Chapter 676: Game Start
BOOM!
A sound like thunder on a clear day erupted across the heavens. Following the terrifying roar, a violent drag of white cloud-mist slammed directly out of the sky.
With a heavy, echoing crash, Tokyo trembled as if it had been struck by yet another severe earthquake.
This terrifying commotion was not only registered by [The Mad King] and the cluster of Reincarnators entrenched within the Ginza district, but it also sent a violent wave of panic through the hidden civilian populace, who assumed some horrific new anomaly had breached the city.
"Look up! What is that?!"
Down on the streets, the surface world of Tokyo had already been completely claimed by the "Players." Thanks to the sudden manifestation of [The Game], this youth collective could accumulate experience points simply by defeating other human targets, scaling their levels once their pools cleared the threshold.
Upon leveling up, they could unlock entirely fresh capabilities—ranging from baseline elemental spells like fireballs, wind blades, and earth spikes, to specialized buff magic that reinforced their physical frames and allowed them to outrun speeding automobiles.
Certain players had even discovered that by successfully liquidating "rare" targets—such as high-ranking state officials or rival ability users—[The Game] would hardcode unique titles and extra capabilities onto their profiles.
To their perspective, this environment had seamlessly morphed into a paradise engineered exclusively for them!
The teenagers, already thoroughly agitated by the initial metahuman awakenings, completely caved to absolute madness under the continuous steering of [The Game].
Furthermore, it appeared that [The Game] naturally enforced a strict age restriction; any adult organism exceeding a specific chronological limit was completely, flawlessly barred from ever establishing a line of contact with the network.
This was explicitly a hunting ground designed for a natural "bottom-up overthrow."
Among the self-identified players, a few attempted to scan the upper atmosphere to parse the origin of that earth-shaking strike. In the very next fraction of a second, their eyes verified a silhouette standing rigidly independent directly before that colossal, sky-spanning Sword of Damocles.
[Alert: A Unique World BOSS Has Appeared!]
[Unique World BOSS: Mercenary Tao (Challenge Level: 100)]
[Defeating Mercenary Tao will drop a unique Class-Change Artifact and a standalone Unique Title Capability.]
Three distinct system notifications instantly completed their compilation before the eyes of every active participant in [The Game]. The crowd rigidly froze for a frame, and in the next heartbeat, a deafening, reality-defying wave of frantic cheering violently exploded through the streets.
"It's a World BOSS!"
"Where is Mercenary Tao?!"
"Liquidate Mercenary Tao!"
"We claim the world-first clear!"
"There must be a hidden class drop! He holds a hidden class!"
A horde of youths shrieked in absolute euphoria, an increasing multitude of players shifting their target coordinates to lock onto the high heavens. Fireballs, wind blades, and ice spears—an infinite array of unique capabilities and multi-colored light frequencies launched into the sky like a chaotic firework display.
But within a few frames, the crowd discovered that their offensive ranges were layout-wise, completely incapable of covering that vertical distance. A vast percentage of the players scrambled to identify neighboring high-rises, rushing toward the rooftops in a desperate bid to bring the target into range.
Tokyo plummeted into a fresh layer of violent unrest.
Deep within a commercial floor in the Ginza district, the Mad King looked down through the shattered masonry to monitor the frantic mobilization of his players, a bright, deeply satisfied smile anchoring his features.
His sub-subjects, guided exclusively by a single mandate issuing from his throne, were actively moving to challenge an unimaginably formidable enemy.
Existing under the system archetype of a King, an organism would always hold a specific methodology to steer its subjects. The tyrants and emperors of the historical past relied entirely upon terror and unrefined exploitation to govern.
But he chose to rely exclusively on giving.
The Mad King cede his own "benevolence" a self-satisfied, highly arrogant smile.
This display caused [Show], who stood adjacent to the throne clad in heavy silver armor, to knit his brow in deep frustration. Solar Flare was similarly delivering a silent stream of internal curses, fully concluding that this freak was an absolute, unhinged lunatic.
To systematically re-engineer the youth populace of Tokyo—and by extension, the entire Japanese archipelago—into a mirror image of his own madness meant this nation's chronological future had been permanently snuffed off the board.
"Your Majesty, has an elite enemy breached our perimeter?"
"Should our blades initiate an immediate counter-offensive..."
Show proactively offered his services—a rare occurrence for his character file. His baseline psychology simply lacked the capacity to sit idly by and watch a swarm of ignorant, short-sighted teenagers throw their bones against a genuinely terrifying, high-tier Reincarnator.
The memetic strain of [The Game] was undeniably horrific, commanding the priority to grant unique capabilities that scaled in absolute density as the volume of civilian targets joining the Mad King's clan expanded.
The Mad King's Kingly Authority grew layout-wise, monumentally more powerful with every frame; yet conversely, the fractional drop of authority distributed down to the individual clan members experienced virtually zero visible growth.
Against low-tier, Paper-grade Reincarnators, this youth swarm could comfortably execute a suppression campaign—but when pinned against a genuine Tier-2 powerhouse, these fragile, mortal-fleshed players occupied an exceptionally hazardous position.
And furthermore, at this precise juncture of the timeline, any asset daring enough to march directly into this sector to challenge the Mad King was mathematically, flawlessly disqualified from sitting beneath the Tier-1 threshold.
In actual structural reality, the monster descending onto their grid was highly, statistically likely a Tier-1 apex predator.
The Mad King lazily shook his head, casting a brief, frowning glance to evaluate the silver knight. He failed to parse exactly why this interloper was so heavily favored by the external intelligence networks.
To his perspective, Show was layout-wise, thoroughly foolish, completely lacking the capacity to read the grander intent behind his actions.
He had zero strategic interest in having these children actually dismantle Mercenary Tao. His singular, clinical objective was to observe whether his subjects, when pinned head-on against an absolute, completely unbeatable enemy, would still maintain the raw courage to launch an offensive simply because his benevolence had gifted them a blade!
That was the absolute definition of true loyalty to his crown.
Shoo~
The exact microsecond a sharp sonic boom punched through the local atmosphere, Solar Flare and Show's tracking arrays registered the displacement. Solar Flare instantly executed a rapid retreat, while Show cleanly stepped before the Mad King's throne, extending a lone palm to fortify the sector.
Bang!
Amidst the violent shattering of the glass curtain wall, a mangled, incomplete biological husk violently slammed down directly before Show's boots.
The immense kinetic shockwave of the impact collided head-on against the active shroud of Show's internal aura, causing the remaining upper torso of that heavily tattooed youth to instantaneously and unrefinedly explode into a slurry of red mush.
A dense cloud of blood mist sprayed across all coordinates, leaving the Mad King's face thoroughly painted a deep, unblemished crimson.
Kaito Shirogane kept both of his palms shoved deep within his coat pockets, standing directly at the absolute perimeter of a massive, web-shaped concrete crater, his body maintaining the precise skeletal alignment of a low-altitude drop kick.
Directly before his boots, the remaining lower legs of that tattooed youth finally caved, collapsing heavily onto the dirt.
Kaito completely and flawlessly ignored the dense swarm of several thousand players tightly blockading his coordinates. His Mind Web had already achieved full-scale deployment, systematically stripping away every wisp of concealment to leave every single enemy on the grid perfectly exposed to his diagnostics.
Kaito Shirogane took a deliberate, unrefined stride to march straight toward the sector where several dozen independent Reincarnator signatures had centralized.
Gulp~
The crisp, simultaneous sound of thousands of civilians swallowing their saliva echoed across the block.
The bone-crushing, suffocating pressure radiating from the World BOSS, Mercenary Tao, cede their nervous systems an immediate, un-buffered shock.
A moment ago, the target had manually dropped out of the stratosphere, completely solving the tactical dilemma of their inability to bring their skills into range.
Yet monitoring the landing impact, and watching him smoothly step out from the center of that apocalyptic crater completely devoid of a single scratch, a massive percentage of the player collective registered an icy wave of pure existential dread.
Ultimately, the exact frame a tattooed vanguard rushed forward to drive a high-tier ice spear straight against the BOSS Mercenary Tao's chest plating—yielding absolutely zero structural feedback before the youth was manually kicked into a half-shredded corpse—the local panic officially triggered a total, runaway explosion.
[Alert: BOSS Mercenary Tao's challenge metric occupies an excessive threshold. System initializing a temporary wide-area Faction Buff.]
The system prompt completed its automated compilation once more. A vast multitude of players distinctly verified that their individual level parameters had been artificially scaled upward by four to five full tiers. Fresh skill points completed their allocation, and they immediately committed the data to reinforce their existing capabilities or unlock high-tier spells.
This artificial calibration successfully purchased their motor nerves a fresh wisp of courage to resume the boss fight.
A select cluster of players began to loudly chant high-frequency incantations, while others rapidly executed a tactical retreat to maximize their casting distance, condensing raw mana into high-tier magic matrices.
Those whose hearts had been thoroughly clogged with primitive terror forced their features into a grim, unyielding mask of resolve, drawing strength from the collective compliance of their peers.
Kaito's audio sensors could even track an individual attempting to organize a coordinated tactical loop down the line:
"All units commanding reinforcement capabilities centralize your coordinates! Focus all buff arrays to fortify our frontline vanguard warriors! Mages execute a full rearward displacement! Every asset commanding crowd-control sub-routines prioritize continuous skill deployment..."
The corners of Kaito's mouth split into a subtle grin. While his intellect categorized this entire collective as completely ignorant and entirely devoid of basic survival logic, his clinical focus processed the "bizarre creativity" of the mastermind steering this system as exceptionally amusing.
That Mad King was, when analyzed through a specific framework, layout-wise somewhat close to his own archetype.
The single structural discrepancy separating their profiles was that... the freak... was pathetically, layout-wise, weaker than himself.
Kaito Shirogane completely and flawlessly manual-overrode the presence of the entire player swarm, his vacant, glowing eyes cutting straight through the distance to lock onto that high-rise in the Ginza district.
Across the airspace, that entity whose face had been completely painted in fresh blood similarly unhinged his jaw to let out a wide, monstrous smile.
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