Adams Harding had spent the last forty-eight hours slouched in his battered leather gaming chair, his spine a knot of protest, eyes rimmed raw red under the glow of triple monitors. Half-crushed energy drink cans formed a shaky wall around a bowl of cold, uneaten instant noodles.
On-screen, the final boss of Devourer Gate IV — a monstrosity of pixel wings, glitching chants, and an unfair hitbox — exploded into a million shards of digital light.
A single line appeared:
> [100% COMPLETION ACHIEVED]
ALL SECRET ENDINGS CLEARED
Adams leaned back, letting out a wheeze that wanted to be a laugh. It sounded hollow, like static in his headset.
His Discord voice chat erupted:
"Black Knight! Legend! No way he did it!"
"Somebody clip it! This man's a machine!"
Somewhere, someone even banged a cowbell. It was 3AM, but his grimy little apartment buzzed with the echo of fans losing their minds.
Adams was used to it.
Beating the unbeatable was just… Tuesday.
But tonight, it felt different — and worse — because it didn't feel like anything at all.
He sat, staring at the frozen credits. The swirl of pixel art reflected the ghost of his own face, dark crescents under his eyes, stubble that hadn't felt a razor in a week. A king in a cardboard castle of empty snack wrappers and flickering screens.
His phone buzzed at the edge of his cluttered desk. Teejay.
Teejay: "Black Knight, you alive?"
Adams: "Alive enough."
Teejay: "Bro, that's like four games in one. Take a break. Touch grass."
Adams: "Sure. Tomorrow."
Teejay: "Stream's still going nuts. They're calling you the final boss now."
Adams snorted. The final boss. The last trophy. The unbeatable player who cleared the un-clearable.
He looked around at the dusty shelf lined with collector's editions and chipped medals. Hundreds. Some unopened. A graveyard of conquests.
Funny thing was, the rush never lasted. He'd outgrown battle royales, VR MMOs — even the new wave of co-op raids.
Same old code. Same old cracks.
No new final level worth bleeding for.
He cracked open another energy drink. Warm. Bitter. He forced it down anyway.
Teejay: "Saw a post. There's this new thing. Nobody's cleared it. No cheats, no leaks, no speedruns. Zero percent."
Adams blinked. Zero? That itch in his brain — the one that used to keep him up nights back when he was a nobody grinding leaderboards — flared awake.
Adams: "What is it?"
Teejay: "ChampionsXI."
Adams frowned. "Football? Seriously?" he muttered aloud. The word made him think of half-forgotten high school PE — sweaty jerseys, eleven dudes kicking a ball, him dozing off in the bleachers. He was the kid who'd sneak his handheld console under his hoodie at a World Cup party. The beautiful game? Snooze.
But… zero clears?
Teejay: "No dev logs. No cracked servers. You wanna beat something that no one can clear? There's your final boss."
Adams: "Where? Steam? Epic?"
Teejay: "LOL. Nah. Gotta talk to a plug."
Adams barked a laugh. He caught his reflection again — pale face, cracked smile, the shine of a hunger that never left.
"Alright, plug me in," he typed back.
---
The next evening, Adams found himself drifting through an old shopping complex that smelled like stale fries and moldy carpet. Most storefronts were shuttered, their neon signs hanging loose. But tucked away in a dark corner was a single flickering sign: RETRO PIXEL ARCADE.
Inside, the stale air hummed with the faint buzz of old CRTs. Cabinets for fighters and rail shooters lined the walls, half of them dark. A battered TV in the corner looped classic Champions League replays — slow-motion bicycle kicks, wild roars of crowds, names he half-recognized but never cared for.
At the back, behind a battered counter, a man leaned against a display case covered in pixel stickers. Too young and too old all at once — his face flickered like bad compression when the arcade lights caught him wrong.
"Black Knight, yeah?" The man didn't even look up from the controller in his hands. His voice came out flat, but layered with static like an old dial-up modem. "Heard you're looking for the next level."
Adams tried to laugh, but his throat felt dry. "ChampionsXI. Heard it's unbeatable."
"Not unbeatable," the man said. "Just unfinished. Or maybe unfinishable."
"Same thing." Adams shrugged. "What is it — a bootleg Football Manager?"
The man's chuckle crackled. "Not bootleg. Not a Manager either. More like a… world."
"A world."
"A test."
He reached below the counter and slid something across: a slim black disc case. No logo. Just a faint crest: eleven stars surrounding a flickering flame.
Adams picked it up — it felt heavy, unnaturally cold, like holding polished stone instead of cheap plastic.
"This doesn't run on your console," the man said, voice dropping. "It runs on you. Once you start, you don't un-start. You finish it — or it finishes you."
Adams forced a grin. "You practiced that line?"
The man didn't smile back. He just held out an old wrist scanner. Adams hesitated, then let him scan the barcode tattoo on his wrist — the last relic of his pro license. A soft beep, a green flash.
"Good luck, Black Knight." The man's eyes glitched for half a second. "Clear this one, if you can."
---
Outside, rain drizzled in thin curtains of neon glow. Adams stood under a flickering streetlight, staring at the cold disc. The eleven stars seemed to shimmer as if they drank in the city's glow, giving nothing back.
His pulse thudded in his ears. For a second, he felt stupidly alive — the itch was back.
"The final level," he whispered to himself. "Bet."
---
He didn't even take off his jacket when he got home. He slammed the door shut, dumped his bag on the tangled cords by his chair, and popped the disc into his old console.
A low, pulsing hum seeped from the machine. The scent of ozone and hot copper filled the room — wrong, alien, electric. His TV flickered.
A single line floated on the black screen:
> [ChampionsXI INITIALIZING: Confirm player profile…]
Adams slipped on his battered headset, cracked his knuckles, and smirked at his reflection in the dead screen. "Stop being dramatic, Black Knight. It's just a game."
He pressed X.
The silhouettes flickered — eleven shapes standing in formation, faces blurred, kits glitching. Stats blinked beside them — all unreadable: dashes, question marks, a mocking promise of the unknown.
No menus. No tutorial. Just one line:
> [Press any key to continue.]
Adams' finger hovered. Somewhere deep down, something old and cold whispered: Finish it, or it finishes you.
He pressed X.
The figures turned slightly if they could see him.
The screen pulsed white. His TV whined, the controller dead in his hand, cold as ice.
The room tilted. Reality glitched.
> [YOUR JOURNEY HAS BEGUN.]
The lights flickered once — a hush so thick he could hear his own heartbeat.
Adams Harding, pro gamer, final boss slayer, the Black Knight of leaderboards, felt the world vanish under him like a broken elevator.
A single mundane thought punched through the static: Did I feed the cat?