time, they would begin to confuse the two. In severe cases, they might even mistake real people for monsters to be hunted.

The cure was...