The rain had stopped sometime in the early afternoon, leaving the streets outside Gale Lambert's home glittering with scattered puddles that caught the pale glow of the setting sun.
He barely noticed.
His attention had been fixed for hours on the small package tracker displayed on his phone screen, refreshing it every few minutes as though his impatience might force the delivery truck to move faster.
Out for delivery.
Those three words had been there since morning.
Now, finally—finally—the faint chime of the doorbell echoed through his quiet house.
Gale's heart lurched.
He almost tripped over his own feet as he sprinted down the polished staircase, socks sliding dangerously across the hardwood floor. His pulse thundered in his ears.
He knew what was waiting on the other side of that door.
The door swung open, and there it was: a simple cardboard box, no larger than a shoebox, resting innocently on the doormat.
No delivery man in sight.
Just the package, as if it had appeared out of thin air.
But Gale didn't care.
He crouched down, scooped the box into his arms, and shut the door with his heel.
A grin stretched across his face, wide and unrestrained, the kind of grin he hadn't worn since he was a little boy waiting for his parents to surprise him with a birthday present.
"Finally," he muttered, the word half laugh, half breathless whisper.
He carried the box upstairs like it was fragile glass, though every fiber of him wanted to tear it open right there in the hallway.
The moment he reached his room, he set it gently on the bed, grabbed the nearest pair of scissors, and sliced through the tape with shaking hands.
The lid opened, and his gaze fell on the sleek, obsidian-black helmet nestled inside.
Mythras: Ascension.
The letters were etched across the visor in faint silver, glowing ever so slightly, as if alive.
Beneath the helmet, carefully packaged, lay the game chip—no larger than a coin, pulsing with soft blue light.
Gale's grin widened.
"This is it."
It didn't feel real.
For months, the world had been buzzing about the mysterious release of this game.
No one knew who had made it, where it came from, or how it had appeared so suddenly.
One day, the billboards in every major city lit up with its trailer: endless landscapes more vivid than reality, colossal monsters shaking mountains with their roars, players soaring across the skies with wings of light.
The tagline had burned itself into Gale's memory:
Mythras: Ascension. The next world awaits.
It had set the entire globe on fire.
Schools, offices, even governments were talking about it.
The biggest guilds from other VR games had already announced their plans to conquer this one.
People joked that if you didn't play, you might as well give up on having a future.
And now, Gale had it.
Right here, in his hands.
He carefully lifted the helmet from the box, setting it on the pillow like a crown.
The faint glow of its visor reflected in his brown eyes, and for a moment he just stood there, staring at it in disbelief.
His gaze drifted around his room.
It wasn't anything extraordinary—a queen-sized bed with sheets a little too neat for someone his age, a large desk cluttered with game boxes and controllers, a monitor setup humming quietly in standby.
The house itself was spacious, well-kept.
Not poor, not rich—somewhere comfortably in between.
His father's inheritance had ensured he never wanted for anything, even after the accident that had taken both his parents nearly a decade ago.
The memory still tugged at him sometimes, like a faint scar beneath the skin.
But those thoughts were fleeting now, dulled by years and soothed by Isabella's presence in his life.
She had been there when the grief threatened to swallow him, had been the anchor that pulled him back into the light.
Thanks to her, those shadows no longer haunted him the way they once had.
He shook his head, focusing again on the glowing helmet.
Games were his world now.
His escape. His passion. His one true constant.
He glanced at the digital clock on his desk. 19:40.
The official launch was set for 20:00 sharp.
Twenty minutes left.
The air felt charged with electricity.
Heart racing, Gale slotted the small chip into the side of the helmet.
A soft chime echoed, followed by a pulse of blue light across the visor.
He couldn't sit still.
He paced the room, then forced himself to lie down on the bed, helmet cradled in his hands.
His breath came shallow with anticipation as he lowered it onto his head.
The inner padding molded snugly against his temples, and his vision went dark as the visor powered on.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Just him, the darkness, and the faint digital hum of a system booting up.
Then, a translucent countdown timer appeared before his eyes.
00:19:09
Nineteen minutes.
Gale's lips quirked into a grin again.
He let out a shaky laugh, rolling onto his back and staring up at the glowing numbers.
He felt like a kid again, waiting for fireworks on New Year's Eve. Except this time, the fireworks would be a whole new world opening before him.
He couldn't help but whisper into the silence, "This is it. The game of the century."
As the numbers ticked down, he thought about everything that had led to this moment.
The countless games he had played, the late nights spent grinding, the forums he scrolled through until his eyes burned, the way people looked at VR gamers now—not as nerds hiding in basements, but as pioneers of a new frontier.
Status, wealth, influence—it all lived inside those digital worlds.
And he was ready to carve his place among them.
The timer dwindled. 00:00:10.
His chest tightened, every second a hammer pounding against his ribs.
00:00:03.00:00:02.00:00:01.
The screen went white.
A warm, gentle voice filled his ears:
"Welcome to Mythras: Ascension."
The darkness around him shattered like glass, replaced by a vast, starlit void.
Endless stars shimmered above and below, stretching into infinity.
In front of him, a translucent interface appeared, glowing softly.
[Character Creation]
A thrill shot through him.
'Clam down, clam down.'
He reached forward instinctively, and the menu responded to his touch, pulsing beneath his fingers.
[Enter Character Name.]
He didn't hesitate.
The same name he had used for every game, every login, every late-night raid. His digital identity, one he had long ago claimed as his own.
Azrail.
The letters glowed on the screen, sharp and unmistakable.
Next came Race and appearance—hair, eyes, body build.
Gale adjusted them with idle care, but didn't stray far from his real self.
Human, black, eye-length hair. Brown eyes. Athletic, but not exaggerated. He wanted Azrail to feel like him, not some stranger.
As he confirmed the details, another notification blinked across the interface.
[Congratulations, Player Azrail. You have been selected along with 99 other players to receive a Rare beginner Key.]
He froze.
"What…?"
The glowing message hung in the air for a moment, then faded before he could react.
A Rare Key? Before even stepping foot in the game? He had read every rumor, every leak, every speculation thread online—none of them had mentioned something like this.
Confusion twisted in his gut, mingled with excitement. Rare meant valuable. Rare meant important.
The screen pulsed again.
[Character creation complete. Transferring to Beginner Village…]
Light exploded around him, swallowing him whole.
And just like that, Gale Lambert's journey into the world of Mythras: Ascension began.