Sage's eyes shot open, wide enough that it felt like his eyelids might tear. For a heartbeat, panic surged through him, his body instinctively tried to jerk upright, as if movement alone could undo the horrifying words he had just heard. But the moment his muscles obeyed, reality crashed down hard.

A sharp, brutal pain lanced through his chest and spine like a red-hot spike, tearing a groan from deep within him. Cold sweat erupted all at once, soaking his back and the tattered remnants of his clothes, while his vision flashed white at the edges.

Yet oddly enough, he wasn't focused on the pain. Pain was familiar. Pain could be endured. What the system had just said was something entirely different.

"R-Repeat that," he stammered inwardly, his voice hoarse even in his own mind, as if fear had dried out his throat from within. "Say it again. Tell me I misheard you. Tell me I'm still half-dead and hallucinating."

The system remained silent for what felt like an eternity. Sage's heartbeat began to pound against his ribs in frantic bursts.

In that pause, chaotic thoughts spiraled through him, sharp fragments of memories stacking upon one another: Valeria's cold eyes; the Baron's looming shadow, noble seals adorned with iron-edged smiles,three dungeon portals gaping like open mouths, the doors of his Guild being kicked in, Boren's chubby hands trembling over a ledger; Mina screaming amidst blood on marble.

Finally, the system spoke again, its tone flat and unyielding as a judge delivering a verdict.

[Host. Because multiple core restrictions were overridden during emergency preservation procedures, the Guild Invincible Buff has been removed.]

Sage's pupils constricted. It took a moment for those words to sink in, not because he didn't understand them but because acceptance felt impossible.

It was akin to being told that the ground beneath your house had vanished or that the sun had been extinguished.

"No…" he whispered, barely moving his lips as fear coiled tightly around him in the stale air of his bedroom.

His body lay there, torn and stitched with agony, but mentally he stood at the edge of an abyss with no end in sight.

"No, no, no…"

He didn't know where this sudden strength came from or why his body chose to respond now. Shock did strange things to people. Somewhere between terror and disbelief, adrenaline surged through him and propelled him upright on the bed.

The world exploded into pain, a tidal wave rather than mere sting. His ribs felt as though they were being pried apart by invisible hands; veins throbbed like live wires; pressure built in his skull until it felt molten inside.

His stomach tightened painfully while waves of nausea threatened to drown him, a scream clawed at his throat but refused to escape because even sound seemed capable of shattering him further.

His ghostly pallor deepened, his skin draining until he resembled less a man and more a wax figure dragged into the harsh light of day.

Sweat erupted across his body, rolling down his temples and dripping from his jaw. He trembled not from cold but from the instinctive revolt of his body against the violence it had endured.

For a moment, his eyes rolled back; his teeth clenched so tightly that a cracking sound echoed through the room, a dry, animalistic noise that made his own ears ring.

He genuinely thought he might die right there, not at the hands of nobles or in dungeons, but simply from sitting up.

"Too reckless…" he croaked inwardly, tasting bitterness and iron with those words.

The system's sentence struck him so hard that he lost sight of his condition. In less than three minutes, sweat coated his skin as if he'd been pulled from a river.

His body betrayed him as he fell back onto the bed, breath coming in rough, ragged waves. His chest rose and fell violently, like a man drowning on dry land.

The pain was monstrous. Yet even as his nerves screamed in protest, a colder truth cut through it all: this pain was temporary, but what lay ahead… wasn't.

Sage shook his head in tiny, frantic movements as if trying to physically shake away the looming dread.

"No… no… no… no…"

The muttering spilled uncontrollably from him. It was raw, neither dignified nor clever.

This wasn't part of the plan; this was not good. He had faced fear before in this world, hunger, desperation, fury, staring down humiliation and the emptiness of having nothing to rely on.

But this fear hollowed him out. It twisted his stomach like a wrung cloth and sent his heart racing as if it might burst. Every future step felt like stepping onto a minefield.

His unfocused gaze darted around the ceiling he'd stared at countless nights while plotting an escape from poverty and irrelevance; those wooden boards above remained unchanged. The room remained unchanged.

Yet everything outside had shifted dramatically.

Sage swallowed hard; his throat felt parched. "System," he said inwardly, forcing himself to slow down enough to form coherent thoughts like a drowning man grasping for driftwood. "Can you… undo it?"

Silence answered him.

His heart hammered harder against his ribs. "It doesn't have to be permanent," he rushed out, panic edging into pleading. "Just....just bring it back temporarily! Even for just a few days or a week would be enough time to protect the Guild! Enough time for things to settle! After that, you can take it away again, I won't complain!"

[Impossible.]

The system interrupted with one word.

Sage's fingers twitched against the stained bedsheet.

[ The Invincible Buff was a high-resource function designed to stabilize early-stage Guild operations and protect the host during foundational expansion. Emergency teleportation required overriding restrictions and rerouting system resources, which caused backlash in the system core. As a result, resources have been reallocated to optimize remaining functions and maintain stability.]

Sage clenched his jaw, his mouth opening and closing as if he struggled to catch his breath.

"Then take something else," he snapped, desperation morphing into anger because anger felt better than helplessness.

"Take another function. Take the brewing facilities, take that stupid lounge, take the bar counter that hasn't made me a single copper coin yet. Take,...take anything! Why that? Why the one thing keeping me alive?"

[It does not work like that, Host.]

The system's tone remained calm, almost irritatingly so, as if it were discussing mundane accounting matters.

[The Guild Invincible Buff is integrated into the system's primary defense framework. It cannot be partially restored or substituted without destabilizing other essential modules. Continued operation requires it to remain removed.]

Sage stared at the ceiling, something dimming in his eyes. For a moment, his mind went eerily quiet, so quiet he could hear the faint breeze brushing against the window curtains. Outside, the Guild thrived; people laughed, moved about, argued, traded.

None of them knew. None of them realized that the only reason the Guild had been allowed to exist so boldly, why Sage had dared to attract attention, reshape a district, claim treasures even nobles fought wars over, was because he had stood behind an invisible wall no one could breach. And now… that wall was gone.

Sage's chest tightened as if a fist had wrapped around his heart. Panic flickered in his eyes again, sharper this time, and he had every right to feel it.

This wasn't just about him; it was about the Guild and the district. It was about three dungeons he had claimed before anyone else could even sense their mana distortion, a trio of future gold mines filled with mana crystals, ores, monster cores, herbs, the very things that accelerated a warrior's growth and funded families' rises.

Three treasures noble houses would go to war over, and now they belonged to a man who was nothing by noble standards: a skinny nobody with a Guild in what used to be a dumping ground.

Sage's lips twisted into a bitter smile that resembled more of a grimace. "I'm cooked," he whispered in horror. "Completely cooked."

If the Invincible Buff had been removed before he'd claimed those dungeons, he would have planned differently; he would have built layers first and created distance between himself and those cores. He would have ensured protection didn't rely on one invisible promise.

He would have delayed; he would have been cautious, but instead, he'd been intoxicated by security and reckless because he believed in an insurance policy no one could cancel

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